Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

The Lowest Common Denominator

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Today I walked by a plastic fish, and it sang to me.

I was quite startled as you can imagine, since this is not the experience I normally expect to have when I am dropping off a prescription at the pharmacy.

I glanced at its sign as I was walking quickly by (you don’t want to stand too close to your singing plastic fish until you know exactly what is going on) and it said something like, “blah, blah, the benefits of taking fish oil.”

That experience got me to thinking, as this is not the first time I’ve had animated plastic figures sing to me about important health related information.

My grocery store has a large display of vividly colorful plastic fruits and vegetables located directly above the produce department. They too have a song, all about the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, which is performed in a catchy reggae style complete with steel drum accompaniment.

5 a day, 5 a day,
We all know it’s the healthy way,
Fruits and vegetables,
They’re OK,
The healthy way,
Eat 5 a day.

This song has penetrated my brain, much like some kind of musical virus, to the point where occasionally my husband will look at me with an extremely furrowed brow and ask incredulously, “Are you singing the Kroger produce song?!”

So now I’m wondering what all of this means. Have the Powers That Be decided that we as a people are incapable of knowing how to take care of ourselves? Or that we are too defensive at the slightest hint that someone might be telling us what to do? So now they have to pipe in important information as a kind of subliminal background track to our daily lives, using the most innocuous, non-threatening characters they can find? Do they think that we have collectively become that dumbed down, with the attention span of a gnat?

These are important questions that need answering, and I plan to pursue them just as soon as-oh look, a bird! It’s so pretty.

Um, what were we talking about?

Clearly My Powers Are Growing

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Yesterday I had a very odd experience.

The lawn guy was here, and my husband had requested that the next time he showed up, could I please ask him a couple of questions. So I went outside to do just that.

At first the lawn guy seemed genuinely happy to see me. He turned off the leaf blower, took out his earplugs, and greeted me warmly. Then I began to ask him my questions.

I have experienced a lot of different people having a lot of different reactions to me as a person. There has been enjoyment, inspiration, laughter, confusion, repulsion, condescension, and lo, so very many different things. But this is the first time that the person to whom I was speaking reacted as if they were enduring some kind of excruciating psychic pain caused by my mere presence.

Here’s how our conversation went.

Me: “So, we were wondering if from now on you could trim those bushes so that they are the same height all the way across.”

The lawn guy: (Nervous, uncomfortable laughter, grimacing at me all the while as if to say, “Each one of your words has become a tiny, poisoned dagger that pierces through my flesh every time you speak to me.” I truly thought he might start to cry.)

Me: “Also, how much would you charge us to take away our bags of lawn trash?”

The lawn guy: “Um, well, that depends.” (Now the grimace is pleading, “Dear God, please let this torture end!”)

So apparently there was something in that interchange that transformed me from Holly Hobbie Homeowner (a 1970’s icon that I totally resembled yesterday, clad as I was entirely in denim, and missing only the kicky braids) into Hellacious Helga, Purveyor Of Psychic Pain.

I have absolutely no idea what that something might be, or where it was during the three years I was a classroom teacher and really could have used that ability. But clearly it is time to investigate this further.

With Apologies To Dr. Seuss

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I do not like to smell you, rats,
nor hear your sounds-and that’s a fact!

I do not like to smell your poo,
or think of what you do for food.

I do not like to hear you scratch,
opening the crawl space latch.

I do not like you out-of-doors,
I do not like you in our floors.

I do not like to have you, rats,
and please beware-for we have cats!

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

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?

You Get Me, You Really Get Me

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The other day I went to go see my hairdresser. I needed his help because I was going to get a head shot taken for my website, and I needed him to Do Something with my hair. I like my hair because it is naturally curly, but the downside of having curly hair is that if I were Native American, my Indian name would most likely be “Human Delivery System For Giant Poof Clouds Of Frizz.”

I am happy to say that he was able to do his magic once again, and I was very happy with the result. As I was getting up to leave he said, “I had to use a lot of product today, because your hair was wanting to be a bitch.”

YES! Welcome to my frizzy-headed world.

