The Monster in Your Closet

On Thursday, I posed the following question for my blogger friends on Facebook:

I received some amazing links in response, but I haven’t had a chance to read all of them yet. This is in part due to time constraints, and in larger part due to attention span constraints. The instant I type that “f” leading me to Facebook, my attention span allotment is quartered. Then it’s quartered again, with the bulk of it taking a nap until I navigate away from Facebook.

Because I asked the question Thursday, I was thinking in terms of “favorites” on Friday evening when I set to recording podcasts. Which would I record: my top hitters? My favorites? If “favorites,” how on earth would I choose such a thing? Was it really the one I’d hastily pasted in comment to my own post on Thursday?

Although I posted three podcasts in yesterday’s entry, I actually recorded five entries on Friday. Reading them aloud allowed me to see with startling clarity that I do have a favorite. It is not, in fact, the one I’d provided the day before.

It’s something else. But rather than waxing prolific, as I’m wont to do, I want to pose you a question, and answer as I’m asking you to.

In comment, I’d love for you to share your own favorite entry for me and other TMiYC readers. Please do so using this format:

• Blog name & link
• Description of your blog in three words or fewer
• Tell us where else you can be found on the web–Twitter, Facebook, etc. (as desired)
• Give the title of your favorite blog entry & the link to it
• In one sentence (of fewer than 100 words!), explain why it’s your favorite entry

Moments to embrace. Photo by Maggie Shikiya

I have mad love for you guys. I get giddy when I see you sharing mad love for each other. I’ve got my fingers crossed that you’ll answer this question here, where conversation moves a little slower than on Facebook, and illuminate for me–through your choice–a little more about you.

• The Monster in Your Closet
• Sentimental, silly, searching
• Twitter (@deb_bryan). Facebook (“yourclosetmonster”)
• “An abridged history of my hate”: text & podcast
• This post is me encapsulated: my hard and hateful history slowly, with loving consideration, become a smaller and smaller part of my overall history to where love is far and away the greater part of me

I started TMiYC as a writing blog, only to find I had little patience for writing such a thing. TMiYC thus became a writer’s blog.

I started TMiYC’s Facebook page as a place to post links to new blog entries. I did that for several weeks before From the Bungalow “pimped” me on his page one Wednesday, introducing me to a bunch of people who’d never have found TMiYC otherwise—and vice versa!

In both cases, I started with one purpose only to abandon that purpose to something more important: the joy of connecting with others at a level beyond that afforded by casual conversation.

Some of the sweetest connections have been with other bloggers. One such blogger read something I’d written as an 18-year-old and wrote words so sweet I barely knew how to reply:

I thought on those words for a little while. When I’d finally regained my ability to manipulate words, I replied with a new status:

“The Dash Between” recently wrote a letter to her daughter that’s a good read for everyone who’s struggling to make peace with themselves, personally and as parents: A letter to my Daughter: I know what it’s like…

Mynewfavoriteday even more recently described the struggles and triumphs of making each day her new favorite day despite childhood abuse: The Penn State Trigger: Vulnerability and Validation.

She also interviewed another woman who inspires me, I Want A Dumpster Baby. While the interviewer and interviewee are two very different women, each inspires me in her own way: One of “Mynewfavoriteweek’ly Inspirations” is “Dumpster Diving,” Find out why.

Sapphire and Rain and I have followed each other for months; in fact, Jess once made me my very own blogging award. I was covered in goosebumps by the time I’d read her recent tale about how imperfections can sometimes lead us to life’s most beautiful moments: Past, present and imperfection.

This picture and her email review of TMD also didn’t suck!

The Lucky Mom has touched me with many a beautiful comment, but also left me smiling with her thoughts on how she’s trying to be a little more like her dog: Chasing squirrels — or How I Learned Persistence from my Dog.

EvolutionaryMom, in a post fitting the theme of this one, reflected a couple of weeks ago on how thankful she is her life hasn’t turned out anything like she expected:  I am not at all who I intended to be.

Every day recently, I’ve found myself thankful that From the Bungalow nudged me to create a Facebook page for TMiYC. I might have found my way to doing so eventually, but there’s no telling if I’d have been in the right place at the right time to meet each of the ladies above.

