Instagram did this for photos, allowing mere mortals like me to create and share photos that were beautiful and expressive. Vine allows us to elegantly create short, 6-second videos through an intuitive interface. Takes is another neat mobile tool I particularly love for the way it effortlessly creates video by capturing the context around still photos. And now Disney has created a branded tool called Story that allows any of us (well, anyone with an iPhone) to effortlessly tell and share annotated narratives. Think of it like creating a mini scrapbook with a pulse.

What it does: Story allows you to organize new or existing photos and videos from your iPhone into sharable digital flip books. You can also add captions, text, and play with various themes and layouts. (But no filters. Guessing that’ll come later.) The album is private until you share it (via Facebook or email for now — I’m guessing more sharing platforms will come later as well). Your Story is also saved in iCloud — allowing you to sync it to other Apple devices.

Here was my first attempt at creating a Story, based on a recent trip to London:

Why it’s dumb-brilliant: A lot of other photo-management tools allow you to create organized albums. But what’s cool about the Disney Story app is the wizard-inspired part of it: The way it auto-magically suggests an organization for your photos and videos based on the time and geo-location of the videos on your phone. And then (of course) the way you can add or edit the grouping it suggests. You can also re-order, edit and zoom photos within the app (with some constraints).

And speaking of constraints, that’s the primary reason Story is dumb-brilliant: It forces content creators to “Keep It Tight,” as my friend Tim Washer and I espouse. It bans bloat by not allowing stories… err, Stories… a single gasp of oxygen beyond 20 photos and two short videos. (Although you can add as many pages of text as you want. Frankly, I’d change that.) In other words, it constrains you to distill the essence of your story into something that respects your audience’s time.

Why I’m bothering to write about it: I am a bit of a sucker for content creation tools that are intuitive, flexible, foolproof and simple (IFFS? SIFF? Must work on an acronym there….)

But I especially love Story because it’s a content marketing play that comes as the best form of content marketing: It’s a great example of a brand that takes itself out of the story and places its audience in it — actually, at the very heart of it. It’s a great example of building an audience by supplying them with tools that speak to their needs: Tools they can use.

Disney could’ve created a video that shows happy families bouncing down Main Street USA (and they have). Disney could’ve created a video app that superimposes a Disney backdrop on all the Story videos you create. But the better, smarter content marketing effort in 2013 isn’t that brand-centric and brand-arrogant.

Story is fundamentally a great example of what I’ll be talking about this coming week in Rovinj, Croatia: Will your customers thank you for your content?

This is me thanking Disney right now.

Story puts the Disney brand at the heart of shareable moments everywhere. There’s nothing about the Story tool that forces Disney into your story — the people in your photos and videos don’t sprout mouse ears, for example.

Instead, Disney gives people the motive and tools to create their own stories — it becomes the story enabler, so to speak — while subtly reinforcing something brilliant: The notion of Disney as the backdrop for so many family memories. Both real and digital.

The post #ContentTools: Effortless Storytelling from Disney’s New Story App appeared first on A n n a r c h y.

Let me preface my comments with a preface:

1. Lean In the book had its roots in Sheryl’s 2010 TED talk. I’ve watched it a few times and shared it with a few important young women and teenagers in my life. I even referenced it in a talk I gave at Digitas once. But I hadn’t followed the more recent discussion around the subsequent book because, well, I’m busy. Much as I liked the original talk, I had encoded Sheryl’s book as the kind of gender-specific discussion that annoys me. As my friend Erika Napoletano wrote last week, “It’s time for the conversation to shift away from gender and to lean towards talent.” Yeah. What she said.

2. I’m incredibly busy at work these days, and catching Sheryl for breakfast meant I had to get up at the crack of crack, get dressed in grownup clothes, and sacrifice a few productive morning hours. That doesn’t sound like a big sacrifice, maybe, but it was. I suppose you could say that I had my own little Lean In moment of the day just getting out of bed.

