Laura finally figured out how to list her favorite blogs and websites the way everyone else does on the side of their blogs and she couldn’t be happier! The first link she listed on (in?) her blogroll is Jennifer Loviglio, her best friend from high school who writes a column for the alternative weekly newspaper in Rochester, NY (for which she won an award) and who records short pieces for her NPR affiliate. Laura thinks she does a whole bunch of other cool interesting artistic writing stuff, but unlike most writers, Jenny is modest and doesn’t like to talk about herself, something Laura can’t really understand — especially as she sits here branting away incessantly. Laura’s looking forward to seeing for herself what her good friend has been up to when she goes to Rochester next week on November 3 for the Rochester Jewish Book Festival!

As Laura just mentioned, she and Benji — her six-year-old son and sometimes incompetent media escort — got in the car and headed south last Thursday for Laura’s reading at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. Instead of making the drive in one day, which is what Laura usually does (she’s weirdly macho about her ability to drive really long distances without needing to stop longer than a Mario Andretti-type pit stop), she decided to split it up — stopping in Montclair, NJ, to see her good friend Ivan and his wife and their three children. Ivan has a big job in publishing, and their other friend Julie has a big job in publishing, but when they first met they were all assistants together at Random House way back in the mid-1980s. Somewhere along the way they started referring to each other as Goobs, or Goobers, and sometimes it gets really confusing when the “goobs” or “goobers” start flying and all the personal pronouns disappear:

Example: Let’s say Ivan wants to join Julie and Laura for dinner. This is what it would look like if Ivan emailed Laura:

Goober:

Goober told me that you two goobs were having dinner tomorrow but I can’t come because Mrs. Goober has plans and Stay-at-Home-Dad-Goober has to be home to watch the little goobers. When I asked the goob if we goobs could switch the date to Thursday, the Uber Goober said no.”

Translation:

“Goober (Laura):

Goober (Julie) told me (Ivan) that you two goobs (Julie and Laura) were having dinner tomorrow but I can’t come because Mrs. Goober (Ivan’s wife) has plans and Stay-at-Home-Dad-Goober (Ivan) has to be home to watch the little goobers (his children). When I asked the goob (Julie) if we goobs (Ivan, Julie, and Laura), could switch the date to Thursday, the Uber Goober (Julie, Boss of the Goobs) said no.”

Anyway, despite the torturously long though blessedly traffic-free ride from Boston to New Jersey, Laura and Ben really enjoyed their side trip visit. Ivan’s kids could not have been cuter and it seems now that they are under the mistaken impression that Ben is a long lost cousin. Ben would be really happy and excited if he understood what that actually meant, but he doesn’t, so he isn’t, though he is desperate to go back to have another sleepover with the boys and play with them and all their toys in their giant playroom.

While Laura’s thinking and getting ready to brant for real, she thought she’d let people know that she’s reading tomorrow night with Emily Franklin at R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, CT (which is just outside New Haven). As always, Laura will be driving to this appearance two hours away (not bad; Laura just returned from her 16-hour round-trip driving excursion to Washington, DC this past weekend which means that two hours to Connecticut seems like a drop in the bucket), so look for her black Volvo wagon with the Red Sox bumper sticker and the peace sign bumper sticker parked somewhere nearby.

You see, this is what happens when Laura takes a break from branting to do her bookstore appearances. She gets so behind in her real-time description of current events that by the time she sits down to brant she feels completely overwhelmed. In fact, Laura needs a minute right now to remember where she left off…as soon as she figures it out, she’ll be back with a new brant.

Thank you for your patience.

Laura just got home this rainy night from a private screening of Little Children, based on Tom Perrotta’s bestselling novel of the same name and co-written for film by Tom and director Todd Field (In the Bedroom). Tom and his wife Mary are fantastic people and all she can say is that Little Children is one of the best movies she has ever seen. Ever.

Branting, Laura thinks, is a lot like doing laundry: just when you think you’re all caught up after doing 5 loads, you take a day off and suddenly there’s 5 more loads to do. Same with branting: Laura does a whole bunch of entries, thinking she’s all caught up, but then she takes a day off and suddenly she’s behind again. Oh well. A branter’s work, it seems, is never done…

Bad cliches notwithstanding, Laura wants to provide a quick update on The Great Read in the Park last weekend in New York’s Bryant Park. Thank goodness Laura was paired with the enormously popular and hilarious Adriana Trigiani and the very talented Jennifer Egan, because when Laura and Adriana and Jennifer were escorted from the Authors’ Registration tent to their reading tent, it was packed and the crowd was spilling out onto the lawn. Jennifer did a great reading from her new book, The Keep, but both Adriana and Laura chose not to read. Instead, they chose to talk. Adriana could not have been funnier which really really sucked because Laura had to talk right after that and boy was Adriana a hard act to follow. But luckily the crowd was already in a good mood so they seemed to enjoy Laura’s talk about the upside of failure.