As I wrote in “Mother, Child, Mother,” “But for failure of my plans–. . .–there is so much I would have missed.”

I intended one thing when I sat out to build an online presence.

Instead, I find not that I have built something so much as that I have become part of something so much more fulfilling: a community whose members see that in building up the parts, both the parts and the whole are made infinitely stronger.

–

(c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved.
Duplication in whole or substantial portion is explicitly forbidden.

Hi, allnewz.it!

Gosh, you’re cute. And Italian! Such a sexy language.

But, you know what? That doesn’t mean you have a right to take entire entries from this blog and repost them to your site with a tiny, unlinked text reference to “The Monster in Your Closet” at the bottom of each entry you’ve copied without permission.

No, sir. Or is it ma’am? It’s hard to tell without a mustache or a bowtie. I hope you’re not offended.

Here’s the skinny, sa’am. Mir? Naw, let’s go with “sa’am.”

I spend a great deal of time creating and editing this content for my own site. That’s what this language means:

(c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved.

I understand Italian is probably your native language, so I’ll make this simple:

My content:
No permission from me?
Don’t take it.
Don’t post it.

Capisce?

I still think you’re sweet. That is one steamy layout you’ve got going on. (Hubba hubba!) But even if you’re a 348 of hotness on a scale of 1 to 10, my content is still mine.

If you want to borrow it, try asking! And when you ask, would you mind returning my pants? I seem to have left them on your floor.

(c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved. (c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved.

(c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved.
Duplication in whole or substantial portion is explicitly forbidden.

On Thursday, my post “A title to end all titles. Like, obliterate them” was Freshly Pressed. I’d already done the wildly ecstatic response to being Freshly Pressed in May, so my response this time was much more subdued–or, in other words, not worth writing an entry about.

Come now, little one! Nothin' to fear here!

What is worth writing an entry about is my delight to see your comments and subscriptions. I’m grateful you stopped by, shared your thoughts on titles and then stuck around to read even more. I’ve written about some tough things, so it thrills me to see certain entries dusted off and revisited. Thank you for that.

I’m really looking forward to visiting your blogs and replying to your comments. This will be a very slow process (see: toddler dancing around to Signing Time in my living room while I sneak a few moments for this post), but the slowness of my reply means I’m doing something worth savoring.

One of the titles mentioned in my old post was “Depression, imma kick you in the junk.” That title got the most responses in comment, so I wanted to set the record straight on it. It actually preceded its post. I was trying to work my way through a now-rare depressed spell, wondering how the heck I’d do it, when I remembered a ridiculous music video I’d made in similar circumstances while living in Japan: “Kick You in the Junk.” Remembering that ridiculous video made me laugh and think–you guessed it!–it was time to kick depression in the junk.

Depression, in my experience, has been a thing best kicked with both determination and as much humor as is possible. Neither the post’s title nor its sentiment are intended to minimize the hardness of depression, which I know firsthand. I’m sensitive to the difficulties of mental illness but am finding my own healing through expressing things in my words, on my terms. I’m so grateful to TMiYC’s readers for supporting me through this journey. Y’all rock.

So while I may not be donning a blonde wig or whooping while running crazy circles around my apartment, I’m glad to see you here! I look forward to seeing more of you here and on your own blogs.

In short, welcome! I’m not gonna kick you in the junk, but I may just shower you with gratitude.

(c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved.
Duplication in whole or substantial portion is explicitly forbidden.

Writing entries is by and large a breeze for me. The words tend to flow readily, as if they’ve been scrabbling at the gate that is my fingertips and waiting to be set free.

Clicking “Publish” is another matter. By contrast to the writing, that seemingly small step can take me days to complete.

Somewhere between these two tasks on the effort-required spectrum is titling my posts. It wasn’t always something I thought about. At the beginning, oh so many months ago*, I’d slap on the first accurate title that sprang to mind. Happily, these mostly didn’t result in titles like “Today is Thursday” or “Rocks are Pretty.” There were occasional titles like “The beat goes on,” but nothing so bad I feel an urge to retitle it now.**

Unlike Li'l D, I don't really enjoy looking at rocks

As I got more into Twitter early this year, I started enjoying the challenges of condensing complex matters into 140 characters. As 1992 winner of my middle school newspaper’s “Most Prolific Writer” award, an award I’m convinced I would’ve won annually if I’d remained eternally stuck in middle school, I accept the fact that brevity isn’t my strong suit. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try!

