Category — Microblog Mondays

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Most intriguing line I’ve read this week: “Over the past 35 years, MacNamara has read more than 8,000 strangers’ diaries.” She buys them online or through antique shops. She’s a diary hunter, reading other people’s private thoughts.

I went down a rabbit hole, ending up The Great Diary Project that has amassed 9000 unpublished diaries. They’re not cleaned up for public consumption, or written like a blog with a reader in mind. They are private thoughts that were tossed out by loved ones after a person died (or sometimes sold by the writer while they’re still alive) and ended up in a stranger’s hands.

I love this idea—reading someone’s unfiltered thoughts. Though I’m not sure how I would feel if my diaries ended up in someone else’s hands. Which makes me wonder if I should write up a plan for my diaries or get rid of them at some point.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I like to remind the kids that my big plan is to haunt people after I’m gone. It may take awhile to learn how to haunt, but that’s where I’m placing my energy.

Popular Science ruined things—slightly—by pointing out this month seven reasons why people may think they experience ghosts. I say slightly because I’m using those ideas to better direct my future hauntings. For instance, I will never come to people if they are in a dark and scary place. I will only contact them while they are sitting in a brightly lit breakfast nook with a bowl of Cheerios. Scratch that. I would hate for the Cheerios to go soggy. I will only haunt after the Cheerios have been eaten. Try to explain THAT Popular Science: Considerate ghost waiting until you’re done with breakfast and in a well-lit space to do the haunting.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I know the answer will be “nothing” for some people. They don’t reread books at all. Life is short, books are plentiful. Why reread a book instead of moving to a new one?

But as a rereader—Handmaid’s Tale, the Magicians trilogy, anything Tolkein, all of the Narnia books, the Phantom Tollbooth—I really liked this take on it: “Would you not go back to a place you loved because you’d been there once or never visit a friend because you thought you knew them? My most beloved places and people are those most familiar to me. Why would it be different with books? So, at this moment in a strange, devastating year, one that calls for the comfort of escape, I’ve compiled a list of my top rereads.”

Yes. Because it’s comforting. Because it feels good to revisit a story, just it feels good to return to a place or visit an old friend.

Which books do you reread? And if none, are you moved to reopen one after reading that quote?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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When you send someone an email asking for advice, would you rather get a super quick response to a question, or would you rather wait and get a long, thoughtful, perfect response? For instance, if you wrote Carolyn Hax, would you rather have her write you back a completely sufficient, usable answer the same day, or would you rather have her send back an insightful, mind-changing response a week later? As in, not so late that you don’t need the answer anymore, but a longer wait time than perhaps one wants when they’re on pins-and-needles in the middle of a problem.

No one writes me for advice, but they often write me with questions. Sometimes I am super quick in returning the answer. Other times, I have good intentions to be super quick, but I’m slow AND don’t return an amazing answer. Which is sort of the worst way to be.

I think the two ways above are equally good, but I would take quick response over amazing response. What about you?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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A friend posted a link to an article about the four stages of comfort that correspond to the four states of distress. In other words, the best way to give comfort changes on where the person is in their processing of grief.

So people start out feeling shocked and confused, move to feeling bad (and not ready to feel better), then enter feeling bad AND wanting to feel better, and finally, open to solutions.

While it’s helpful in early days to encourage them to talk things through to wrap their brain around what happened, it’s not helpful to jump to fixing things when they’re still reeling from grief. Whereas validating feelings needs to come after the person understands what they’re feeling.

What do you think of their theory?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.