Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

He Who Laughs Last…

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

…gives me a headache.

Usually I am pretty good at getting in the last word. Words are what I was trained in, and now words are my business. But yesterday I met my match.

I was working with a tutoring client and trying to elicit some information from him in a process which, incidentally, has given me entirely new insights into the phrase, “squeezing blood from a stone.”

I asked him if he was this difficult in all of his conversations with others, and he said that he liked to present people with a challenge.

Me: “Well, that’s just like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I love a good challenge.”
Him: “Yes, but then it’s just like in the cartoons when I pull the flag away, and there’s an anvil there instead.”

He won.

Beauty or the Crone?

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I had an interesting experience the other day, and I can’t decide whether it makes me feel old or young.

Last week I had to go to the dentist for my 6-month cleaning and checkup. There are very few things that cause me greater discomfort than getting my teeth cleaned. (Pretty much all that’s coming to mind right now is anything involving snakes and creatures that sting.) You know that feeling you can get if someone scrapes their fingernails down a chalkboard? That is exactly how I feel when they are scraping my teeth. (Interestingly enough, I also get that feeling whenever I have to touch any kind of fabric with a nap-velvet, silk, suede, velour, etc. But I digress).

So as I was sitting in the chair, enduring, my dental hygienist said, “Today is my anniversary.” Always ready to celebrate longevity in marriage, and always ready to put off more teeth scraping, I was about to ask her how long she’d been married when she said, “Thirty-three years ago today I came to work here.”

Now, leaving aside for the moment the question of why anyone would want to choose a career that involved dealing with people’s insides, much less stay in that same career for thirty-three years, here was my quandary: next month I will be turning thirty-three years old, and so,  as I told her, “You came to work here the same year that I was born.” So, should this fact make me feel really old, or really young?

It certainly made her feel old, and while that wasn’t my intention, it was a nice role reversal from the conversations I usually have with my new tutoring clients.

Me: “So, what year were you born?”
Tutoring Client: “1990.” (and sometimes even later than that).
Me: “Hm. That’s the year I graduated from high school.”
Me: “Wow, I’m old.”
Tutoring Client: (silently, to themselves) Wow! You’re old!

And what I want to know is, just how did this happen?! I became an adult in the 1990’s, and the ’90’s were on the leading edge of everything. We were the ones with advanced technology. We were the ones with advanced degrees. We were the ones who elected the president who would take us into the 21st century. We were on the cusp of everything.

And now the cusp has passed me by, and it is time for my 15-year high school reunion.

So now as I sit in the suburbs, writing the check to pay the mortgage, listening to the music of the 80’s and 90’s being referred to as “oldies” or “classics”, watching shows like “Veronica Mars” satirize every single aspect of my high school experience, and seeing my tutoring students show up in their flip-flops, and their pants with the waistband down at their knees, and their backwards-turned tennis visors, and their attitude of complete self-assured coolness, I hold onto this hope: one day, someone will be laughing at them, too. Possibly even today, if I have anything to say about it.

You Might Be A Crazy Cat Lady If…

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…you “seed” your screened-in porch with pine cones and sweet gumballs from your front yard in order to give your three indoor cats “treasures” to discover.

…you actually consider the possibility of buying special pet stairs so that your cats are able to jump up on top of the really tall filing cabinet.

…it’s 2 a.m., and the cats have taken over all of your pillow and most of your side of the bed. But instead of kicking them out you go and sleep on the couch, because you don’t want to disturb them.

True Confessions

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Each year as fall rolls around I find myself becoming very quiet and reflective. I think it’s a combination of the beginning of a new school year, as well as the fact that my birthday occurs in the fall. These two events seem to invite reflection on the past year, as well as a sort of mental de-cluttering in preparation for the year to come.

My coach told me something this week that rang very true for me. She said that our 20’s are all about accumulating mental and emotional baggage, and our 30’s are all about going through our bags and deciding what to throw away, and what to keep. I realized as I was “lightening my load”, that I have been spending a great deal of energy trying to pretend that certain things about myself were not true, when this energy really could be better used elsewhere. So in hopes that “the truth really shall set me free”, I offer here the following naked truths about me.

1. I have lived in either Virginia, North Carolina, or Georgia for my whole life and I do not like iced tea.

2. If I order Coke in a restaurant it is not OK if you bring me Pepsi instead.

3. I am 32 years old, and if I don’t want to sleep outside in a tent, then by golly I don’t have to.

4. There is a chance that I might be a crazy cat lady.

5. Despite all the advances in technology, nothing will ever impress or entertain me more than Ms. Pac Man.

6. My husband is a way better cook than I will ever be, and that’s actually a relief.

7. The very first thing I do whenever I get a new book or magazine is to smell it, even if I’m out in public or around other people; I just can’t help it.