Merely boiling sentiments down to 140 characters isn’t enough. The feat is in doing so while continuing to sound livelier than the pretty rock I mentioned above. This is my ongoing challenge, which extended naturally enough to my blog’s titles. These, too, are a fun puzzle to solve. Sometimes I do so in a way that shows brevity still isn’t my strong suit (Road rage takes a spill! (or: “How parenting is making me a better driver”)); Six hands for lifting: on my mom, mental illness, fear & hope). For others, the subject itself has seemed the most compelling expression and “shorter” has clearly meant “better” (“Racial profiling“; “Suicide“).

Over the course of seven months and the 164 posts preceding this one, I’ve come up with some titles that show I’m progressing in my efforts to lose words*** but retain essence.  My favorites:

• Be creepier, “Grenade.” Wait, don’t.
• Aliens Doing Headstands
• It probably shouldn’t take a rabbi . . .
• Dow gobba gesk to you, too!
• Mourning Has Broken
• An abridged history of my hate
• Dead Moms Can’t Care
• Depression, imma kick you in the junk
• My Runaway Train Over the Rainbow

Do entry titles impact your choice of posts to read? How do you title your entries? Do you have any favorite titles from your own blog entries–and, if so, which?  Do tell!

* 6, roughly equal the number of views per entry I had back then

** Trust me, if you go back and fact-check this for yourself, you’ll see there’s absolutely no truth-stretching involved here! None whatsoever.

*** Part of me still insists writing is about the love of words. Like, lots of them.

(c) 2011 Deborah Bryan. All rights reserved.
Duplication in whole or substantial portion is explicitly forbidden.

If you saw me at work, you might find yourself at a loss for words. Sure, I strive to be upbeat and easy to approach even at the office, but there are times in contract negotiation and administration that I’ve got to hide these traits in places where the sun daren’t shine.

Aspects of my professional life bleed into my personal life. For example, I’ve taken to heart the adage that one must hope for the best but expect the worst. This kind of thinking makes it easier to respond to trying turns of event. If you’ve anticipated something bad might happen, it’s much easier to address when it actually does!

Outside the office, this kind of thinking makes for the kind of self-dialogue reflected below:

What if all the “for this i am thankful” entries end up being reflections on the cuteness of bunnies and puppies? I mean, those things are pretty sweet, but there’s a limit to how much people want to read about ‘em when they could go out and pet a bunny themselves!

I didn’t actually expect a dozen essays on fluffy bunnies, but preparing myself for the possibility made it all the more exciting when I got the first one and went, “Hot damn! Not a bunny in sight!”

I’ve received another eleven entries since then. If there’s been any reference to bunnies, it’s been so fleeting only Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s bunny-fearing Anya would have caught it.

Instead, subjects have ranged from appreciation for one’s body to a clock with its own colorful history to the merit of so-called “tiger parents.” One entry’s apt title “Life is Like an Empty Box of Chocolates (Because I Ate Them All)” alone makes me laugh; another entry celebrates a life lived many years after another’s failed attempt to end it.

The entries I’ve received so far are written in very different ways and cover a remarkable range of subjects. Despite these variances, there are at least a few commonalities between them. The first is the thread of gratitude binding them. The second is that each has been written with such care and beauty I’m filled with awe as I read.

A reminder you guys obviously do not need!

My professional training might inform me to expect and prepare for the worse, but I can’t say I’m exactly surprised by this. There’s a reason we’re all bloggers!

What surprised me was seeing a common, unexpected theme in some of the emails. This theme is best summed up by the word “safety.” The authors of a few of these stunning entries suggested they might never have dared share these things if they didn’t feel so safe doing so here.

I am so honored by these words. I spent many years of my life feeling unsafe, so I’m overwhelmed by the thought I could be a part of extending the borders of someone’s sense of safety.