3. Uncharacteristically (especially given #2), I parked myself in a seat right up front and center, almost directly in front of Sheryl. The seat was in the HubSpot section, the company that had graciously allowed me to come as their guest (thanks, Laura!) Dammit, if I’m up, dressed, and here… I’m going to get the best experience possible. Second Lean In moment of the day.

4. Finally, I started this post thinking it would be an email to a few young women and teenagers in my life who I wish had been with me. (This means you, Colleen, Amanda, Caroline!) Then I decided to share it more widely. There was such a great vibe in the room after Sheryl’s talk yesterday that I wanted to invite everyone there to a bar so we could hang out and talk. I suppose this post is my attempt at that.

Generally, Sheryl comes across at funny, smart, self-deprecating—qualities I happen to value in people. She was pretty clear on her objectives with her book: Shining a light on the lack of women in leadership roles to figure out why that’s so, with the ultimate goal of changing the data. But despite the serious topic, she doesn’t appear to take herself too seriously. Which I appreciate.

Some thoughts, with quotes from yesterday morning:

“We’re honored today because Sheryl’s parents are here.” —Host Jo Tango from Kepha Partners, in his introduction

Jo gives a shout out to Sheryl’s parents, Joel and Adele. They stand and beam at the room. It’s a sweet moment, not just because I’m imagining how full their hearts must be to so palpably witness their daughter’s success.

But because, at the same time, it immediately gives context to Sheryl as a person. We’re all someone’s child, of course. But she’s not just someone’s child: She’s the daughter of those two people, sitting right there. Lean In has attracted spirited discussion, because the issue of women and work, Sheryl later acknowledged, is personal. Her parent’s presence underscores that point: This is a personal issue for us.

“The blunt truth is, men still run the world, and I’m not sure that’s going so well.” —Sheryl Sandberg

This gets a laugh. But, more important, she supports her point with data: 30 years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the US, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions. Only 21 Fortune 500 CEOs are women… women hold 14 percent of executive officer jobs… 20 percent of our Congressmen are women… 17 percent of corporate board seats are held by women… women earn 77 cents for every dollar men make. Like all good content, her talk—and book—are rooted in fact, not merely opinion. Not just feeling. And the data tells the story that something is off.

I feel like I want to repeat that last line, for emphasis. So I will: Like all good content, her talk—and book—are rooted in fact, not merely opinion. Not just feeling. And the data tells the story that something is off.

“Progress turns with every woman who leans in. And… with every man who leans in.” —Sheryl Sandberg

This audience is overwhelmingly female; perhaps 20 percent of the audience is male (including, surprisingly for me, my friend Jerry, a venture capitalist.) More data here: Most mothers handle 40 percent more child care and 30 percent more housework than fathers… just 9 percent of people in dual-career households say they equally share parenting and household jobs… public policy reinforces the gender bias. Her bottom line: At home, make your partner an equal partner.

In the book, Sheryl adds: Avoid “maternal gatekeeping,” the impulse women have to tell fathers, “That’s not how you cut a sandwich! Just let me do it.” Or insert almost any task for the “sandwich” business.

That sounds dumb… but, actually, I’ve been controllingly guilty of it. I grok the need for a mother to be at the nerve center of a family, and I suspect that my impulse isn’t unique to me.

My female friends often carry some measure of maternal guilt—in that they could be better somehow as a mother (more responsive, or more loving, or somehow more more). Very few of my men friends appear to harbor that same guilt. Or maybe they just don’t express it. As Sheryl said, women tend to predict their success at slightly below average; men tend to predict it as slightly above average. She was talking about the school and the workplace, but I wonder whether it applies to parenting. And life, for that matter.

“No one is more efficient and effective than a mother.” —Sheryl Sandberg

She was kind of kidding here. But only just. Since Sheryl’s audience yesterday was stuffed with people from VCs and tech startups, she suggested that the people in the room are those who can lead the charge to help women navigate through the childbearing years. Many companies try to essentially ignore the topic, because they fear they’ll discriminate. “That’s not working,” she said.