8. Pantyhose are evil and you cannot, under any circumstances, make me wear them, so don’t even try.

9. My mother is a math teacher, my father is a CPA, my brother is a chemist, and I cannot do simple arithmetic without using my fingers.

10. Deep down in my soul I don’t actually believe it’s possible for planes to fly.

OK, you can uncover your eyes now; the scary part’s over. And now that the truth is out there, here’s to a great new year.

Spiral Bound

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Much as our nation utilizes the various DEFCON levels to alert us to potential external threats, I myself have a finely tuned system of personal alerts which let me know when my internal systems are getting a little out of whack. I’ve pretty much passed through all of them over this last week, so they are fresh in my mind to share with you here.

Level 5: It’s All Good

Level 4: Lack of Interest in Food
This can also show up as Only Eating One Thing, like butter sandwiches, for days on end.

Level 3: Lack of Interest in Reading

Level 2: Lack of Interest in Cleaning
This is also frequently accompanied by Never Changing Out Of My Pajamas, as well as An Extremely Sharp Decline In Personal Hygiene.

Level 1: Spirals Of Doom

By the time I hit Level 1 I’m spending most of my time on the couch, partly because I lack the energy to go anywhere else, and partly because I believe that the couch has natural, inherent healing qualities. As a matter of fact, when we had the opportunity to get a new couch a couple of years ago I didn’t want to. As I told my husband, “The couch we have now has Magical Healing Powers, but if we get a new couch, then that one might not.” If I never knew that my husband loved me before I certainly did then, because not only did he NOT laugh, he said, “We’ll make sure we get one that does.”

While I’m stuck on the couch I generally pass the time by watching the process my mind goes through where, seeing that I’m feeling bad, it attempts to create a really depressing story in order to make me feel even worse. Here is an example of one of my recent “Spirals of Doom”.

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I have been experiencing some difficulties with migraines this summer (and of course, “difficulties” is a euphemism for “searing pain up and down the entire right side of my head, neck, and shoulder, accompanied by razor blades in my stomach off and on for three months”.) So one evening as I dragged myself off the couch to take yet another pain pill, I happened to look in the mirror and notice that my eyes were really red and irritated. My mind took in that data, processed it, and came up with the following story:

“Well, here I am having to take medicine AGAIN for this horrible migraine, which will never go away no matter what I do, which means that I will be sick and miserable for the rest of my life. I will never ever feel well again. I’ll just be an invalid, miserable and in pain forever, a drain on my family and friends because I will never be well enough to be productive or contribute ever again. And, the fact that I keep having to take all of this medicine is raising my blood pressure, and I just know that soon the pressure will become too much and my head will explode, and my eyes will pop out, causing all of my insides to ooze out everywhere, making me gross, disgusting, and repulsive, and this will cause everyone I love to cast me out because I am too hideous to be around, and so I will end up homeless, penniless, and wretched, to die on the streets alone.” And in that moment, I totally believed that every single piece of this was absolutely true.

The good news is that I know myself well enough now to know that this is part of a whole process that I go through, and eventually I do come out again on the other side. So these days when it is going on I am able to keep a tiny part of my brain detached, as an observer, to kind of monitor things and remind me that, “this too shall pass”.

This is the part of me that takes notes and gathers materials from all of my experiences, and is considering putting out a “Greatest Hits” collection of my most popular spirals. This collection would include such popular favorites as, “Everything Is Just An Illusion, So Nothing I Do Matters”, “We’re All Going To Die One Day Anyway, So What Is The Point Of Doing Anything?”, and “No Matter What I Do I Just Can’t Fix This, And I’ll Never Be Able To, So I Am Going To End Up Poverty-Stricken And Alone, And Then I Will Die.”

Then again, maybe I’ll just fix myself another butter sandwich, and go stretch out on the couch for a while.

Family Highs

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The blog has been a little quiet lately due to my being on vacation, part of which involved attending a family reunion for my mom’s side of the family. And while I picked up various random bits of information on my travels, such as the fact that there are people who apparently feel that it is totally appropriate to have long, involved, personal conversations on their cell phones while using a public restroom, no matter how much that may creep out the other people also using the facilities, I wanted to share the insights I received while I was interacting with my family.

1. Men and women are so different that sometimes it’s amazing that they are ever able to find enough common ground to have a conversation, much less get married, have a family, share a life together, etc.

