An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox. ~ Lao Tzu
The Beginning Of My Torrid Love Affair With The Blackberry
(Originally published February 17, 2006)
I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there just are not words to describe just how much I love my Black Berry.
I bought my Black Berry last year as a birthday gift to myself, and I have enjoyed it so much over the past year that sometimes it causes me to spontaneously burst out into verse:
“I think that I shall never see/a poem as lovely as my Black Berry.”
or song:
“Oh Black Berry, Oh Black Berry, how lovely is thy keypad.”
My Black Berry is like a tiny, tangible talisman of love. Whenever I hear it vibrating away as it receives some email I think, “Hooray! Someone wants to talk to me!
Of course to hear my husband describe it, my Black Berry love is less adoration and more addiction, but what does he know? Sure I like to have it near me at all times so as to instantly be able to access my emails, even to the point of keeping it right here on my desk with me as I work on my computer. And yeah, so maybe I did ask my husband to drive me down the mountain on which my in-laws’ house is located on Christmas Day so as to be able to receive a signal, despite the fact that they have wireless Internet connection at their house and I could technically do whatever I wanted or needed to do on my laptop. And yes, perhaps there have been times when I’ve awoken in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and have been seized with the uncontrollable urge to check my email despite the fact that I don’t actually know anyone who emails me important information at 3 am.
And don’t even get me started on Instant Messaging and Text Messaging! (Oops! Please excuse me for a moment while I wipe the drool off of my computer screen.)
But anyway, the point of all of this is that now I can stay in constant communication with all the people I like without actually having to speak with them on the phone. Because, and this has been a deep, dark secret of mine for a LONG time, I am a “phonophobiac”. Yes, that’s right. I am afraid of calling people on the phone.
For a long time I was even terrified of having to place my fast food order into those speaker boxes they have in the drive-through line. But I was soon cured of that because, let’s face it, what doesn‘t an order of McDonald’s French fries cure?
If you’re reading this and thinking, “What?!”, don’t worry. You’re not alone. I’ve only met one other person who understands this fear of mine. Everyone else just looks at me as if I’ve just said something like, “You know, I’ve found that having to breathe in and out on a regular basis is really just too much for me to deal with.”
I recently tried to explain this to my family, but they just gave me The Look. You know, the one that says, “I hear the words you’re saying, but they’re…just…not…making…any…sense.” (Incidentally, this is a look that I am VERY familiar with, as I frequently see this same expression on the faces of my tutoring students.)
“So,” ventured my dad slowly, struggling to understand what I was saying, “is it getting any better?”
“No,” I sighed, rolling my eyes so hard that I temporarily severed important connections to my brain, “the whole point is that I finally realize that I don’t have to get better. It is OK for me to be this way. I am finally coming out as a phonophobiac!”
“So, you’re embracing it,” offered my brother, who is himself a Professional in The Art Of Being Unreachable By Phone.
“Ex-actly!”
And all was well for the next hour or so, until I heard my mother calling up the stairs for me to pick up the phone so I could talk to not one, not two, but THREE people on the phone ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
So you’d better believe that the gods of irony are going to be hearing from me about this, just as soon as I figure out how to reach them electronically. Um, does anyone know how to IM the Universe?
Wherein I Need To Have A Little “Come to Jesus” Meeting With Myself
Me: in my office, looking at all the piles and supplies and baskets, etc. that are surrounding me. And even though it’s almost all fun, creative stuff, I am completely and totally overwhelmed. And planning how I can build a fort underneath my desk.
Me: whimpering softly. “Help.”
POOF!
Suddenly, floating right in front of me is a tiny little woman.
TLW: “You called?”
Me: “Uh, who are you?”
TLW: ” You asked for help. I’m here to help you.”
Me: “Like a fairy godmother?”
TLW: “Sort of. But you don’t need a fairy godmother. What you need is a, ‘Hey-chill the f*** out!’-mother.”