If I Wanted To Feel This Bad About Myself, I Would Have Tried On A Bathing Suit

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

So, I have been having some issues with my fax machine lately. Issues that yesterday caused me to walk through my house all day long yelling about just how much I hate it, and how desperately I yearn for it to undergo a painful, explosive death.

I am the first to admit that I have absolutely NO patience when it comes to things like this. I go from ZERO to ENRAGED in less than a nanosecond. That is why my husband is in charge of All Inanimate Objects Containing Moving Or Electrical Parts.

But today I decided I would TRY and act like a responsible, mature adult, and so I called the “alleged” help line for my fax machine’s manufacturer.

Now, I will admit that I do have pretty high standards when it comes to customer service. And that is due to the fact that I, personally, have experienced outstanding customer service many times. So I know that it does actually exist.

For example, take the people who sold us our car.

My husband and I own an Audi, and a couple of years ago it was in the shop for service. Happily, our dealer provided us with a rental car to use in the meantime. We went to see a movie, and when we got back to the parking lot after the movie was over we discovered that we were unable to unlock the rental car. We called our dealer, and within a very short time someone drove out to the movie theater, popped open the trunk, GOT IN THE TRUNK, CLIMBED THROUGH THE ENTIRE CAR, and unlocked it for us from the inside. And they were GENUINELY HAPPY to do that for us. This is just one of the many reasons why we love Audi.

Or take our pest control company, Breda. It doesn’t matter how many times I call them, or what I ask them to do; they too are always happy to help me. I could call them up and say, “Um, there is a black cloud of death located directly over our house, and it’s raining down fiery, flaming scorpions on top of us, and they’re falling into a black pit of writhing, poisonous snakes, which is being whipped around by the hurricane-force winds of killer bees that is blowing in from the west,” and they would say, “OK, we can have your guy there tomorrow morning at 8 am.” And that is why we also love Breda.

I have also experienced extremely poor customer service, which unfortunately was what was constantly displayed by Our Former Internet Service Provider. Our high-speed Internet connection was giving us A Lot of problems, and eventually was “off” more than it was ever “on”. It got to the point where it would start cutting off in anticipation of any kind of inclement weather. So we’d wake up in the morning, see that, “Oh, the Internet connection’s out again,” and know that it was probably going to rain that day somewhere in the state of Georgia. So as a weather forecasting system it worked great, but as an Internet connection it totally sucked.

I called their so-called “help” line quite a bit back in those days, but all they ever told me to do was this: “Go get a paper clip, straighten it out, and poke it in the tiny hole on the back of your modem.”

So here’s what a hypothetical conversation with them would’ve looked like:

Hypothetical Me: “Um, there are flames shooting out of the top of my computer, and the screen has opened up and disgorged all of the fiery demons of hell, and there is a deep, cackling maniacal voice coming out of my speakers, and the demons are snatching up my cats and tossing them into the air to use as props in their satanical juggling routine. HELP!”

Hypothetical ISP: (in a heavy Indian accent) “OK. Do you have a paper clip?”

But, back to today.  So I called the fax machine’s “help” line and did get connected to an actual human being, but I knew I was in trouble the minute I heard her speak. Because she was talking to me in the tone of voice that said, “Whatever is wrong is your fault, because you are a total %$$@&*(^% idiot, and now I have to deal with you.” Now, there have been PLENTY of times in my life when I have, in fact, been a total &^%$#&*( &^% idiot, but to just ASSUME that I am one because I needed to call your help line is kind of a big jump in my mind. Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?

But I really need to send some faxes today so I continued the conversation, willing for her to dislike me if she could just tell me how to get my machine to work. But, no, that was not in the cards for me today. Because no matter what I said to her, all she ever said back to me was, “Hm, that could be a problem.” Every answer I gave her was wrong. It was like being hit on the head repeatedly with the hammer of, “This Is How Much You Suck!”

I could’ve had this conversation with her, and the answer would have been just the same.

Hypothetical Me: “Hi, I’m calling about my Sharp fax machine. I’m calling from Sharp headquarters. I invented every single Sharp product known to man. I am the physical embodiment of all Sharp technology that currently exists in physical form on this planet.”

