Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

I Feel The Power

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So the other day I had the chance to help a former Spanish student of mine with a grammar question which was really nice, and also helped me to actually feel useful that day. Because it’s not often that you hear someone yell, “I need to know the difference between direct and indirect objects, STAT!” Or, “OMG, come quick-there’s a conjugation emergency!”

(And personally, I think the world is a lesser place for it.)

But on that day I finally had the chance to ride up on my Pony of Exceptional Grammar Knowledge and save the day.

I mean, it sounds really cool and all to be able to say that I am fluent in Spanish, but we Spanish speakers aren’t ever called on to help with the really interesting projects, or the really spectacular rescue missions.

That’s probably a good thing too, now that I think about it. Because our ability to help, say, someone clinging to the side of a cliff, trying desperately not to fall to their death would most likely look like this:

“OK, so, you need to be able to say, ‘Help-I am falling off a cliff!’ Well first, you need to learn how to conjugate the verb ‘to be’. AIIIIIIEEEEEE!” (And then that would be where the rescue team pushed us off the cliff, because frankly, we kind of deserved it.)

But, I digress.

So as a Spanish speaker, mostly I am just asked stuff like, “Hey-say something in Spanish”, or, “What does that mean in English?”

BO-RING.

(Unless, of course, you happen upon a group of graduate students who work for approximately 2 hours a day, leaving the remaining 22 hours to argue with each other over which is the superior branch of study regarding the Spanish language: literature (!), or linguistics (yeah, right). Seriously-you do NOT want to get in the middle of that situation, because, HO, BABY, DO THE CLAWS COME OUT! GRR!)

However, there was one time when I actually felt the power of being bilingual. It happened a few years ago when I was called to jury duty (FOR THE FOURTH TIME IN FOUR YEARS, NOT THAT I AM BITTER OR ANYTHING.)
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Further Proof That Math Is Evil

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As I believe I’ve mentioned here before, last spring I took up knitting in an attempt to entertain myself during my ex-tre-me-ly lengthy (and currently still ongoing) recovery from The Attack Of The Hostile Alien Bacteria. It has also proven to be an excellent distraction during all the times I have wanted to throw myself in front of a bus, given that my contribution to the world over the past year has pretty much consisted of participating in the conversion of oxygen into CO2, limited as I have been, to lying on the couch and breathing.

(A friend of mine who has been dealing with her own chronic health challenge over the past 5 years summed up this situation quite well when she was commiserating with me and was all, “Oh man, I know. It’s like, ‘give me a purpose or gimme a gun!’ “)

Right now I am working on a simple pattern that basically consists of the following three steps:

1. Cast on 108 stitches

2. Knit every stitch for 72 rows.

3. Bind off all stitches.

As far as difficulty level goes, this is pretty much the knitting equivalent of “falling off a log”.

But knitting patterns are not always so easy, or so enjoyable, and this is due to the unfortunate fact (about which I was grievously uninformed ahead of time) that knitting involves copious amounts of math. And math? Is pretty much my mortal enemy.

Now for some people (and here I’m specifically thinking of my mother), this is not a problem.

A while ago my mom inherited some yarn from a knitter who was moving overseas, and when said knitter then became pregnant, my mom decided to use that yarn to make her a baby blanket. The only problem was that her pattern called for 1,000 yards of yarn, but her skein only consisted of 600 yards.

“That’s no problem,” she thought. “It’s just a baby blanket, so I’ll just make it half as big.” (She thinks these kinds of thoughts because she majored in math. We liberal arts majors know better.)

Such was her dedication to this project, and her belief in the power of numbers, that she then performed an extensive series of mathematical computations including (but not limited to) the formula for finding the area of a rectangle, square roots (SQUARE ROOTS!!), rewriting an entirely new chart of the pattern, and something involving multiples of 7. She then took the revised pattern into work to consult with her other knitting friends, and they all agreed that this project was a go, because-AND I QUOTE-“The math was certainly there.”

And of course, that is the exact moment that, despite her meticulous calculations, despite all her years as a math educator, and despite her devotion to the pursuit of higher mathematics as evidenced by the attainment of her Master’s Degree, math laughed manically, spit in her face, and then flipped her the bird.

Can you see where I’m going with this? That’s right. After all that, it didn’t work.

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A Moment Of Truth

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I have spent an awful lot of time in my life trying to reconcile some pretty impossible conflicts.

It all started when I was very young.

I grew up in a religious system which was very fond of emphasizing Just How Bad We All Are. How we are all born into this world as terrible, wretched sinners, and how everything about us is offensive to God and makes God very angry, and how all that we deserve is to be eternally punished by God. But maybe, if we grovel and abase ourselves enough, God will grudgingly agree not to smite us down from the heavens-but only if we agree to remember in every second that we really do deserve the smiting, and never ever dare to think of ourselves as anything better than the sniveling worms we truly are.

(I know that I tend to exaggerate a lot in the interests of humor, but I’m actually not exaggerating this. See: Why I No Longer Participate In Organized Religion)

And at the same time that I was under constant bombardment by this dogma, I was also being told that I was supposed to love God, and do everything for God, and want to spend all of my time with God.