Me: Blinks.
Me: Extremely concerned as I survey all of her paraphernalia.
Me: “Is that a vuvuzela?!”
CTFO-M: “Yeah. But don’t worry. It’s a last resort. That’s only for the times when I REALLY need to get your attention because you’re completely ignoring me. To start out with I just use this.”
CTFO-M: Whips out something vaguely stick-like in appearance.
Me: “Is that your magic wand?”
CTFO-M: “Sort of. It’s actually more of an Awareness Rod.”
Me: (under my breath) “Crap.”
CTFO-M: Grins.
Me: “OK, so what do I do now?”
CTFO-M: Surveys the damage, shaking her head and muttering under her breath.
Me: (cringing) “That bad, huh?”
CTFO-M: “I just have one question for you.”
Me: “OK.”
CTFO-M: “What the hell are you trying to do to yourself, woman?!”
Me: “Huh?”
CTFO-M: “What was your pain level when you woke up this morning?”
Me: “Um,” (quickly considering and then discarding the possibility of lying). “13?”
CTFO-M: raps me sharply on the head with her Rod.
Me: “Ow!”
CTFO-M: Grimly, with lips tightly pressed together.
CTFO-M: “We’ll talk more about this later. But first we just need to do some damage control and stop the out-of-control, falling down the rabbit hole spinning that currently has charge of you.”
Me: “So what does that mean, exactly?”
CTFO-M: “It means, put every single paper, writing utensil, highlighter, post-it note, list, basket, cubicle, EVERYTHING on your big table. And then walk away. And then go and immediately slather on some “Losing It” Aardvark Potion, and listen to Shannon’s corresponding audio about ‘Losing Overwhelm.’ Right. Now.”
Me: scurrying off to obey.
****
[Read more…] about Wherein I Need To Have A Little “Come to Jesus” Meeting With Myself
Wow
From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Jenny “The Cranky One” Ryan
(originally published December 7, 2005)
It Really, Really Is The Little Things
My younger brother just recently got engaged (yay!), and as his older sister I am really feeling like I need to pass along to him the wisdom I’ve gained from being married for almost 10 years.
I could share with him that I’ve learned to ask myself this very important question during tense marital moments: “Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?”
I could emphasize that fact that it is a really bad idea to come up behind your spouse when they are engaged in performing a chore that you do not want to do, look over their shoulder, and then say, “Hm, that‘s how you’re doing it?”
But I think the most important thing I could tell him is that, sure, premarital counseling may cover things like money, children, and in-laws, but what it doesn’t tell you is this: it really, really is the little, everyday things that have the potential to trip you up in a marriage.
For example, I remember that when we were moving into our first apartment it was VITALLY important to me that I get to arrange the silverware drawer in the order to which I was accustomed (fork, then knife, then spoon). My husband really could not have cared less about that, but he wisely took advantage of that moment to negotiate some household point for himself, which I can’t actually recall at this moment, but which I’m sure was EQUALLY as important as my silverware thing.
But no one ever talks about that kind of stuff.
Nor do they talk about what to do if, one day when he happens to be in a bad mood, your husband goes off on a rant about how nobody (translation: “you”) ever puts the new rolls of toilet paper on the actual toilet paper holder, but how everyone (again, meaning “you”) just leave them sitting there on top of it. So then for the next few years you obsessively RUN to “correctly” replace the toilet paper every time a roll runs out, until one day you notice that the person who was totally freaking out about this situation earlier is doing The Exact Same Thing that caused his freaking out to begin with, so you finally work up the courage to mention this little inconsistency to him, and he has no recollection whatsoever of that particular conversation and tells you that you need to not take things so seriously. And then you have to kill him.
Hm. On second thought, maybe I’ll just let them discover all these fun little marital treasures for themselves.