Her sound bit got a round of applause. But the soundbite felt a little like pandering. Clearly mothers are capable and productive. But so are fathers. So are women who don’t have children of their own. It seems slightly counter to the notion above, that we need to stop encoding based on gender, and more on talent and potential.

“If you have daughters, put them in computer scientist programs, get them an iPad, let them play more computer games.” —Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl recounts a story about enrolling her seven-year-old son in a computer programming class. Even in Silicon Valley, only 5 of the 35 enrolled children were girls (and two of them had been urged by Sheryl to take the class). I think of my own daughter, who has an interest in and affinity for technology. And I have a pang of realization that I’ve never suggested she lean into that, although I suspect it was more to do with my own humanities bias than a gender bias. But ,then again, maybe not. Now I’m alternating between tweeting sound bites and texting them to my teenage daughter, who I very much wish were here.

“People who can most help women reach for opportunities are the women themselves.” —Sheryl Sandberg

Feeling smug because I sat in that front-row seat. Realizing that’s not quite what she means. But still, I’ve had moments of sitting on the edge, figuratively speaking. I’ve had moments – some quite recent – of conceding the floor to a (generally louder, more aggressive) man. Make a mental note to pay closer attention to my own behavior.

“When you want to change things, you won’t please everyone.” —Sheryl Sandberg

Great perspective on being effective vs. being “liked,” and one that resonates with me because I tend to be a pleaser. Your point of view will probably tick off somebody off, Sheryl says.

I think there’s a middle ground to this one: There’s an ocean of difference between being an opinionated asshole and opinionated consensus-builder. I wish more of us fell into the latter group. (And by “more of us” I mean “human beings.” Not “people in this room” or “women.”)

“I hope my book is just the beginning.” —Sheryl Sandberg

The goal of her book, she said, was to start a conversation, not to present a simple and neat solution to a complex problem. I’ve seen the signs she references that are pasted around Facebook’s Menlo Park offices: “Perfect is the enemy of good” (Voltaire) and “Done is better than perfect.” From that same spirit comes Lean In, because the first step to change is… well, a step.

Ultimately what does Sheryl want? “I’d like to see the data change.” Yup.

I started out this post admitting that the gender-specificity of Lean In troubles me a little. But the data tells the story that something is off. And I think the book is igniting a discussion worth having—for both our daughters and our sons.

I come to terms with it like this: I interpret that Sheryl’s broader message is that we need to challenge our assumptions and expectations both with our (collective) sons and with our daughters, to create more opportunities for people, period. In that way, Lean In seems the next iteration of something Anna Quindlen wrote 25 years ago: “Have you ever noticed that what passes as a terrific man would only be an adequate woman?”

Sheryl’s is a far more evolved message. And, ultimately, it’s far more positive.

The post Some Thoughts on Leaning In: Giving Context to the Soundbites appeared first on A n n a r c h y.

You dispatch an email to me only to have a response immediately — Holy cats! An email back! You got an email back!!

Then you realize it’s just a dumb auto-responder. Nothing remotely personal about it. The bitter truth rises in your gut when you realize: Ann’s on vacation — not holed up (as she usually is) just waiting for something to respond to. Like your email.

Point being, I’m unavailable. (I just switched confusing between first and third person, if you noticed. Things are running fast and loose this week, aren’t they?) Point also being, even if you tried to hide your disappointment and resulting hot tears of frustration at my absence, you’d be powerless. Am I right?

There, there. Buck up. I’ll be back. Next week. And I’ll do my best to get back to you then. Or maybe before.

I will be checking email and Twitter and Instagramming and Vining periodically (as the socially addicted among us tend to do). So if it’s REALLY critical (and please think hard and long before you deem it so…), let me know? Maybe add an exclamation point or a red flag when you resend. Or attach a nice bottle of wine to get my attention. I like the earthier reds.