Um, I don’t think so.

It never made sense to me, why I should want to have anything to do with a being that was reported to hate me so much, but because I wanted to be A Good Girl, and I wanted people to like me and approve of me, and I certainly wanted God to like and approve of me, I did my best to follow this convoluted system, which pretty much boiled down to agreeing to lose my mind.

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The War On Inappropriate Poo

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Welcome to what life in the Ryan household has been like for the last ten months. Because, despite having what is quite possibly the world’s most expensive litter box, Tigger’s preferred venue has continued to be the guest bathroom tub, which is located RIGHT NEXT TO the world’s most expensive litter box. Just to make sure we get the message.

This war has been marked by various, distinct stages, starting with

Phase One: Denial

This phase was characterized by the excessive use of phrases like, “Well, it could be worse,” and, “At least it’s easy to clean up,” and “Well, if we take this spot away from him, then he’ll just go somewhere else,” along with a sharp decline in outside visitors, so as to better hide the shame of our dirty little secret, plus enabling us to continue laboring under the delusion that everything was just fine, if a little smelly.

Phase Two: We Start To Get Really Pissed Off

Characterized by: Big talk that went nowhere.

Phase Three: Where We Think We Are So Smart

Characterized By: Long strips of blue painter’s tape strung horizontally across the opening to the tub.

Secret Weapon: The tape was placed sticky side out.

Success: Lasted 24 hours, until the need to poo in the tub outweighed Tigger’s fear of the sticky.

Phase Four: Where We Think We Have Plugged The Hole In The Previous System

Characterized By: Strips of tape strung vertically on top of the tape strung horizontally.

Success: See Phase Three results.

Phase Five: Where We Are Losing The Battles, As Well As The War

Characterized By: the inability to believe that, despite our combined eleven years of post-secondary education, we continue to be outsmarted by a f^$@ing cat, as well as the inability to find a baby gate that could meet our tub-protecting needs.

Phase Six: Where We Regroup

Characterized By: Lots and lots of swearing.

Phase Seven: Armageddon

tub

Why I Should Probably Not Be Invited To Your Next Party

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These days when I’m not on Facebook, I’m over on Ravelry.com, “a knit and crochet community”, seeing as how knitting is my new obsession dearest love.

The other day as I was perusing the message boards I came upon a thread asking the intriguing question, “Has anyone knit the Clapotis?”

Naturally every time I saw this, the only thing I could think was, “That sounds like an extremely painful STD.”

Which was fine to think, but then an important gateway guarding the flow of action between my brain and my fingers broke down, and I actually wrote that on the message board.

(Important Side Note: For which I totally blame the Prednisone. Or actually, the fact that I’m slowly getting off of it. And my system is punishing me for taking away its PRE-SSSHHHUUUSSS!!, because without it I am Cranky McBitchyPants, but as soon as I take my ever-decreasing dose I am In Love With The Entire World. Well, except for the part that projectile-vomits all over the hallway and then wants to sit in my lap. That part’s a little hard to take no matter what I’m on.)

And let me tell you something. Apparently, The Clapotis? Is no laughing matter. Because except for explaining exactly what a Clapotis is (“a wide scarf/small shawl knitted on the bias with columns of dropped stitches that make waves on the purl side of the fabric”, in case you were wondering), no one has written anything else on this thread. And not only that-I’ve managed to shut down communication on the entire board.

Apparently I need to be a little more careful the next time I Use My Powers.

I Am Drunk On My Own Power, Mwa ha ha ha ha!

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A few years ago I was a teacher at a small, religious school.

Fortunately for me, the head of the school was unshakably convinced of my secret identity as The Spawn Of The Devil, or else it would’ve been really easy for me to get the big head.

Because what I didn’t know, having no children of my own, is that kids? Are really easily impressed.

For example, one day I was teaching my third graders, and while I was talking to them I was writing on the board without looking at what my hand was doing!

And dude, once I revealed my magical super hero power of Doing Two Different Things At The Same Time, I totally owned the third grade.

So it’s lucky that I live with three cats, cats who are totally shameless and amoral, cats who condescendingly tolerate our presence in their home because we are the only two beings with opposable thumbs who can open the tub of cat food, cats who pee on every single square inch of the bathroom floor EXCEPT the very expensive, state-of-the-art, self-cleaning litter box we purchased especially for them, because it helps keep me humble and grounded.

And I need that kind of real life reality check to balance out days like yesterday, where I once again used my Magical Superhero Powers Of Awesomeness to outwit The 12-Year-Old Boy Who Is Laboring Heavily Under The Delusion That He Can Totally Play Me.

We were once again forced to confront his evil nemesis-Spanish vocabulary words, and once again he decided that the session would yield much better results for him if he could trick me into telling him the answers, rather than looking the words up himself.

We’ve been on the same chapter with the same vocabulary words for an entire month. We’ve had tests and quizzes and homework assignments on all the words related to clothing, and yesterday he still did not know the Spanish word for “clothes” (did I mention that it’s been a month?!), a fact which did not at all make me feel like a failure as a Spanish tutor, or heavily tempt me to become A Person Who Drinks.

