“The Brask”
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.