I’ve blogged for almost 20 years now. Documenting my families ups and downs and chatting with smart people about the events of the day is part of the fabric of my life. I’ve blogged all through various family crises, while juggling various jobs. But now, I’ve hit a snag.
I’m considered running for our town’s Board of Education. Another local parent and I are holding meetings with residents to decide if this is the right move for us.
At the same time, I am currently assessing whether I can continue writing about politics, schools, and life on my newsletters, blogs, and in mainstream publications, while maintaining an elected position in my community. I am going to have to redraw some lines, and while I figure out how to do that, I better keep a little quiet.
Love you guys a lot, but I have to take a two-week hiatus. Be well.
Apt. 11d 
Good luck.
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You probably can’t do both. Will miss this.
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Always support the choice that is right for you —
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I think you’re taking on one of the most important and most fraught local offices there is–in some school districts, you’d get protestors at your door. I hope you decide to go for it–you would be an excellent choice.
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School Board is so important!
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I hope for the best outcome for you! But I will definitely miss your voice if you decide you can’t do both. Stay strong!
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I think any longtime readers of your blog knows very well that you would be an absolutely outstanding member of the board of education for your town. So as someone who likes to encourage people to try to make a difference and improve their communities, I hope you run, win, and have great success in office.
As someone who has read your blog for almost half my life, I will miss it if you stop posting for that, or for any other reason.
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Chiming in here to say that your voice will be missed enormously, if you decide to pull back and go the public service route.
Admittedly, coming from a very different political environment; but some of the frustrations I’ve had expressed to me, by people who’ve been elected onto boards are: the inability to change things (the reason they stood in the first place); and the requirement to publicly defend policies and decisions which they both disagree with and think are stupid.
Of course, your local situation may be very, very different from ours.
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Thanks, all!
I’m still on the fence about this whole public office thing. I have to completely rearrange my life. No more journalism, but opinion writing and a book draft are okay. I quit substitute teaching in my district yesterday. I will probably have to lose the blog, because we’re just too freewheeling here, but I might keep the weekly newsletter. If I do, I’ll set something up for better reader participation.
The weekly newsletter will have better oversight from Jonah and Steve, but will be mostly the same. I’ll keep posting daily pictures on Instagram. I can’t imagine that anybody in the community will give me a hard time about pictures of bathroom renovations or lasagna.
I seriously adore the community that has joined me over the years on this blog, but I fear getting cancelled and causing problems within my community for a random comment about the royal family or something.
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I thought you might find this blog, by a school committee member in Amherst, MA, interesting as an example of communication for a comp:
https://jenniferamherst.org/
It’s a tough balance being a public person in a small community.
The internet is a weird place. I just found a web site dedicated to “long sight lines” — that is, taking pictures of a point B very far away from a point A (usually from one mountain to another). The longest distance (a record) in such photo is 443 km, a view from Pic de Finestrelles (in Spain) to Pic Gaspard (in France). I love the photo and the concept. But the comment section? filled with flat earthers who argue that 443 km can’t possibly be the longest distance photographed, because the earth is flat and so you should be able to see 2200 km!
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Well, the internet connects people. It’d be interesting to see if it increases the number of flat earthers, or if it just gives them gathering points. The belief has a long history: https://guides.loc.gov/flat-earth/articles.
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Turtles, BJ! It’s turtles all the way down!
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I applaud your intention to run for office, while I selfishly hope you don’t.
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