I know better than to believe it’s all or even mostly about me. After all, what good would feeling safe with me alone do if TMiYC’s commenters delighted in slinging insults or backhanded compliments at each other? We’d definitely be in Bunnysville if that were so!

While FTIAT is a guest blog spot, I can’t not share my gratitude for this.

Thank you so much for the care you take to be kind to one another in comments on TMiYC. In doing so, you’ve created a forum in which some deeply personal, deeply moving entries have found and will continue to find their voice.

Thank you, too, for extending that care to the posts to come.

It’s because of you—each of you who reads and writes here, as a guest blogger or commenter—that I think I should stop applying the principles of my work life to TMiYC.

Daily I see more clearly that both hoping and expecting for wonderful here isn’t deluded. It’s warranted . . . by you.

Once upon a time, before the advent of Netflix, there was a place called “the video store.” This place took many different forms in many different locations around the world, but each store had in common its proliferation of the item deemed “the video tape.” These dinosaurs of the storage medium allowed viewers to enjoy movies by use of a device named “VCR.”

Some video stores were run like fast food franchises, with very little in the way of personalization. Other video stores were smaller, and encouraged their employees to express their individuality. One employee might wear a sheriff’s star to work. Another employee might inform a teen male checking out videos with his friends that he had late fees for the Barbie movie, or worse.

One thing these non-franchise video stores often permitted their employees to do was recommend a favorite movie or two with stickers or notecards saying things like, “Bobby Sue’s Top Pick! So romantic!” or “GI Joe’s Top Pick! IT DOES NOT GET MORE BEEFCAKE THAN THIS.”

One guy everywhere inevitably picked Ghost Dad, because, really. What could be more awesome than Bill Cosby as a ghost?! *

Another guy might pick Amelie, because it reflects the enormous sensitivity and quirkiness of his soul.**

One gal might select The Fast and the Furious, because she is impressed by the perfect combination of lots of yummy-looking testosterone vessels driving things really fast, occasionally to the point of collision and/or explosion.

Another still might choose Shrek, because it is just so freakin’ sweet.

Wisely, most video stores knew better than to group these movies together under a banner proclaiming:
THESE ARE THE BESTEST, MOST STUPENDULARLY AWESOME PICKS IN THE ENTIRE STORE!!!

Presumably, they understood that (a) taste is subjective, (b) “best” is subjective, and (c) they might alienate viewers who found the picks absurd/distasteful/perplexing, or protested vocally and repeatedly the absence of certain movies from the Best Movies Ever Section.***

Instead, these shops accurately named their employee selections things like: “Employee Favorites” or “Employee Top Picks.”

Freshly Pressed, by contrast, describes itself as offering “The best of — bloggers, — new posts, — comments, & — words posted today on WordPress.com.”

I have written a number of very beautiful posts that were not Freshly Pressed. I have also written one half-assed entry which, perplexingly, was Freshly Pressed. I have read a great number of other bloggers’ poignant, funny, touching entries  that I was absolutely certain would be smiled upon by the gods of Freshly Pressed, only to find posts about things like optimal popcorn-making and/or how pretty trees can be on Wednesday mornings given blessings from on high.

But . . . but . . . it’s the best of the best! It says so right there on the wordpress.com main page!****

This all caused me a great deal of consternation until I realized the problem boiled down to marketing-style misrepresentation. Freshly Pressed has to do with the “best” posts the way Burger King burgers are “flame-broiled.” These words evoke certain images and primal responses in people, regardless of whether they’re true and/or objectively accurate.

So, dear friends, if you haven’t been Freshly Pressed yet? Fear not! It doesn’t mean you’re a failure as a writer or that your posts have not been magnificent. It simply means you haven’t met the right convergence of circumstances to earn you the prestigious “employee pick” badge. Yet.

Someday, you, too, might be someone’s Amelie of the day!

* The answer is nothing. Nothing could be more awesome.

** If pressed by a buddy, he might confess it also had something to do with the fact he found his last four girlfriends by saying he liked Amelie.

*** You may know this sort. They engage in activities like posting entries about why they have beef with things like Freshly Pressed.