I’m back at my desk on Monday, February 25. Eyes bright, tail bushy. I look forward to talking to you then, if not before!

Your friend,

Ann

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Live-blogging the birth.

1. It’s not a major holiday until the smoke detector goes off.

Joyeux Leon

2. My favorite holidays feel like hibernating. But with better food. And sometimes, presents.

3. The proper attire for Christmas dinner is jammies.

4. Under Armor is the greatest invention ever for the perpetually cold. And by “perpetually cold” I mean “me.”

5. Who isn’t at the celebration is as important as who is. Loss may be part of life, but most of the year we carry any absence deeper within us – many of us carry it well enough that it’s barely discernible to the naked eye. (Otherwise, each day would be excrutiating, wouldn’t it?) But holidays bring loss into relief, with gifts unbought, empty stockings, empty arms, and holes that peek into a parallel place.

6. There is nothing more wonderful than children when they are young. Except those same children, growing up.

7. Habits emerge because our brains are constantly looking for ways to conserve effort, scientists say. Without efficient habit loops, “our brains would shut down, overwhelmed by the minutiae of daily life,” writes Charles Duhigg. I suppose that’s why, when adult children return home or extended family reunites, established patterns re-emerge. Which is comforting and (at the same time) often maddening.

8. Handley Humor is a rare and precious thing. It’s goofy and ridiculous and often annoying, and it’s impossible to explain. But we recognize it when we see it. My siblings and I lead different lives in different cities. We sometimes don’t agree.

But families often connect in small but strongly critical ways, like the way a railway coupling links two train cars: We might not connect on a lot, but we connect there.

The post 8 Things I Know About Christmas appeared first on A n n a r c h y.

“You can want one thing and have a secret wish for its opposite.”

Tonight I leave on an 8 PM flight for a six-day trip from Boston, Massachusetts, to Istanbul, Turkey. It’s a 10-hour flight—almost 5,000 miles—and when I say it’s a world away I mean it both literally and figuratively. I woke up uncharacteristically early this morning, pre-dawn, and as the sun broke over the trees and slowly swabbed the sky from pink to red to blue, I thought, “I don’t want to go.”

And then, almost immediately, I thought, “But I can’t wait to get there.”

That doesn’t make sense, does it? Do I want to go, or don’t I want to go? Does the idea of traveling to a place I’ve never experienced before excite me, or does it fill me to the brim with fear?

When I was a child, I was afraid of almost everything, but especially anything new. I preferred the preschool carpool I knew over the kindergarten bus I didn’t. I liked the predictability of that carpool: The same driver, the same handful of kids, the same worn leather seat by the window. The day when the big yellow kindergarten bus came rolling down the street toward me, I screamed and bolted for home.

But now that I think of it, I preferred being there—staying at home, in the kitchen with my mother, playing on our worn linoleum—more than anywhere else.

I suppose I could have stayed that way: I could have made a life for myself in my hometown, in the house I grew up in. You hear about people who never leave their houses or venture far from their hometowns: In the news recently was the story of a man who had last left his home 10 years earlier. He’d ballooned to a thousand pounds, had a 6-foot waist circumference, and couldn’t walk.

The problem is that most stories like that include the word “sad” or “horrifying” somewhere in the first paragraph. I might have an inner homebody, but that doesn’t make me an outlier. Because while I prefer to stay in my sanctuary, seeking refuge, I also play host to varying measures of curiosity (about people, and what makes them tick) and desire (to be part of something larger, to try new things, to be successful according to various definitions of the word).

The thing is that Curiosity and Desire can be annoying roommates for my inner Homebody. All Homebody wants to do is boil up some penne and sit on the couch with my girl, my daughter. But Curiosity shows up to crash the party: What would the pasta taste like in a café in Verona? I bet it would be fantastic! And then Desire chimes in: Could I get invited there for an event? Or hey, you know what? Maybe I could combine it with that trip to Munich?