There was also the perfect fall weather….and the fact that Laura finally met Emily Griffin who works with Laura’s editor Amy Einhorn at Warner Books after talking with her on the phone and emailing for almost two years….and the fact that she met James Ellroy in the Authors’ Registration tent. James Ellroy was a Knopf author when Laura was a Knopf publicist, and while she never got to meet him or work with him back then they had a great conversation before and after their events on Sunday afternoon. That really made her day.

Laura just realized when she reread what she posted a minute ago that there should be a name for what she did: blegging (blogging + begging). She hopes she doesn’t have to keep resorting to brasking and blegging when what she really should be doing is branting — but what’s done is done. Laura can’t change the past any more than she can change the future.

Laura really wants to thank the people who left notes on her brant telling her that they’re reading it. But, in all honesty there really aren’t that many people telling her that they’re reading it (8) — especially if you subtract the last two comments which not only were written by the same person so they should only count once (7), but because they were also written by a “business acquaintance” of Laura’s (her agent) who sort of has to read it (6). Also, if you subtract Laura’s own comment — the comment she sent to comment on Hilary’s very funny comment — we’re down another one (5).

Laura wonders why every time she starts branting her brants turn into math problems (8-1-1-1 = 5), and once again she’s showing her work in case she’s made a mistake. But assuming she’s done the simple subtraction correctly, there were only 5 comments left on her brant, which, math expert or no math expert, and at the risk of sounding like an ingrate, she can hardly say is a lot.

So, please keep sending your three little words — I’m reading it — in.

The other night Laura was feted at Lincoln Street Coffee in Newton Highlands during a Girls Night Out evening her close friend and former next-door-neighbor Elisa D’Andrea (and husband Glen Weinstein) arranged. (Laura’s not sure how she feels about phrases like “Girls Night Out” or “Girls Night In” or any other one that uses the word “Girls” to refer to women over the age of 9, but for lack of a better descriptive title — “An Evening of Free Brownies and Coffee” just doesn’t quite seem to cut it — Laura’s going to leave it that way. For now. [She can always come back and change it. That’s the beauty of blogs. Or, brants.])

Anyway, about 40 women came for an evening of free brownies and coffee and to listen to Laura talk about herself while sitting criss-cross-applesauce in an upholstered club chair and read from her new book. Laura had a great time. One of the reasons she had such a great time was because so many of her friends from so many different parts of Laura’s life were there all at the same time. For instance, her cherished Preschool-Era Blog Moms were there — including Pinar, whose due date to give birth had come and gone two days before and who ended up, only hours later, giving birth (very very quickly) to a little girl named Ayla! Also there were the women from Laura’s book group (from which she’s taken a brief sabbatical); friends from Laura’s new neighborhood (another section of Newton called Auburndale); sisters of friends from Laura’s new neighborhood, former preschool teachers, friends of friends, etc etc. The other reason it was a great night was because Laura was feeling uncharacteristically blue that day (well, that’s not entirely true; Laura has battled off and on her whole life with depression, but that’s neither here nor there right now!!) and so being around that many truly good friends gave her mood an enormous and desperately needed boost. Quite a night, and Laura thanks Elisa, one of the smartest and funniest and most generous friends she’s ever had, and everyone who came, for helping her celebrate..

Everyone who is lucky enough to have a great evening has a favorite part of that great evening, and Laura’s favorite part (besides the moment when she had a giant brownie) was when people started telling her how much they were enjoying her brant. Laura was shocked and amazed that so many people seemed to be reading it since she can count on the fingers of one hand the number of comments that have been left on her website. And so it became obvious that Laura would need to create a bridge for herself to get her over the huge chasm of doubt when it came to brant-writing. And so she asked the group of women assembled a favor:

To please please please leave a comment on her brant to let her know they were reading it.

Most of the women had only one objection to that request: they were too shy to leave a multi-sentence comment on her brant or her discussion page. Which is when Laura tailored her request to something very specific:

Just write the phrase, “I’m reading it,” she asked.

And so, the brask was born (brag + rant + ask = brask).

Laura is deeply grateful to the few friends and friends of friends (you know who you are) who have posted their support in the form of that one simple sentence, and she now sends out a wider brask for more people to do the same. This is because Laura finds it really hard to continue writing her brant when she thinks no one is reading it. All she needs is for a few people a day, or a week, or an hour, to post those three magic words — I’m reading it — to ensure future branting from Laura.

Laura just got off the phone with Robin Krall of WHJJ-Providence’s “Reading with Robin”, one of the best radio interviewers she’s ever spoken to and certain to become one of Laura’s NBFs (she’s going to do a whole separate multi-sectioned brant on NBFs in the near future), and Laura promised to post information ASAP on her brant about the particulars of the “Great Read in the Park” tomorrow. The event is sponsored by the New York Times and is huge, and Laura is reading with Jennifer Egan and Adriana Trigiani in the Yellow Tent at 2:00 -2:45 p.m. Here’s the link to all the events:

http://www.nytimes.whsites.net/grip2006/panels_readings.html