Stacey E. Bryan's Blog, page 5

Hand Resting Comfortably on Thigh

The George Floyd trial has started here, as many probably know, so we’re being inundated by the tragic details and overall sense of doom stemming from that day.

In seeing video up closer, I realized that the killer cop’s hand wasn’t actually in the pocket of his pants. His black gloves make a clean straight line across his wrist in such a way that it appeared the rest of his hand was in a pocket. But it was actually just resting on top of his thigh.

All this is to say I’m correctin...

Moon Base 7

I was going to do a review of the 2020 movie “Antebellum,” but I’m not sure enough time has gone by for people to have seen it (or if people even intend to see it) and the problem of spoilers and all that.

So I guess I’ll wait a while (although I’m frothing at the mouth, and it’s not good froth) and do it later this year and instead take you—drag you–kidnap you—down a special rabbit hole with me. Concerning what? My job.

I stumbled across a closed captioning ad in the UCLA job ...

First Love – Endless Love

I was searching for a topic that might interest some of ye bloggers out there to whip up some thoughts on–large or small–as a guest post on Laughter over Tears. Glen of Scenic Writer’s Shack blogged this on his own, and besides being wonderfully poignant and also subtly comical, it seemed like the perfect subject matter for some of you writers and experiencers out there to expound on. Please enjoy Glen’s artful entry, and don’t be surprised if I show up at your door one day soon, hat in hand…....

It’s Time

It sneaks up on you out of the dark, sometimes in broad daylight, and you never see it coming. “Oh, it’s you…” you may say. After all, you recognize it. It’s no stranger. It’s just been a while. “What are you doing here?”

Or more likely, more to yourself, “Am I ready for this?”

When it comes barrelling like a train around the bend, you’re just standing helplessly in the middle of the tracks. “Get off the tracks!” the audience yells, but by the time you react, the train is upon you, over you, th...

MOBOCRACY

I try not to get into Facebook discussions with people about politics because I’m not into S&M. At least not yet.

Once, years ago when I told a co-worker that and my husband and I hardly saw each other because we worked on different shifts she said, “That’s good. It’ll keep the marriage fresh.”

She was right, too. Distance makes the heart grow fonder and all that. So who am I to say S&M might not be the next thing to “keep the marriage fresh”? No one. I’m no one to say it. So, like Vice Preside...

How To Avoid Happiness

Once in a grocery store in Brooklyn the cashier seemed sad and preoccupied. When I asked her how she was doing, the story came out that she’d felt a lump and was about to go see the doctor.

She then reached over and pulled my hand onto the side of her breast and said, “It’s here, over here.”

It was winter and she was wearing a thick sweater, so I couldn’t feel anything. I don’t remember what I said, but I’m sure I was sympathetic.

Several weeks later, I asked her how she was and I ...

TRICK OR TREAT?

The other day after writing a book review, I scanned everyone else’s thoughts and came across one that said (sic), “I wish there’d been a heads up about the explicit sex scene. I wasn’t expecting that and wish there had been a warning.”

When I think of scary things, apropos to today, Halloween, ghosts and goblins and the undead do not make my list. Rotting corpses and witches intent on my destruction are nice, in my opinion, compared to the horror movie we’re in today.

What movie is that, you a...

A Walk Through Burbank In the Time of Plague

I went on a walk a few weekends ago to my favorite thrift shop during the plague. I know it’s not really a plague. But it feels like it. It was the weekend of my birthday and I was now [cough, cough, hack, barf] years old. No, I didn’t turn 15, although I know I sound like I did. Burbank, California used to be a small town nobody cared about back in the days that Johnny Carson made fun of it. Not so anymore. It’s crowded, trafficky, houses and rents are unaffordable.

I read somewhere onc...

Unleashed and Howling

It was night, and dogs came through the trees, unleashed and howling.

Much like the intriguing first line of Mike Allen’s “The Button Bin”, mentioned in a past post, the first line of Gil Adamson’s “The Outlander” flies out like the dogs she’s speaking of: unleashed and howling.  And then the novel continues in unfaltering prose to paint the life of Mary Boulton, a 19-year-old widow, in joyful and harrowing strokes.

In early 1900s rural Canada, Mary, suffering from postpartum depression and the...

In the bookcase

 

A weird thing happened the other day. I thought, “I should call mom and tell her about that.” And then I remembered, “Oh, yeah. Can’t do that,” because she was gone. Even though she hasn’t been around since 2012, this still happens to me all the time.

I guess it’s actually not that weird, but it feels weird. I know it’s a common thing people go through after a loved one passes. It’s like experiencing “phantom limb” but with a person who’s gone instead of a missing leg or arm.

My mother wasn’t...