Back to Istanbul. I was invited there a while ago to speak at a marketing conference. At first, it thrilled me. (That was Ego, whom you haven’t met yet. She hardly ever shows up, but sometimes makes a guest appearance.)

Then, Homebody spoke up, “NO.” (Homebody is always the first to speak. In other words, I always tell myself No before I consider the alternatives.) But, ultimately, Curiosity and Desire were the most persuasive: Istanbul is an amazing place, I hear. And: This is a great opportunity to keynote an international event and connect with some smart people in an interesting and new place.

I read a story last night about a lab experiment with a rat. The rat would be willing to scuttle across an electrified plate to access something he deemed irresistible—something akin to rat crack, I suppose. He would tolerate a high degree of discomfort—in his case, volts of electrical shock coursing through his body—to satisfy a perceived need. I guess I, in a way, am that rat. I’ve learned to accommodate these inherent contradictions coexisting within my own skin—and the resulting discomfort.

So do I want to go? Or would I rather stay home?

It seems the only answer is “Yes.”

The post I Don’t Want to Go, But I Can’t Wait to Get There appeared first on A n n a r c h y.

Some mothers yell. Some mothers threaten. But I’m the kind of mother who gets out her iPhone and documents the crime. Then creates content from it.

Which is more effective? You decide. But know this: If I was a yeller, maybe the neighbors would hear me — so, a handful of people, tops. But this slide show has 3,307 views on Slideshare. So in terms of reach, we have a winner. In terms of targeting the message? Well, he’s at college.

The post ‘If It’s Empty, Fill It’… and 10 Other Rules for Living Companionably with Teenagers, Kids and the Generally Clueless appeared first on A n n a r c h y.

Dani Hagen had the idea late last week to create a MarketingProfs version of the Olympic-inspired meme, “McKayla is not impressed.”

Because I live under a rock, apparently, I had only a vague notion of what Dani was referring to. It turns out that she was referring to US gymnist McKayla Maroney’s sour expression after settling for a silver medal in the women’s vault final, which promptly birthed the Tumblr that transported the 16-year-old’s hilariously sour face to places far away from London. Like the Sistine Chapel. Into an Andy Warhol painting. And what not.

Because Corey O’Loughlin does not live under a rock (actually, she lives in Florida), she immediately recognized a good idea when it dropped into her lap. She jumped on it – HELL, YEAH! — and found all the images and wrote the captions while I scoured my house for a Silver Olympic medal and a fresh bouquet of flowers. Finding none, I made do.

Props to photographer Caroline Price for bearing the re-shoots until I got the deadness in the eyes precisely… well, dead. Also, the mouth couldn’t be too… I don’t know what, exactly, but whatever that intersection point is between a scowl and a sourpuss. It’s trickier than it looks. Especially in full makeup.

The results you see here are thanks to the mad photo editing skills of Jo Roberts, who dropped what she was doing because she saw the potential, too. It’s a lonely place under my rock.

Enjoy!

The post Ann Handley is not impressed. (The back story.) appeared first on A n n a r c h y.

Dad and Mom

My mother died 25 years ago yesterday, when she was 62. I realized this fact sometime last night, and it astounds me.

First I was astounded because I remembered how, at the time, I thought that she was appropriately old enough when she died (whatever that means—another thing I now realize is how insolent it sounds to suggest anyone is ever old enough) when she died after a lengthy illness. I thought her life had been long and full, when in fact it ended unjustly soon. At the time (and I cringe to write this now), I thought I was the only one who was young. And there’s that insolence again.

Which leads me to the second astounding thing: My mother has missed most of my life, much more of it than she saw. I thought of this because when I think about my mother I still think like a child. In other words, I think of her in terms of me. I’m guessing most people are this way when they think of their mothers, but I don’t know.