**** Also, NKOTBSB is the best band, like, EVAR. I know it because every thirteen-year-old on my block told me so.

My decision to create a guest blog spot was neither complex nor time-consuming. In fact, it can be boiled down to a few simple steps:

1. Savor the goodness of being a guest blogger
2. Realize I’d like others to feel that same goodness
3. Decide I should create a guest blog spot on TMiYC
4.  Think, “Gratitude is the bestest. Let’s go with that!”

After that, I was just a few arduous, time-consuming steps from really getting it going. I:

1. Hacked out a short list of specs
2. Emailed some—tho’ not nearly all!—of the lovely bloggers I follow
3. Spent approximately eight minutes creating my masterpiece of a guest blog button

Then I waited. Like me, y’all are busy, so I expected I’d wait a week or two until the first entry landed in my mailbox.

I should have known better.

It was a mere two days before I received the first entry. The second reached me two days after that, and I had four entries in hand within the first week. For a biweekly guest blog spot, that’s a month and a half’s worth of entries accounted for in just a handful of days!

THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR MAKING ME WAIT, DEB! All rights to this photo adhere to those involved in the making of the movie Office Space

I wondered if I ought maybe have sent out queries in waves, lest someone be informed their entry would be posted eleven months down the road and desire to beat me about the head with printouts from TMiYC’s archives. And then . . .

Then I took time out to read one of the submissions. I was breathtaken by its raw beauty. Incredulously, I thought, “This is going on my blog? For reals? Because I had this two-second inspiration and sent a couple of emails? No. No, there is something wrong with this equation.”

I reread that entry. I hadn’t imagined its awesomeness. It was both still there and still stunningly beautiful.

The four entries I’ve received as of this writing are very different works by very different people. All are bound by the common theme of “gratitude,” but the subjects of that gratitude and its expressions are as wonderfully disparate as their authors.

I’m constantly amazed by what happens when I stop talking and start listening—or, in this case, stop writing and start reading. Through these four writers, I’m able to see a little bit of the world a little differently. And smile. Oh, how I’m smiling!

The first “for this i am thankful” entry is scheduled for this Friday morning. The next entry goes up two weeks after that, with another entry every two weeks thereafter, for a time. See the schedule for yourself here.

If you’re grateful for something you’d like a chance to write about it here, please tell me about it in an email. I promise I won’t bite, and that I’ve never actually been found guilty (by judge, jury or otherwise) of advertent defenestration.

I’m excited to read the entries yet to come, and to share them here. I’m grateful to their authors for sharing these pieces of themselves with me, with TMiYC and with you. I hope you’ll enjoy the entries as much as I have so far, and surely will continue to do.

Both my sisters are pregnant. This isn’t news, given that they’ve got virtually one full pregnancy between them now. What’s news here is that my first guest post ever (a) was prompted by reflections on my sisters’ impending maternity and (b) goes up at Cookie’s Chronicles early Tuesday morning.

I’d like to say I’m not checking the clock every three minutes and wondering, “Are we there yet?” I could say it, too, if I knew it wouldn’t be an outright lie.

You see, sometimes I post things like Dead Moms Can’t Care and wonder, “What if this is the only TMiYC entry someone ever reads? What if they don’t see the giggly side of me, too?” Then other times I post things like Boba the instigator, Pooh the folk singer & Chris the contestant and fret, “What if this is the only TMiYC entry someone ever reads? What if they don’t see my introspective side, too?” (My life is clearly full of very grave concerns these days!)

My guest blog entry, “Mother, Child, Mother,” merges the two in a way that feels like it’s actually reflecting my entire soul. In one place. So I’m excited for that.

I’m grateful to Sue for the opportunity to write this article, and to see my words posted on her wonderful site. I’ve been so grateful, in fact, that I decided I should create a guest blog opportunity for TMiYC. Though this blog is in some part about personal demons, it’s also about the peace that comes with freeing them in favor–as often as possible–of living with love and gratitude. It’s not like they’ll ever be gone (if you find some Demons-B-Gone spray at your local CVS, feel free to send it my way!), but by learning to see and appreciate silver linings I’ve come to feel both happier and healthier.