So of course, I told him to look it up in the dictionary, and of course he used his super-keen spidey senses to hone in on my super hero weakness by saying, “Why-don’t you know the answer?” (accompanied by a disgusted head shake and heavy exhale) “Yeah, I bet you don’t even know the answer.”

Right.

Do you have any idea how hard it was not to smite him with the razor-sharp edge of my sarcasm? Really. f*&#ing. hard.

But I’m happy to say that I was able to restrain myself, and instead decided to use my powers for good, limiting myself only to saying, “That doesn’t work on girls.”

He was quite surprised to be let in on that little secret of the universe, telling me that, “If I’d said that to a guy, he would’ve told me the answer.”

Well, little one, welcome to my world.

Not Quite The Kind Of Publicity I Was Looking For

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Yesterday I received the following email from a friend of mine who has published some of my essays on her website:

“Jenny

was just looking at my stats..and THIS was one of the keywords used to find something on my site: “jenny ryan naked”

oh PULEEZ tell me that you have an essay up that includes your name and the word naked!! lol

otherwise..well…I don’t know…you’re young and adorable and all..but if you’re posing naked all over the internet I’m gonna be wondering…”

So here I am once again, using my powers for good by inadvertently scarring the imaginations of all my friends.

(Incidentally, I believe this particular keyword phrase was a result of this essay I wrote last year.)

Seeking New Bloggers? Look No Further

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It’s time for a little catching up here in the land of Using Our Powers For Good. Due to my recent journey through the dark places of the soul I’ve gotten a little behind on things I was tagged for. So here they all are in one fell swoop.

1. Recently I was flattered to become part of Priscilla Palmer’s Personal Development List, which you can read about here

My additions:

Debra at 28 Years Later.I visit Debra’s site every day because there is always something uplifting there-a photograph, a quote, a meditative insight on life-that gives me a boost and makes me feel good.

Laura Howard West at Cafe Entrepreneur. Laura was the very first Life Coach I ever worked with, and it was she who introduced me to the idea that life could actually be fun (gasp!) She does a lot of work on how to align yourself with joy in all the different areas in your life, especially in your business and your work.

Karen at Square Peg People. I met Karen at a retreat for Marney K. Makridakis’ magazine and art community, Artella. She is one of the coolest people I know, and does amazing work helping those of us who are most definitely Square Peg People in a Round Hole World.

And speaking of Marney, it was thanks to meeting her and getting involved with her and all the juicy goodness that is Artella that I finally unpacked my writing dreams that had been squished down and buried for about a decade or so.

Lianne at Dropping Stitches. I just recently discovered Lianne and I’m so glad I did. She is currently reading Wayne Dyer’s new book on the Tao Te Ching and I am enjoying tagging along with her on this journey.

2. A while ago my awesome friend Mert awarded me the honor of being a Rockin’ Girl Blogger.


Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

And now I get to share this award with some of my favorite Rockin’ Girl Bloggers, such as:

Jessica at Oh The Joys, who was finally able to make her Park Ranger dream come true.

Maggie at Mighty Maggie, who is 4 months into a new baby and continues to rock the humor with her hilarious posts.

Baggage at Baggage and Bug, foster mom and Rockin’ Girl extraordinaire.

Crse at at Zamphir Panflutemaster, whose awesome take on life frequently makes me snort with laughter.

Lynne at Musings From The Edge, coach, mentor, friend, and all-around Bad-Ass Babe.

3. I recently signed up for the newest trend sweeping the blogosphere; namely, Blog Rush.

This blog has some helpful posts explaining some of the ins-and-outs. I like it because it is an easy way to be introduced to new blogs and bloggers, as well as being a pretty easy way to drive traffic to your own blog. Plus I always like to add cool new widgets to my site to increase my Nerd Points 😛

Yet Another Year Of Using My Powers For Good

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Amazingly enough, today is this blog’s second birthday-Yay!

I really wish I had something witty, articulate, humorous, and lightly insightful to write here. Instead, I had The World’s Most Painful Leg Cramp Ever.

Apparently it took getting so run down and dehydrated that there was not enough moisture in my body to keep it running without my muscles seizing up into painful knots at 5 o’clock in the morning for me to realize that, “Hm, I seem to be running on empty here.”

In The Artists Way Julia Cameron talks about going on artist’s dates with yourself in order to keep your creative well filled. As I sat down to list all the things I’ve done since I marked my previous blog-a-versary and the list got to be six pages with still no end in sight, I realized that I’ve perhaps let my well run a little bit dry.

And so I’ve decided to give myself a little vacation from blogging. Not like I usually do, where I can’t think of anything to write and don’t post for a week, all the while worrying and obsessing about the fact that I’m not writing. No, this time I’m taking a vacation in my mind. I’m giving myself permission not to think about my blog for the rest of this week. I’m gonna take a little time to refill my well.

So thank you all so much for sticking with me for the past two years. Here’s to many more “entertaining stories from everyday life.”

I’ll see ya when I get back.