Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

The Blah’s

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I am coming off of an exceptionally bad pain week (STUPID FIBRO!!), which has apparently leached away all traces of humor from my system. I really hate that.

But I also hate not posting at all for almost a week.

So for today I will direct you toward this very cool blog I just discovered, whose author, Kendra Thornbury,, recently wrote a terrific post all about freedom, which happens to be my Very Dearest Love, right after Telling Funny Stories.

“What is freedom?” she asks.

And I love her answer to this question:

“In this moment, I think of it as an unrestrained expression of my true self regardless of who I’m around and what is going on and complete ownership of the reality I am creating. It’s feeling contentment with what is and realizing that regardless of what is transpiring, I am at choice. It is residing in the BEingness of my true essence, that which is unwaveringly solid in the greater truth. ”

As my coaching school instructors would say, “I’ll have some of that!”

Yes!

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“The woman who takes the time to grow herself in the darkness becomes familiar-perhaps for the first time-with the real source and containment of her psychic strength. No longer is her strength dissipated in obeying an idealized father figure, in pleasing a lover, in trying to satisfy a perpetually unsatisfied mother figure, in accommodating to a patriarchal organization or culture, in appeasing the inner witch who tells her she is worthless. No longer is her strength lost to obeying compulsions, drives, and obsessions that can slip in during the dark night of the soul and substitute for the real thing.

And what is the real thing, the thing for which she longs? The love affair with her own spirit, the inner marriage that commits her to her destiny, the rituals of soul that feed her deepest hunger, and the sense of being pregnant with her Self, her creative essence.”

Jill Mellick, Coming Home To Myself

Goals

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This weekend I attended a workshop on EFT and my classmates and I got into a discussion about all the different areas where we could use this great healing tool.

Since we were all women, unsurprisingly the conversation turned to the question of weight, and one woman offered this possible alternative view.

“Say you weigh 150 pounds, but you want to weigh 125,” she explained. “If you think about it, you do already weigh 125-plus a little extra. So you could use an affirmation that says ‘I am at my goal weight’ because you are.”

“That’s true,” piped up another woman. “Apparently a lot of us are just overachievers!”

Armed And Dangerous, Continued

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A number of people have asked me why the friend with whom I was having lunch on Friday had her own personal arsenal in the backseat of her car.

She is actually a student of Kung Fu, and is about to test for her purple belt.

But the fun did not stop with an inventory of her lethally dangerous back seat. After she finished listing all the weapons with which we were vaguely familiar she told us, “I also used to have a [name of some unpronounceable Chinese weapon] that was really big. I named it My Little Brother but my friend [Important Side Note: a guy friend] told me I had to call it My Johnson.

So the next time I saw him I told him that I hadn’t had any time recently to practice with My Johnson. I totally cracked him up.”

And almost caused a major car accident as the three of us were driving back from lunch at the time, and explosive, convulsive laughter tends to impair one’s ability to drive in a straight line.

Best. Lunch. Ever.

Armed And Dangerous

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Today I went out to lunch with some friends, and we had the following conversation while deciding who was going to drive.

Friend 1 (to Friend 2): “So are we letting you drive?”

Friend 2: “Well I’m not riding in your car. I don’t want to accidentally sit on a dagger!”

Me: (doing a double-take, not quite sure I heard her correctly.)

Friend 1: “True. I do have about 3 in the backseat.”

Me: “Um, what?!”

Friend 1: “I also have a couple of double swords, a regular sword, and a spear.”

Me: “You’re like your own little Waco.”

Watch Out Seattle-I Have Arrived!

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Yesterday, after departing Atlanta and spending approximately 187 jongjillion hours on a plane, I arrived in Seattle. As I’m sure you are aware if you have in any way communicated with me since August 8th, my birthday is this Sunday. And this trip is my gift.

I am out here to visit one friend I’ve known since I was 10 years old, and one friend I’ve known since I was 4. (I will be 34 on Sunday if that makes the math any easier for you.)

It’s always a gift to have friends, especially ones who have known you for so long (and who still like you anyway.) My Seattle friend and I went to elementary school together, and we loved to entertain ourselves by highlighting what were, to us, the seemingly mystical connections between us. My initials were JLD; her initials were JLC (spooky, huh?) And we were born at the same hospital, 9 days apart (can’t you just hear the music from the “Twilight Zone”?) We liked to joke that we were “Twins Separated At Birth”, which was funny for so many reasons, not the least of which is that she is (and always was) tall, lithe, graceful, and elegant. And I…am not. Not even a little bit.

My other friend was special because she always knew things I didn’t. Her mom was a nurse, and so she was always the first person around me to be conversant in The Facts Of Life. Even now, 30 years later, I find myself remembering things she said and having little “Aha!” moments (“O-o-h, so that’s what she meant!”)

I really wish I could say that I had some awesomely funny stories from our past adventures to share here with you now. But unfortunately I do not, because I was back then (as I continue to be now) just a Big Giant Nerd, but without any of the redeeming qualities I now possess that allow me to make up for that fact. Now, I am “witty”; then, I was just a geek. So all of my stories from that time would pretty much go like this:

I was very short and my hair always bushed out.

I did not know how to dress or how to talk to people.

I thought I knew everything.

But I was really stupid and embarrassing.

The End

So to conclude this extremely long and entirely rambling post that does not actually say anything (See: Hours spent on a plane, 187 jongjillion), I promise to be on the lookout for stories that contain some actual humor. Or at least, some pretty pictures for you to look at.

Things That Make You Say, “What?!”: Party Edition

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Last weekend I was invited to go to a Southern Living party. I guess I had an image in my mind of it being all sophisticated and elegant, things which I don’t consider myself to be, so I was pretty much planning on staying in the background. So you can imagine my surprise, and my relief, when I overheard the following comments.

“Grannie, do you want a beer?”

And,

“Isn’t it funny how easily your fake nails catch on fire when you’re using a lighter?”

After that I knew I would fit in just fine.

I Don’t Drink, But If I Started, This Would Be Why

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1. On Sunday I walked into a restaurant to meet a friend for a girls’ night out, and I was greeted with the following words: “I’m so excited! I just spend the last 30 minutes holding a python!”

2. Learning today that it was not a python, but rather a boa constrictor. Apparently my friend has been visiting the snake on a regular basis over the past three days.

3. Hearing from my friend that, “It likes to curl around this button on my coat.”

4. And that, “It likes to curl around my neck and sleep under my hair.”

5. And that, “It LICKED MY EYE.”

6. And that, “It’s only $100, so I could buy it and then keep it with me in my coat when I come over to see you.”