Another Oldie, AND Goodie
“Random Access Memory” (first published October 30, 2005)
I’ve been very conscious of my mind lately, as I have been making a concerted effort to quiet down the mental chatter that is frequently taking place in my head. So this weekend after much breathing, visualizing, and cognitive retraining I was able to connect with a place of intense inner stillness and quietness.
And what did I encounter in this amazing place of clarity? A deep insight into the mystery of life? A powerful connection with the Divine? Actually, yes. But in the middle of those incredible experiences, somehow there was also still room for the following thought:
“Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a Tootsie Roll to me.”
So what that says to me is that apparently, I will never truly understand how the mind works, no matter how much I may study it.
For example, why is it that I often have trouble remembering simple things like my age and my phone number, yet I can recall almost the entire sign language alphabet which I learned in 1977 when I was in kindergarten?
And it’s not just my mind I don’t understand, either.
This weekend my husband and I were visiting some friends, one of whom was telling us about her brother’s recent wedding. She began by describing how her brother called her on a Thursday to tell her that he was getting married that following Monday. So she and her mother decided to fly out and help with the preparations. After running around all weekend they finally made it to the day of the wedding, and she and her mom were with the bride-to-be as she was getting her hair done for the ceremony.
Our friend: “So, she finally found someone to do her hair. He was a little person. You know, that’s what you’re supposed to call midgets now.”
Us: “Huh. That’s different.”
Our friend: “Yeah, so as he was doing her hair and riding around on his scooter…”
Us: (interrupting with snorts of laughter)
Us: “What?! He was riding a scooter?!”
Our Friend: “Well, yeah, because he couldn’t walk. So, anyway, I had to be his assistant and hand him his tools because his partner had to go out.”
Us: (the snorts have become shouts now)
Us: “What?! He was a gay midget hairdresser?”
Our Friend: “Yeah. But his partner isn’t a midget. He’s a regular-sized person.”
At this point further conversation became impossible, because my husband was laughing so hard that he was crying, and I was laughing so hard that I fell off of their couch and onto their living room floor.
But believe it or not, that was not the funniest part of this story. The funniest part was the fact that our friend told us this story with absolutely no reaction whatsoever. She. Never. Laughed. Once. And she honestly did not understand why we were in hysterics. She told the story in a tone of voice that suggested that gay, scooter-riding, hair-dressing midgets are a time-honored, traditional part of everyone’s nuptial experience.
I don’t really have anything more to add to this story, which I truly believe was a gift from the humor heavens. So to close, I will share with you the additional mental gem I received during my weekend of quiet contemplation:
“Pass, pass, pass, pass the Old El Paso.”
So I Really Hate To Be Like Summer TV
…but I am fresh out of inspiration for The Funny this week. So instead, I’m going to rerun a favorite post of mine from back when I first started this blog. Hope you like it.
“Free At Last” (originally published on 7/31/05
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.
Ask Cranky Fibro Girl Anything
So lately Cranky Fibro Girl has been getting really tired of hanging around me, what with all my, “OMG, I HATE SUMMER!”, and “Dear God: Is July Over Yet?…What About Now?….Now?”
So she has declared the we are going to Do A Thing, because frankly, she is r-e-a-l-l-y bored of listening to all of that.
And so, Cranky Fibro Girl and I are proud to announce the first ever,
“Ask Cranky Fibro Girl Anything”
Live Twitter Chat
Friday, July 30, 2010
10am-12pm EASTERN
All this week I will be collecting questions from you, my fabulous readers, about, well, anything. Chronic pain and illness. Cats. TV. Being a smart ass. Whatever you can think of. I can’t promise that I’ll be able to answer all of them, but I will do my very best.
When you think of something you’d like to ask me, there are a number of ways to get your question to me:
1. Email it to cfg@crankyfibrogirl.com
2. Leave it in a comment at the end of this post.
3. DM me or @reply me on Twitter.
Then beginning at 10am EST on Friday, I will be hanging out on Twitter where I will be answering these questions, plus any questions that people come up with in the moment. The hash tag for our chat will be #cfgirl
Not on Twitter, and don’t want to be? No worries. I will be taking all of these questions and answers and turning them into a post (or posts), so you will be able to see everything we were chatting about.