Sometimes these differences really come in handy and allow men and women to work together as an efficient team, like when the women of my family were able to clean house and prepare party food their way while the men gathered digital cameras, memory sticks, flash drives, and laptops and were able to provide each family with a complete set of all pictures taken over the entire weekend.

But then there are The Other Times.

Just to provide a little background, the reason for this family reunion was to celebrate my uncle’s retirement after 26 years of service to our country, and his transition into civilian life. So one of the highlights of this weekend was an official ceremony that involved uniforms, sabers, salutes, “piping ashore”, reading of orders, awarding of medals, and the celebration of an illustrious and distinguished career.

So of course it was only natural that in the middle of all of this pomp and circumstance that we women were moved to go out into the foyer in order to better to be able to try on each other’s shoes.

2. When entering a group of mixed genders and mixed ages, people will group together according to which Bodily Ailment they are currently experiencing.

I was instantly alerted that this portion of the weekend had begun when I heard my mom ask her sisters the following question: “So, have you gotten to the stage yet where you can’t get cool enough?”

Like a deer alerted to the presence of humans I immediately wanted to flee. But I was in the middle of making my sandwich, so I was stuck in the kitchen until I was finished. I worked as fast as I could but not fast enough to miss comments like, “I have reached the stage where I have to be careful when I cough, sneeze or laugh”, and before I knew it, with absolutely No Warning Whatsoever, we had zoomed right through sleep apnea and had landed smack in the middle of colonoscopies.

3. Nothing beats a good plan.

As anyone with a family knows, there is always a little element of uncertainty and potential for chaos when you gather a large group of people who are all related to one another in a small space. So in order to prepare for this time my plan was to spend a week at the beach beforehand with my husband.

That was a fabulous plan, and it worked great. However, unbeknownst to me my body decided to come up with its own Surprise Emergency Backup Plan, which it would enact whenever it felt like things might be getting to be too much for me to handle. This plan involved keeping a constant, low-level migraine in place at the base of my skull at all times, ready to burst into full-blown status at any moment. Since I was coming from a week of near-comatose levels of relaxation into a weekend of near-constant interaction with 12 other relatives, this plan felt the need to deploy itself A Lot, without actually consulting me first to see what I thought.

On the plus side, being under the influence of powerful migraine medications did help me fit right in with the people whose plan involved liberal applications of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and tropical pink drinks featuring coconut rum. I can only imagine what this plan might have involved had all 25 of us been there together. Probably some sort of spontaneous internal combustion, followed by an extensive period of unconsciousness.

4. No matter what, my family loves me (even when they know I will be writing about them in my blog).

Thanks guys! Love you! Jen

Jenny’s Second Law of Feline Dynamics

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I found this “official” definition of entropy on a physics website the other day: “Entropy is the measure of the disorder or randomness of energy and matter in a system. Both energy and matter in the Universe are becoming less useful [and farther away from perfect order] as time goes on.”

Here’s what entropy looks like if you live with cats.

Entropy: A Layman’s Definition-“The perfect order you create in your home to welcome weekend guests will immediately begin to increase in randomness and disorder as you are forced to deal with one cat who poos in the tub, one cat who throws up on the kitchen table, and one cat who runs through the house brandishing what looks like a lizard’s tail, all before 11:30 in the morning.”

Ms. Direction

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One of the things that impresses me the most about my husband is the fact that no matter where we go, even if it’s a place he’s never been to before, it takes him all of about five seconds to figure out exactly where he is, and then, exactly how to get to where he wants to go next. As a matter of fact, if you watch very carefully as we arrive in a new location, you can actually see a 3-D holographic image of the city lift up off of the ground, hover briefly in the air , and then settle right down onto his brain.

My dad and my brother are exactly the same way, so I always know that if I am ever out with any one of these three men I am always OK. (I also know that I don’t actually have to pay attention to pesky little details like street names, street signs, the name of the actual city or country in which we are currently located, etc. because they will take care of all of that for me.) Plus, if the three of them are all together then it is like their navigational powers are amplified, so not only do we get where we’re going more quickly and more efficiently, but we also always have a parking spot waiting for us right by the door.

In contrast, I myself am never entirely sure of where I am in any given moment, and if you ask me how to get from one place to another there’s a very good chance that at least part of my answer is going to involve the phrase “by magic”. My husband has learned in giving me directions to avoid such tricky technical terms as “north” or “east”, and instead to stick to simple instructions like, “turn left by the big chicken”.

