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

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So here was the Breakfast Club Halloween costume.  Which is pretty much just what I wore during college, except now it’s a costume instead of being everyday clothes.  I tried to keep a straight, disinterested, teenage-ennui face, but I kept laughing:

It was the perfect costume because it was very comfortable.  I am always reluctant to wear costumes that aren’t comfortable, even if they’re really cool, mostly because I spend the whole evening thinking about how uncomfortable I feel rather than being in the moment.  I feel the same way about dressing up in general: I would enjoy social events so much more if I could always wear jeans and a t-shirt rather than putting on heels and a dress.  To me, putting on fancy clothes (and that includes everyday skirts and even dress pants) is torture.

Do you like dressing up?

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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 posts.

When two people send you the same post within minutes of each other, you read it.  And think.  Thank you, Karen and Life After Divorce… Happy Chaos.  Then Lori added it to this week’s second-helpings in the Roundup.  I’ll read it, I’ll read it!

The post was Tim Lawrence’s, “Everything Doesn’t Happen for a Reason.”  In it, he explodes the platitudes that often are said after a life-changing event, when the person should be encouraged to grieve but instead is encouraged to look at the silver lining in the dark clouds.

It’s a good post, though only presents the point of view of the person experiencing the loss — and there are a lot of sides to a single story — but it starts a conversation, starting with the idea to tossing out the idea of “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” and instead taking up the more accurate notion that some pain is not meant to be “gotten over” but instead carried.  He writes,

I hate to break it to you, but although devastation can lead to growth, it often doesn’t. The reality is that it often destroys lives. And the real calamity is that this happens precisely because we’ve replaced grieving with advice. With platitudes. With our absence.

I like this because it gives permission to the “can’t,” as in, I can’t get over this.  I can’t move on from this.  I can’t not feel this.  I think, in some ways, it’s more important to give that support or permission to those who can’t because for that particular person, that load is just too heavy.  It may not be too heavy for another person, in the same way that what I can physically carry is very different from the loads the twins can physically carry with their twig arms.

So I think this type of post is important because it’s an acknowledgment that some loads may simply be too heavy, and if we wish to help, it’s not telling the person they can do it or try harder or the load isn’t that heavy.  It’s to help carry the load if we can help carry the load, and when we can’t because it’s a one-person job, to support the person emotionally, mostly by listening and not retreating when they comment on the ache in their arms.

And, at the same time, the post demeans an ideology that is very important to some people.  That life isn’t random, that there is a point to everything.  It presents the idea that there is only one way to help, a correct way to help, and all other ways of communicating hinder.

I guess I would prefer a post that acknowledges that there are a multitude of ways through an experience, and the method for helping should match the person in need rather than be the method preferred by the help giver.  Moreover, I want a post with an acknowledgment that sometimes the person experiencing a loss has no clue how others can help, has no clue how they wish to be addressed.  If they knew words that would help, they would say those words to themselves.  Maybe the fact that they can’t find these words means that there are no good words, or finding magical words that would assuage the feelings are akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

And I guess I was also bothered by the idea of cutting someone out of your life just because they struggle to support you.  You don’t know their internal thoughts, the words they rejected before they came out with the ones that offended you.  I suspect that I would have zero friends if people truly cut people out of their lives because they didn’t deliver the right words. I am positive I have offended people unintentionally, and I am positive that everyone in my life has said something supremely unhelpful at one moment or another.  There’s a quote I am completely blanking on in the moment about being forgiving because everyone has a story and we often don’t know what the other person has gone through.

So that is my take on the post.  Your thoughts?

Side note: #MicroblogMonday is tomorrow.  Get writing!

I decided to go with the slacker costume for Halloween because I can layer it with long underwear and a t-shirt and flannel a la Bender in Breakfast Club.  I’m always cold, and I didn’t want to be cold walking around.  Plus, I dress up in my Ravenclaw robes on a normal day.  Like… for work.  Uh… because I work out of the house and therefore no one knows that I am working in Ravenclaw robes.

I will have someone take a picture and post it.  My Halloween costume, I mean, not my normal work clothes.

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I’ve been hesitant to see Pan because I think I will end up a blubbering mess in the theater while everyone else stares at me in disbelief.  (This scenario already played out recently with Inside Out.  And… uh… most movies.)  And then I read this post.

I love that this story about Lily Allen’s son who was born still is woven into the movie.  I had chills go down both arms when I heard the opening.

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NaBloPoMo sign up opened on Wednesday, and it has been a mad stream of people joining the list.  It’s always a fun month, though tiring.