Sharp Help Line Lady : (hypothetically speaking) “Hm, that could be the problem.”

EEEECCCCKKKK! THUNK! (Those are the hypothetical sounds of me traveling through the phone line and bludgeoning her to death with my dysfunctional fax machine).

So anyway, I guess I will have to wait until tonight when my husband gets home so I can ask him to take a look at The Stupid Fax Machine Which I Hate And I Hope It Dies And I Wish I Could Beat It To Death With A Sledgehammer!!!!

Not that I am bitter. Or cranky. And I definitely DO NOT need a nap! Ggrr!

There Ain’t No Way To Hide Your Lyin’ Eyes

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Yesterday I took a very large step, one that I had been debating for quite some time: I changed banks.

I decided that I was tired of paying the old bank every month just for the privilege of keeping my money there. So I found a new bank that doesn’t do that, which is very nice. Unfortunately, the new bank is located directly across the street from the old bank, a place I’ve frequented for the last 6 1/2 years, where, in the immortal words of Cheers, “everybody knows my name.”

So instead of being able to drift quietly away into my new banking relationship, letting my old bank have the time and space it needs to mourn the end of our association, I am forced to flaunt my new financial partnership in full view of the bank with whom I’ve just broken up.

And to make matters worse, I had to go to the old bank first and take care of some business, and the whole time I was there I just knew that everyone was watching me, knowing exactly what I was about to do.

So here’s how that visit went.

I open the door to the bank.
(I just know that somewhere, the Eagles’ song, “Lyin’ Eyes” has begun to play).

The Bank Teller: “Good morning, Mrs. Ryan”
Me: “Hello”
(“You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes”)

The Bank Teller: “And how are you doing today?”
Me:(shifting anxiously, not willing to meet her eyes) “Oh I’m just fine, thanks.”
(“And your smile is a thin disguise”)

The Bank Teller: “How can I help you today?”
Me: “Um, I just need to make a deposit.” (Please, please, don’t ask me anything else!)
(“I thought by now you’d realize”)

The Bank Teller: “Thanks so much for banking with us.”
Me:(mumbling) “Mmhhmm”
(“There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes”)

I felt so guilty that I just wanted to yell out, “Please don’t feel bad. It’s not you-it’s me! Except, it is you because you keep taking my money. If you would just stop taking my money then everything would be just fine. But you won’t, and so you’ve forced me to go out and find someone else, someone new, someone who can give me what I really need. So I’m sorry, but it’s over. I’m leaving you.”

Breaking up really is hard to do.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

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It was time once again for the bug guy’s weekly visit, and I am very happy to say that we appear to have turned the tide on the rodent situation. We may have lost many, many battles, but I believe we are finally winning the war.

The bug guy arrived at our house first thing this morning, so this time my husband was able to meet him. When my husband came back in the house he said, “Did you know [the buy guy’s] brother played football for Nebraska? And that he played in the National Championship in 1991?”

Um, no. Those are not the kind of special moments that the buy guy and I share. We have conversations like this:

“Yeah, once you start patching up the holes, you only start to see the small rats. They’re desperate for food, because they don’t have mommy and daddy around anymore. Because we killed ’em.”

So to sum up-my husband, fun guy to bond with; me, orphan-maker.

It Only Took 16 Years, But I Am Finally Cool

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Today I got an email from my friend, Lani, asking if she could “tag” me to participate in a meme that’s making the blog rounds. In an instant all of the trauma I experienced from being The Outcast Of The Class Of 1990 was totally healed, because I was finally being invited to participate in something that the popular kids were doing!

Up until now the only people who’ve thought I’m cool have been my cats, who express their admiration of my coolness by bringing me their tiny, ragged, crusty cat toys and depositing them at my feet. And I’m pretty sure that’s only because they haven’t yet learned how to open the tub of cat food themselves.