I thought of how my children are her only three grandchildren she never met. I thought how she wouldn’t recognize me. (Although maybe she would recognize my legs. Because my legs weirdly have become her legs—the very same ones she had when I was a child. One day I woke up and my legs were gone. And in their place were hers!) She wouldn’t recognize any of the life I’m now living, or most of the people I love.

It’s sad to miss someone you love. Our family misses my nephew, who died unexpectedly this spring. My sister-in-law misses her brother, who died 8 years ago (I was surprised to realize) on the same day my mother had passed away 17 years earlier.

But I’ve come to realize that the worst part isn’t the looking backward at the life you had and lost. The worst part is the present, when the missing comes with wonder: Wonder what we’d be doing now? Wonder whether he’d laugh at that as much as I did? Where would he be sitting at the table? Where would she stand in this photo?

I like to think—when I wonder about that present with my mother—that she and I would have it good. That my daughter and I would take her to lunch. That she’d come along to pick up my son at the train station when he rolls in from college for the summer, and that he’d bend to hug his grandmother and lift her feet off the ground and dangle her there for a few thrilling seconds, like he does me. That she’d knit us all something matching and goofy for Christmas, and she’d sleep over the night before. But of course that’s only because I get to choose, in my thoughts, what I’m missing.

The truth is that what I’m more likely missing is the stuff that my friends whose mothers are still around tell me about: How their mothers often drive them nuts. How quickly an extended visit gets annoying. How they are embarrassingly clueless on Facebook. How some of them judge when they comment how they wouldn’t live their lives that way, but if that’s the way you kids do it now, then I guess you make your own choices.

(Most of them don’t complain to be mean—they love their mothers. But that’s the way complex relationships over decades can go. You’d think that time would grind the rough edges smooth. But, oddly enough, it often leaves behind shards that are surprisingly prickly. I suppose some children can truly be friends with their parents. But even when that’s mostly true, there’s something about one camp that perpetually confounds the other.)

I was the youngest of four children, born when my mom was almost 40, and my three older siblings were well into the swing of growing up. I sometimes used to feel—playing in the backyard (my mother at the sink in the house), or riding alone in the back of a car headed god knows where—that she was already missing a lot of my life.

Always I felt loved. There were times I felt adored. But there were also times I thought I rooted my parents in a chapter of their lives they were ready to close before they could. I sometimes felt that being the caboose in the family wasn’t as darling as it sounds. Some days, my mom was the waiting car at a railroad crossing, tapping the dash in anticipation of the end of an improbably long train. When the caboose isn’t as much celebrated as it passes with some relief – thank god that’s over! – so you can go about your day.

Possibly she didn’t feel that way at all. Possibly she would read this with some measure of dismay: Oh no, sweetie! I never felt that way! Possibly I’m being a little self-indulgent here. But that’s the thing about wondering: I can’t ever ask. So there’s that part about missing the present more than anything.

People tell me I will see her again—the devout like to think that we’ll all see the beings we’ve loved and lost. I hear this and picture them, the whole flock of them, my nephew, your brother, my son, my mom—all beaming at me in a ragged half-circle on the other side of something. Waiting.

But I don’t know if I believe that. And when I really think about it, I start to worry about logistics: Will the group include close family only or friends? What if other people who died that day need greeting committees, too? Will they need to make a choice in some sort of afterlife lottery? And I worry about the meeting itself: If I hate surprise parties in this life, how will I possibly compose the necessary thrill of meeting this whole group at once, all over again?

I’m kidding, of course, in a way. But you can see how pretty soon the whole thing begins to feel improbable. And I decide to consider it as I might, say, scratching a winning lottery ticket: If it happens, great. But I’m not counting on it.

And so I do what we all do. I live my life—the one she doesn’t recognize, the one she’ll never know. I’m astounded at the time, as it goes by. I think of how love rolls downhill more easily than it rolls up. Every day I roll the love she gave me further down, and I wonder about questions—unasked, unanswered, but still good questions.

The post Missing appeared first on A n n a r c h y.

Unpacking content goodness.