I realized that what I’d most like to see are peoples’ reflections on gratitude. Despite the hardships we face, there’s something that makes us believe hope is worth nurturing. That better times are coming. For me, then, it was natural that TMiYC’s guest blog spot be dedicated to gratitude.

Right now, right here, I am grateful for a North Carolinian stranger who brought me a baby blanket late September 26, 2009. I didn’t know it when she handed me that blanket, but I’d go to the hospital only a couple of hours later for my last check-in as not-mama. Neither did I know that stranger would two years later be so dear to me, and my son.

Elsha & Li'l D didn't actually go "On the count of three!"

This dude? Also not half bad! (Translation: Dude be rockin', and not just the Green Lantern tee!)

Yours truly is nothing if not dignified!

I guess you could say I’m grateful for love, in all the crazy ways it reaches people.

For what are you thankful?

Occasionally I get to thinking about my old “Public Journal,” which I started in 1995 with the following words:

23 June, 1995
My, doesn’t she aspire to a lot!  She aspires to be Bobby’s girl,
and that’s all that’s important to her!

I laugh at my younger self for how she told her extended family not, under any circumstances, to ever, ever read her online journal . . . and then expected them to comply! I remain tickled at how that younger me removed her online journals after indignantly Really Letting People Know they just as really needed to be better about minding their own business.

Oh, younger Deb, have I told you how cute you were?

Did I say "cute"? I meant "scary." In the hair department. September '01

Today I found myself wondering, “What was I doing this day a decade ago?” I didn’t find anything for July 29, but I found something even better. Only a few weeks more than a decade ago, I shared the following about being new to and broke in Los Angeles:

July 10, 2001
I’m writing from the student lounge of the law school – my third
visit to the law school and my first to the lounge.  I don’t have much I
can say about the law school yet but that I love it.  I will admit to a
certain (extremely high level of terror at the thought of what’s to
come, but mostly I’m excited and I can hardly believe I’m here.  Or that
in five weeks I will *really* be here.  Maybe by then I’ll have a more
developed sense of the campus.  Right now I’m glad just to have the law-
school radar that enables me to find my way through the HUGE campus even
though it’s almost completely foreign.  I’m in love with the campus.  In
about ten seconds I realized all of my fears that I’d love one gorgeous
campus for a dreary and grey one were dispelled… so much green, so well
kept and just so peaceful!  Ahhhhhh.  Somebody’s going to be spending a
lot of time outside.  Hey, who knows?  Maybe it’ll keep me from longing
for the beach, where you KNOW there wouldn’t be any studying.  In the
words of Marcia, “Nobody ever took their Civ Pro books to the beach and
studied.  You use ‘em as pillows.”  I’ll try and keep that in mind. *grin*

I’ve been in Los Angeles a week and a half.  I don’t have any
money so I’m spending a lot of time near home base (and at the nearest
branch of the public library) but I love it even so.  I’m amused by how I
can be in a quiet residential area, then take a minute-long walk and be on
a MASSIVE road with constant traffic.  There’s lots of green and I can
hear the birds chirp as I walk against the early evening breeze.  Even
staying close to home (near Westwood), there’s so much more going
on… there’s a row of Persian shops and restaurants intermingled with a
gazillion other ethnic restaurants, and people speak in languages I don’t
even hope to recognize when I’m walking down the street.  I knew it was
going to be different, but I didn’t know *how* different, and already I
can’t imagine being anywhere else… I love it here.  Yay!  My roommate is
great (if her dog is a little bizarre) and I’ve already made a couple of
friends who make it seem a lot less lonely.  And this doesn’t even feel
like a lonely place to begin with.  I’ve talked with a lot of friendly
people in a week and a half and I know there’re many more out there.  (I
hope a lot of them are at this school.

That’s it for my update.  I need to get home and change into
something shorter.  Phew!

Deborah
lovin’ L.A.

My second bedroom in L.A., back when Everclear ruled my world! All my furniture was other students' left-on-the-lawn discards. YEAH, Westwood! Late '01

Ten years and nineteen days later, I’m older, at least a teensy bit wiser, and still very much lovin’ L.A.!