Sometimes my tutoring students think I’m cool, but I’ve found that it’s very easy to shatter that image, as I did today with the following conversation. I was trying to ask my husband for the name of a game, and it went like this:”You know, you were playing it back in October, when I came to visit you on that retreat, and I got in trouble for being there, and you had to get the ninja to do all these things in a certain order, so you could get other things to happen?” Of course he knew exactly what I was talking about. But my student just gave me this look like, “I have seen the future, and now I am very afraid.”

So here we go.

1. Four jobs I’ve had. Well, my work history has been pretty lackluster and boring. So instead, I’m going to do, Four Slogans I Considered And Then Rejected For My Tutoring Business.
-“Jenny Ryan: Shitkicker”
-“Jenny Ryan: What did I just say?”
-Jenny Ryan: Don’t make me kick you”
-“Jenny Ryan: Your notebook makes me want to cry”

2a. Four places I’ve lived (physically).
-Woodbridge, VA
-Charlotte, NC and Winston-Salem, NC
-Athens, GA
-Duluth, GA

2b. Four places I’ve lived (existentially).
-state of “big fish in a small pond”
-state of confusion
-state of anxiety
-state of grace

3. Four shows I love
-“Friends”
Rachel: Guess what?
Chandler: The fifth dentist caved and now they’re all recommending Trident?

-“Arrested Development”
Michael: There’s been a lot of lying in this family.
Lucille (his mother): And a lot of love.
Michael: Hm…more lies.

-“House”
Dr. Foreman: He probably just moved. Nobody stays perfectly still for their MRI.
House: Yeah, he probably got restless and shifted one hemisphere of his brain to a more comfortable position.

-“Veronica Mars”
Logan (introducing his sister to his girlfriend): ‘Rode hard’, meet ‘put away wet’.

4. Four Places I’ve Vacationed
-San Fransisco, where I met a man who had legally changed his name to “Sunrise Spiritual Harmony”.
-Nags Head, NC (on the Outer Banks), where I had the following conversation as I was trying to keep up with my husband on the beach:
Me: Wait for me. I have short legs.
My husband: That’s why we call you “Stumpy”.
Me: NOBODY’D better call me “Stumpy”!
-Granada, Spain, where I spoke to everyone I met in fluent Spanish, and they insisted on responding to me in English
-Stuttgart, Germany, where my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and I made the following request at a McDonald’s:
“Small Coke, large ice.”

5. Four sites I visit daily.
–dooce
–Pop Candy
–Watch With Kristin
–People

6. Four foods I love.
-regular Coca-Cola, from a soda fountain if possible
-McDonald’s french fries
-regular Lays potato chips
-sweet cream ice cream with MnM’s from Coldstone Creamery

7. Four places I’d rather be instead of here. Truthfully, I’m exactly where I want to be. So instead I’m doing, Four nicknames I’ve been given.
-Jenny Lee Dee
-the Dinz
-Jennyer, defined as, “a heightened state of being Jenny”
–JR!

8. Four people I’m tagging. Coming very soon. I mean, come on, I just joined the “in” crowd.
–Karen C.
–Linda V.
–Sheila F.

War Of The Rodents: Day 759,823

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So-and say it with me now-the bug guy is coming back again this week.

Forget the Bermuda Triangle, or what happened to Amelia Earhart, or why you can never, ever get your hair to look exactly the way it did when your hairdresser styled it at your last appointment. We are currently engaged in unraveling one of the knottiest mysteries known to mankind today: How in the world are these rats getting into our basement? We have had three different bug guys inspect the area underneath our house, and although they try to cover it up with fancy “exterminator talk”, the basic message I have gotten from all of them is, “Beats me!”

It’s like we’re dealing with some kind of mutant evil genius rats, rats who are apparently not subject to any of the physical laws of the known universe, super-Einstein-emulating, Mensa-joining rats, rats who can apparently teleport their bodies from the outdoors directly  into our basement using only the power of their tiny rat minds.

But even though we’ve apparently been under attack by Lex Luthor and the entire Legion of Doom, we here at the Hall of Justice have not given up hope. We will soldier bravely on, with our Lasso of Truth, and our Peanut-ey Glue Boards of Immobility, and our Really, Really, Big Stick, and justice will once again prevail.

Or not, in which case I’ll be back next week with a report on Day 759,824.