It’s a cloudy Monday morning in Boston. But here at my house it’s all sunshine and happy-hour and puppy-dog tails, with the unboxing of the brand-spankin’-new, revised-and-updated paperback edition of Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business!

MmmmmMmmmmm… That new-book smell is now wafting throughout the place.

If you don’t know the book, Content Rules is the how-to field guide to creating the kind of blogs, videos, FAQs, product pages (or any kind of content!) that will help your organization grow. “Content,” of course, is the hot topic in online business. As a former journalist and longtime write and editor, I love that. I love to see companies creating content as a cornerstone of their marketing.

But here’s the thing: Much of what I see is mediocre (and I’m being generous here). My work-hubby C.C. Chapman and I wrote this book to help anyone create the kind of stuff that will truly set you apart.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the paperback edition of Content Rules comes with 21 percent more text. The 11 content “rules” were brought to life by the illustrationally gifted Sean Tubridy. One of the hallmarks of rockin’ content is that it’s warm and human, and so from Sean’s imagination sprung forth Lugnut, who has the skin of a tin man but the soul of a poet.

Lugnut offers a kind of guided tour of each rule. To the right here is one of my favorite illustrations from Rule #7: Show, Don’t Just Tell.

Before working with Sean on this project, C.C. and I didn’t know him. But we connected because Sean publishes (you guessed it!) content online. I stumbled across his illustration work on Flickr. Trolled through his other work on his blog. Stalked him on Twitter. And here we are.

In his day job, Sean works for my friend Kristina Halvorson’s content strategy consultancy Brain Traffic. We met exactly a year ago at Confab, Brain Traffic’s inaugural content strategy conference. I’m only explaining all this so I can set up this photo, and show you what Sean looks like. I probably don’t need to say this, but that’s him on the left. (I’m the other person.)

The paperback edition is available wherever paperbacks are sold. At Amazon of course, or from your favorite bookseller.

So hey! Want to win a copy of the new paperback Content Rules autographed by both C.C. Chapman and me? Here’s what to do: Create an inspired tweet of this post and include the hashtag #ContentRules. We’ll pick a winner at random. And by “random” I mean we’ll pick the tweet we like the most. Ready? Go.

The post ‘Content Rules’: Now in Paperback… With Pictures! appeared first on A n n a r c h y.

Maybe it’s more like walking around with my insides on my outside, and my flesh and bones and organs clanking noticeably as I walk around, like wares swinging on the flanks of a pack mule. You bruise easily when you walk around like that, so I’m more wary and jumpy. I also want to beat the crap out of somebody.

Chile is dying. And I’m so sad about my boy, but I’m also angry and exhausted along with the worry and fear and sense that I’m perpetually overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the sheer hours spent at the hospital this week, the convoluted conversations with specialists that I struggle to comprehend, getting right the dosage of the half-dozen medications that he’s prescribed.

Exhausted because I don’t sleep well – never knowing whether he’ll still be here when I wake up. I approach his still body quietly each morning, waiting to notice the rise and fall of his red furry chest before I exhale my own sigh of relief that he’s still with us.

And I’m angry: Angry because I feel so helpless to do anything at all to make him breathe more easily and rest without panting, like he did only a day or two ago. It feels excruciatingly unbearable to sit around and do nothing to help him, but instead to go on as usual — to go to work and show up at meetings and answer some emails and toss some laundry in the machine and hear about my daughter’s school day and think about planting those tomato seedlings in a pot on the deck….

Part of me feels slightly crazy and desperate when the vet gives me the latest update on his condition – like I want to shake her thin shoulders until her kind eyes loll around in her head, commanding, “FIX HIM!” But my rational side knows better, and it shushes that inner freak to focus on what we’re dealing with here, and to listen closely for the subtext, which I don’t want to miss. I have to be sure to hear the part when she’ll answer the unspoken question: “Will he get better?”