Not on Twitter and would like to be? Just go to the Twitter homepage and sign up for a free account. Once you’re signed up, they will tell you what to do next.
Cranky Fibro Girl and I are so excited! See you Friday!
Because You Know I Just Wouldn’t Be Me If I Weren’t Having Conversations Like This
I had to get adjusted the other day because my jaw was seriously out of joint.
Unfortunately, the adjustment to fix it and resultant aftermath were just as painful as when it was out of joint.
After he worked on me my chiropractor looked down and said, “Are you all right.”
“Mm hm,” I responded.
“Are you sure?”
‘Oh yeah, believe me. Otherwise there would’ve been swearing. YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN.”
***
Recently my husband was finishing up a video game called “Personas”, where you combine the special superpowers you’ve earned into special things called “Personas” that then help you fight the darkness in The Leaning Tower Of Evil which is only open from midnight to 1 am, and yada yada yada, you get the picture.
So the other night I happened to walk into the living room just aftre he’d created a brand new Persona.
“It’s a lady, wearing a lampshade on her head, and riding a giant peacock,” said my husband, just in case I hadn’t noticed all of those details for myself.
“Well sure,” I deadpanned. “I do that all the time when you’re not here.”
I didn’t think he’d heard me, because he absolutely cannot do more than one thing at once.
But as I walked into our bedroom, drifting faintly behind me I heard, “Um, baby-we need to talk.”
Sometimes I Just Wish I Were The Pretty Girl
I am, and have been, a lot of things-
The Smart Girl
The Responsible Girl
The More-Mature-Than-Her-Years Girl
The Nice Girl
The Good Girl
The Good Example Girl
The Helpful Girl
The Dependable Girl
The Talented Girl
The Funny Girl
The Good Performer Girl
The Teacher Girl
But I’ve never been The Pretty Girl. That elusive descriptor that I’ve longed for, but pretended that I didn’t really want at all.
And part of it is my own doing. I complain about men and their relationship to female sexuality, but when it comes to this topic, I am guilty of a few inappropriate things myself.
“Pretty girls are shallow.” “Pretty girls are self-centered.” “Pretty girls are bitchy.” “Pretty girls are stupid.” And on and on go my thoughts.
But if I dig deep enough, underneath all these thoughts is a tiny voice saying, “I wish I were a pretty girl.”
One of my deepest longings and, at times, one of my most shameful secrets, given all my internal judgments about “pretty.”
And one of the most difficult and confusing things about being a woman, because there aren’t many models I can follow-or I should say, that I want to follow-about what it means to be an attractive, confident, sensual, sexual female.
One who defines her sexuality on her own terms, instead of what others-and unfortunately, by others I do mean “men”-have decided is acceptable and appropriate and desirable when it comes to female sexuality and attractiveness.
One who knows that this, like every other part of being a woman, is for her-no one else-and that she gets to decide how, and even if, she chooses to share these parts of herself with others.
It’s so hard to step into this arena. Sometimes it feels like walking into the middle of a thousand stabbing knives, cutting away at me to see if what’s left underneath bears any resemblance to anything deemed “acceptable” when it comes to pretty.
So much easier to hide.
So much easier to pretend that I wasn’t even trying to go there in the first place.
Because pretending that the idea of “pretty” has never even crossed my mind means that I am safe.
Safe from the knives.
Safe from the judgments.
Safe from all that masculine energy that continually dominates the public face of women’s beauty and sexuality, attempting to squash it down into as tiny a box as possible.
Maybe they think that then, they will be safe from what our amazing female energy can really be.
I don’t know.
All I know right now is, that sometimes I just wish I were the pretty girl.
