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.

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.

One of the things Laura was hugely excited about when she started her brant was the idea that she could plug people and places and things that she really likes. Which is why this post about the interview she did with the nationally syndicated radio show “The Good Stuff” is going to be so fun to write.

You see, Laura’s sister-in-law (Laura’s husband’s brother’s wife) Colleen Dealy is one of the hosts of “The Good Stuff” which, as I may have just mentioned, is now nationally syndicated on the Lifestyle Talk Radio Network. The other host of the show is Colleen’s friend Taylor Purdy, and together they make a great team. Back before the show went national, when Colleen first had the idea for the show and when they first started taping the one-hour show once a week in a local Greenwich, Connecticut radio studio, Laura would sometimes agree to be on the show — either in studio or by phone — when they were desperate for a guest. Sometimes she would even listen to the show from her computer (don’t ask her how she did it, because at a certain point she couldn’t anymore and she didn’t know why she couldn’t because she’d never quite figured out how why she could) and call in with a question to make it seem like someone was out there, all the way in Boston, listening and engaged enough to call in with a question or a comment.

Laura always felt like she was saving the day when she did these enormous acts of kindness — helping these poor radio hosts, with no guests and no listeners, out of the goodness of her heart. But the real reason she did it was because Colleen is one of Laura’s favorite people in the whole world and someone Laura can never do enough for because Colleen has helped her out (let her stay over in Greenwich and save $$ on hotels) and saved her (watched Benji while Laura went into the city for meetings or lunches or anything else that had to do with the publication of her new book) a gazillion times. This is why Colleen’s name is on the dedication page of Piece of Work. (Not that that can even begin to pay Colleen back for all the enormous favors she’s done for Laura. But it’s a start.) Of course now Laura can barely get booked on the show and has to have her publicist call and beg for an interview. (OK, that’s a lie, but you know what she means.)

What she means is that now the show is an actual show, two hours long and five days a week, part of an actual radio network, and rapidly gaining affiliates. Laura desperately wishes she could upload the fantabulous photo of her fantabulous sister-in-law Colleen and her friend Taylor but she thinks she shouldn’t bother trying and instead should just post the links to the show and be done with it. After all, “The Good Stuff” is getting plenty of attention without Laura plastering Colleen and Taylor’s blond hair all over her brant.

(Note:  this photo was finally uploaded on 12/31/06.)