And I’m angry because I’m feeling gypped out of more time with him – he’s only 9, he’ll be 10 in August (if he makes it is what that inner crazy person just said pointedly). Nine isn’t unreasonable for a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. But it isn’t reasonable, either. No time ever is long enough, when you are talking about someone you love.

Are you thinking – even a little bit – he’s just a dog? Yeah, he is a dog. But not “just.” Chile has been with me the longest; longer than the other three dogs in our house. I would like to use this paragraph to relay some amazing anecdote about his life, to recall his fearlessness in the face of tragedy and recount the courageous way he led a child through a burning building to safety, the smoke searing his own brave lungs. His demise should be trending on Twitter.

But of course the truth is anything but that: He was a difficult little dog; we called him “complex.” He was riddled with anxiety and fears. He saw shadows where there were none. He was ridiculously picky with food. He had bad teeth. He was afraid of thunder and swimming pools. He didn’t warm up to most people; he barked through the fence at the neighbors. He was an asshole to other dogs.

In other words, he lived an ordinary life, like most of us. He loved his walks. He chased seagulls on the beach — running like a lunatic through the muddy surf, his eyes full of expectation that maybe he might bag one this time. (He never did.) Later, he would roll in the sand and emerge looking breaded, like a cutlet. He made his body boneless and cozy when he pressed it into mine on cold nights. He followed the conversation, shifting his big brown gaze from person to person as they spoke, in a way that made him look weirdly human. I guess he was nothing special. But he was extraordinary.

Was. I just realized I’m using the past tense.

He’s not gone yet. But if I’m being honest with myself — much as it pisses me off to be — I know he won’t be with us much longer. If he manages to squeak through this crisis (inner crazy person: Shut up! He will! Goddamit!), how long before the next? Or the next after that? His body is compromised; it’s a matter of time before he’s too tired to rally; too weak to try.

And so this is the place where I’ve been before – and where you’ve maybe been, too, if you’ve buried someone you love, because every death reminds you of other deaths. It’s not quite a march toward the end but a roller coaster of ups and down, with the peaks a little flatter each time, while the depths drop a little steeper.

Does it seem weird to compare a dog to a human, possibly? And if so, why?

The truth is that Chile is connecting me to my own past – to the loss of my father, my mother, and even my own son. There is no hierarchy here, that exalts the demise of one kind of being and dismisses the other. They are all souls who’ve been loved. I’ve made decisions about Chile that I’ve never had to make for a human: Should we try to make him better? (Yes.) Even if it costs money? (Yes.) What if he needs another echo-cardiogram? (So?) Will you pay for that? (Yes.) In that way, I’m forced to give my love for Chile a dollar value — a bottom line, so to speak — in the way we humans rarely are called to do for one another.

How much would you give to fix him? I would give what I could, because that’s what you do for love.

When my father died, it was a weekday, and the mail came as usual. I was in high school, and I remember I was surprised by the mail truck: How could the world go on, when such a tremendous thing had happened? Didn’t they know? Someone I loved had died, and the world would never be the same. Why is it that the world is the same for everyone else? That’s crazy and egocentric, of course, but that’s what grief (and teen-hood) will do.

Decades later, I’m there again, wondering how the world can tick on, and business can get done, when nothing is the same. At the vet, they’re doing all they can. I kiss Chile goodnight on the top of his little red head and I tell him: You’ll be okay. Love you, you knucklehead. See you tomorrow. I don’t want to go, but I have to.

Meanwhile, my parts are on the outside, aching. There’s a little bit of crazy, inside. I want to punch somebody. I want to climb into the cage and never leave my weird little boy. Or one better: I want to watch him tackle the beach and run at top-speed down the hard sand, and remember how it feels – maybe just one more time – when my heart fills with his joy.

Chile died the morning of July 3rd. I wrote this piece three weeks ago, in the midst of Chile’s treatments for one of two major illnesses. Despite his medical issues, Chile’s last few weeks were happy. He died peacefully, beside me, at our house in Maine, his favorite place on earth.

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