Unfortunately, this lack of navigational ability only increases if my mom and I take a trip by ourselves. Last fall she and I drove together to another state to stay with a relative who was ill. Every. Single. Day. we had the exact same conversation: “Do we turn left out of the hotel parking lot, or do we turn right?”  Every. Day. Not only did we not have a virtual map in our minds, nor could we remember from one day to the next in which direction we needed to turn, but it also never once occurred to us to write down the correct answer at the moment in which this decision occurred so that we would have that Critically Important Information to refer to the next time we needed it.

This Vortex of Spatial Dislocation only intensified the night that she, I, and another relative had to go to the grocery store by ourselves all by ourselves in this town which was not our own. (And I don’t mean to perpetuate unfortunate gender stereotypes here, but this particular relative was also of the female persuasion.) The three of us got in the car, set off on the very same road ON WHICH WE HAD  JUST DRIVEN on our way back from the hospital mere moments earlier, and , you guessed it, turned the wrong way. And it took the three of us AT LEAST ten minutes to recognize this fact.

The good news is that we all did survive this trip and somehow managed to get back home, and I discovered that if I really, really HAVE to I can reach down and tap into hitherto undiscovered navigational abilities. But if it has to come to that, be warned: we will definitely be taking the scenic (read: WRONG) route.

A Little Learnin’

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Today was the first day of school for many kids here, so I guess the summer is “officially” over. However, lest you think education only occurs when school is in session, I wanted to pass along two very important lessons that I’ve learned this summer. First, in no way are contact lenses washer/dryer safe, and second, liquid soap cannot, in fact, be used as a substitute for dishwasher detergent.

Free At Last

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I think one of my favorite things about being in my thirties is the fact that I no longer feel like I have to pretend about who I really am (or am not) in order to get people to like me. This was not always the case.

Back during our first year of marriage my husband, who is himself an Eagle Scout, worked as a volunteer with a Boy Scout troop and I, caught up in the flush of wanting to impress my new husband, agreed to go along on one of his troop’s camping trips.

Important Side Note: If you have never been camping before, I would HIGHLY recommend that your first trip not be with a troop of scouts, because any points you feel you have gained by being “a really cool wife” will quickly fade when you realize that, compared to everyone else on the trip including elementary school students, trail dogs, etc., you feel like a giant, incompetent wuss.

I really should have known that I was in over my head when my husband and I went to the outdoor store to buy me some gear. We did not go there to buy a cool backpack, or a kicky bandanna, or a nifty trail tool. No,we went so that I could buy my very own, neon orange, plastic poo shovel.

Things kind of took a turn for the worse once we had hiked up the trail to the spot where we were going to camp that night. We had foolishly drunk all the water we’d packed, so my husband went down to the river, filled our two plastic bottles with water, ran some iodine through the bottles, and handed one to me. I looked at the bottle, looked at him, and said, “It’s brown, And. There. Are. Bugs. In. It!” He looked at me and said, (and please bear in mind that he had only been a husband for a little under a year and hadn’t yet developed the sensitivity that he has now after nine years of marriage), “Well, the bugs are dead. And we have this lemonade mix to add to it!”

Even now, eight years later, I can’t think of this story without experiencing total incredulity at his response.  And even now, eight years later, my husband insists that we would not have even had this problem, if only he had packed a darker colored drink mix.

Happily I did recover enough from this trip to start going out on day hikes with my husband and our friends. As a matter of fact I was pretty impressed with myself on our last trip, because not only was I wearing my very own pair of official hiking boots, but they were so well used that we had to patch them together with duct tape.

(Yes of course we had duct tape-I was hiking with three engineers! As a matter of fact, the only reason that I didn’t have to sleep suspended in between two trees in some kind of jury-rigged duct tape shelter was the fact that the other spouse who came on this trip was five months pregnant.)

However, there are still some hurdles to overcome before I can consider going on another camping trip, as is clearly illustrated by the following conversation I had with my husband the last time he went camping.

10:00 pm. The phone rings.
Me: “Hello?”
My husband: “Hey, Jenny. I need your help.”
Me: (panicking at all the possible emergencies that could befall campers, and wondering just exactly where I can rent an emergency extraction helicopter at 10 pm on a Saturday night) “Oh my gosh, are you all right?!”
My husband: “What? Oh, yeah, we’re fine. I just need you to get the Almanac so you can tell us the geographical size of Liechtenstein in square miles.”

Silly me-what was I thinking?! These were highly trained, highly capable, highly intelligent men. Clearly the only emergency situation in which they could possibly have found themselves would be to be without immediate access to the geographical data of tiny, landlocked, central European countries.

So anyway, the jury is still out on the whole camping thing, but between you and me I wouldn’t hold my breath.