Housekeeping notes

     The first time I sent a letter by fax, I made a photocopy first, to retain for my files.
     So join me at that moment, in the late 1980s, as I stood in the newsroom of the paper, and fed my to-be-faxed letter into the roller of the modest little beige device. Then watched it slowly slide out the bottom and into a tray.
     Oh. Yes. Right. The letter remains. It doesn't actually squirt through the wires.
     Which I knew, at some level. Yet still made the copy, my thinking being "You send something, you no longer have it."
     I recount this dusty tale of technology confusion to help you better understand the guy struggling to send out a morning email so you can link to this blog. I first got the idea for emails from Chicago Public Square newsman Charlie Meyerson, who generously, along with Eric Zorn, beat the bushes and got me hundreds of new subscribers. It seems a very common way to get and hold readers, and the rare days I didn't send the email, readership plunged.
     I'd send it using my personal dailysteinberg@gmail.com account.
     Only Saturday, the email wouldn't send. Nor on Sunday, when Google also suspended my account. I guess blasting emails to hundreds of readers is no longer smiled upon in the Google world. Which means not only couldn't I send or receive email, but everygoddamnday.com, which is linked to my account, was gone.
     Luckily I realized this only after I got it all back, but it did make me understand that the blog, which I thought I might donate to the Newberry so it could live on as a kind of rump immortality, was more likely to just vanish without a trace one of these days, perhaps gobbled by an AI worm.
     I did grab a few posts that I'd miss terribly if they vanished and tucked them safely in my Samsung T7 Shield (a portable hard drive, for those less savvy than myself).
     If you're curious as to the very first post I saved, it was "Those Winter Tuesdays" from 2015. I just love having that little moment from my ordinary life as a father, and would have for it to vanish, as all things will.
     Anyway, to the matter at hand. I am going to send out content on Substack, instead of a letter linking to the content, to save you a click, which seems to be important to some. And to be clear, this little rumination IS the content for today. It will also be on my blog, for those who go straight there. I think I'm going to investigate — in a few weeks, give myself time to adjust — having Mailchimp send my emails. That costs something like $60 a month, but should be worth it, particularly since — I hope — some of you are going to pay for it, after I activate whatever Give Me Money button will facilitate that. I did notice that, the moment I signed onto Substack, readers started pledging money. Which I appreciate, even if I haven't yet attempted to figure out how to collect it. Money, as you know, not being a big motivator for me.
     I don't like doing this; don't like change at all. I'm only comfortable with the writing part, and sometimes not even that. Though in this case it was forced upon me, and I'm trying, as always, to — as REO Speedwagon sang — roll with the changes, best I can.