Traci York had a wonderful post this week about consistent blogging, and how blogging with frequency truly does change the traffic on your blog.  The numbers don’t lie: by writing more, her yearly views jumped from 200 to over 5000.

Do you have to blog daily?  No.  I blog 5 days a week, and Traci blogs 3 days a week.  The key is consistency: writing several times a week, week after week after week.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Infertile Once Pregnant” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Lori!
• “Battle Wounds” (Bodega Bliss)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Too Many Fish to Fry has a beautiful post about resilience.  She writes, “There’s nothing like failure and grief to make you feel completely alone. We always are, of course, alone but there’s a specificity to pain which reinforces this reality.”  She gives a lot of advice in the middle of the post, and surely something in the list will resonate if you’re going through hell.

Articulation has a post about the difference between being busy and being productive.  It’s an important distinction, and one that I struggle with as I overload my figurative plate in order to always be busy.  Because maybe… gasp!… I will be forced to think too much if I sit still for too long.  It’s a good read and an interesting discussion topic.

A+ Effort has a post about checking off boxes on the foster care form.  I love the way she takes what could be a sobering moment and turns it on its head, showing the other side of all of the problems that make people fearful.  Love this post.

Lastly, Grumpy Rumblings has a post about the middle school years, linking to a video of John Green talking about growing up.  As I said over there, it was hard to go through it myself the first time.  It’s equally hard to watch people I love going through those years now.  It’s about the heart combating against rational thought, and the old scars of middle school rubbing against the world now.

The roundup to the Roundup: Opted for the slacker costume.  Gorgeous song from Pan.  NaBloPoMo really will increase your blog traffic if you keep it up.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 23rd and October 30th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Josh and I talk a lot about getting a dog.  It would be my first dog ever, and Josh’s first dog in a loooooong time.  We pause at adoption events to pet the dogs, and we peruse a local shelter’s website from time to time.  We’re in that should-we-or-shouldn’t-we stage.

Every once in a while, we fall in love with a dog.  I fell in love with one a few months ago.  His name was Frodo.  He was adorable.  He was staring at me from the shelter’s site, begging me to take him home.  Josh pointed out that the dog has “severe emotional issues” and cannot be left alone even for a few minutes during the day.  “What will you do when you want to go to the grocery store?” he asked.  Fair point, sir, but did you see those big, brown eyes?

Josh fell in love with a black lab at an adoption event.  I was at home, so he sent me multiple pictures.  He was the perfect size, gorgeous, and came with a tragic story that screamed, “take me home and love meeeeee!”  Josh carried around the card for the shelter all day, and we spoke about it a few times.  He admitted that the dog was a little frantic, probably not the best match for our chill children.  By night time, the dog had been adopted by another family, which put an end to those thoughts.

If I sat down and built the perfect dog, it would be a small breed, preferably one that lives long.  As in, a dog that lives forever, like a vampire.  On the more sane side, I like short coats: the sort that looks like velvet when you’re running your hands over the dog’s back.

I want a dog that is always going to want to be with me.  Like if I’m in the living room, he’s in the living room, too.  And if I go into the kitchen to cook dinner, he stands beside me, keeping me company in exchange for bits of food.  I want a dog who is going to want to be stroked while I’m reading a book.  A dog who is going to watch me play video games.  A dog who is going to love car rides and beach trips and outings to the dog park.  And if I’m really honest, I want a dog that is small enough for me to carry around the house in my arms.

I want a dog who is going to be my baby.

I am probably not the best candidate for dog parenthood.  I clearly want a furry human more than I want a dachshund.  And a furry human who defies time and lives forever.  But I’m trying to get myself there.

Art is at its best when it wakes us up to the reality that surrounds us that we haven’t noticed yet.  Or, perhaps noticed on a subconscious level, but weren’t able to take a step back and observe critically.

Gizmodo has a post about a new art installation which shows how easily we give away personal information online.

You give them an image, your email address, and fingerprint, and in exchange, you get a cute card.  Holding the cute card you realize how flimsy it is next to what you’ve just parted with, but isn’t that the way it goes on so many sites?  You give them access to your Facebook account and all that entails in exchange for access to a mindless quiz.  Or you give them an image of yourself in order to see how you’d look as a cartoon character.

The artist describes the information collection as a playful process, and isn’t that the way it usually goes?  No one would fill out a form if the data collectors said, “just give us all this information and we’ll bombard you with ads.”  Instead we think we’re just taking a mindless quiz, when we’re really handing over hundreds of data points.

It’s a thought-provoking exhibit.  It made me look long and hard at the ways I gave away information this week without really being cognizant of the fact that the bit of fun was in exchange for facts about me.