Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Stop Calling Me Shirley!

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So I have to go on an airplane in a couple of weeks, and I am totally freaking out about it.

Because despite the fact that yes, I KNOW it’s 2011, and we have left all the magical, superstitious thinking of the Dark Ages behind us, and now worship the god of science (well-SOME of us do. Others of us, we still kind of like it back there), I do not believe that planes can actually fly. I believe that it is all a giant illusion, and that the illusion could burst at any moment-PROBABLY a moment when I’m on a plane-but I don’t know what might damage this illusion, so I don’t know what to do or what not to do to ensure that my plane doesn’t fall out of the sky while I’m on it.

So airplane travel is just a tiny bit stressful for me.

And yes, all you Science People, I can hear you all out there gearing up your three-dimensional, interactive presentations to explain why, yuh-huh, it does TOO work, but let me remind you that I am married to an engineer. And even he doesn’t try anymore. Because if it were just a matter of more information and having something explained to me in a different way, I would not still be having this problem.

I’m also concerned because this will be the first time I’ve flown since I got sick, and I don’t know how or if it will affect my fibromyalgia. So when I had my latest appointment with my fibro doctor, I decided to bring this up (read as: desperately beg for reassurance that I will be all right)

So when I asked him if flying might cause me to have a flare-up, he said (and I SWEAR I am not making this up): “Well, an airplane is a pressurized tube.”

And I thought, “Huh-that doesn’t actually help me at all.”

(All right, I confess-the first thing I actually thought was, “Wow-that sounds really dirty!”)

But I was really confused, because that didn’t really seem to me to be an actual answer. So then I wondered if it was maybe some kind of Zen thing, like when I went to the acupuncture guy and I asked if he was going to try to get me to stop taking my medicines, and he said, “No one tell you stop. No one tell you continue. You follow path that unfold for you.”

So then Fibro Doctor continued, “…so unless air somehow gets into the cabin, you shouldn’t have any problems.”

Now, see what he did there? I was so SO close to feeling reassured, but then, perhaps in an effort to “touch all the bases”, he tried to reassure me by referencing the possible sudden loss of cabin pressure. Which would most likely occur as a result of an equipment failure or something blowing out a window (the horrible causes of which are too numerous to list here). Which would mean that the plane was crashing. In which case, I wouldn’t give a crap about my fibromyalgia pain.

Now I L-O-V-E my fibro doctor. Because besides being a really fantastic doctor, he is also a really cool person. Like, part of me wishes he weren’t my doctor so that we could hang out and I could invite him to all my parties. (If I ever gave any. Which I don’t. Because I am a cranky hermit. But that’s an issue for another day.)

But I think that doctors lately are so concerned with giving us a complete and truthful answer, that my doctors at least are overinformationing me. I mean, I appreciate the fact that you are trying to educate me and help me take responsibility for my own health care, but I don’t always need to know the worst possible thing that any given condition might be. Really-there are times when it’s okay to hold some stuff back. I promise I won’t be mad.

So I guess this has really just been a very long way of saying that despite my many attempts to be reassured, I guess I won’t actually know what will happen until I’m there, on the plane, in the air. And yeah, so that’ll just fold right into my super-relaxed personality as an anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, manically-tendencied, graspy, controlling first-born. Sure. No problems there.

GAH!

Another Oldie, AND Goodie

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“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.”

Further Proof Of My Awesomeness

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So as you probably know by now, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, I work with a fantastic coach, Lynne, every week. And if you know anything about coaching, you also know that one key aspect of the coaching relationship is accountability.

However, me being who I am, the kind of things that I need to be held accountable for are not things like, “Let’s set some goals to help you move forward on this project.” No, my accountability issues lie in the area of Things That I Am NOT Allowed To Do. As in, “No, you may not read any self-improvement articles while spiking a 10 on the pain scale,” or, “No you may not use exercise as a way to punish yourself for your imagined transgressions.”

But now my accountability story has taken yet another unexpected turn. Because now, in addition to reporting on what I’ve done (or not done) that day, I must also perform an, “Am I lying?” check-in each day.

As a former “Good Girl”, you can imagine how stunned I was to discover that I am, in fact, a lying liar-pants of lies. Especially when it comes to my declaring to the world that, “I’m fine.”

-Suffering with a 2-week long migraine that shows no signs of letting up? “I’m fine.”

-3 weeks into an especially compelling obsessive-compulsive episode? “Fine.”

-4 days in a row of being at an 8 or more on the pain scale, but too afraid to take my pain medicine? “No really, I’m FINE.”

And people believe me, because I am THAT good at this particular lie.

But not anymore, because people have finally caught onto the game that I’ve been running. It’s one thing to be able to lie by omission, but now Lynne and my husband know that they have to ask me specific questions, such as, “Where is your pain level right now?”, and “Have you taken your medicine today?” There’s enough “Good Girl” left in me to not be able to lie in the face of such specifically directed questioning.

This has also been good for our marriage because, for reasons I don’t entirely understand, if my husband is not here in the evenings, I feel that it’s unnecessary for me to eat. This is very weird, because if you met me in person one of the first things you would notice is that food and I are obviously on extremely good terms. I haven’t figured this out yet, but it does lead to some interesting conversations, like the one we had the other day as he was on his way out the door to play poker.

My husband: “So what are you going to eat for dinner?” (Once again, he has learned that he must inquire as to the SPECIFIC DETAILS, or else I will find a way to lie about it.)

Me: “Oh, I’m so excited. I knew you were going to ask me that, so I figured out a plan while you were on the way home. My plan is, I can have the leftover lasagna for dinner.”

My husband: “You do know that you actually have to EAT the lasagna for this plan to be acceptable, right?”

Me: “Dammit.”

Just like Ozzie and Harriet, no? (Or at least, Ozzie and Sharon.)

And I Haven’t Even Taken Any Pain Medicine Lately

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Nineteen years ago last month (!!!!) I attended my first official outing as my husband’s (then brand-new boyfriend’s) girlfriend, when I went to the ceremony in which he would be presented with his Eagle Scout award. I was pretty anxious about this whole situation because it involved going to a Catholic mass, and I myself had never really ventured outside the protective bounds of my safe little evangelical, fundamentalist Protestant world.

Being the sensitive guy that he is, he picked up on my nervousness, and also being the kind of person who likes to poke people in their vulnerable spots with hot, flaming, pointy sticks tease, he took advantage of my unfamiliarity with Catholicism to sort of “build the suspense” as it were, and allude to the fact that there was going to be A Very Special Surprise at this particular mass. Unfortunately, he was quite young, and hadn’t ever learned that there were people in the world who considered the Catholic Church to be the demonic offspring of the Anti-Christ and The Whore Of Babylon, and so was unaware of the increasing psychic burden he was placing upon me.

By the night of the ceremony I was completely freaked out, so I asked my mom if she would come with me, and she said yes. This was pretty hysterical now that I think about it, because if ever there were two “Good Girls” who would do anything to keep the peace and make sure that everyone liked them, it would be us (“What? Oh, you need some naked maidens to lie down on this altar up here, right underneath all those very large knives? Yeah, okay, sure. Where do we change?”) (So the moral of this story would be, Two Good Girls=No Protection Whatsoever Against Imagined Incursions By Hostile, Alien Religions.)

As it turns out, the Very Special Surprise ended up being nothing more than “The Blessing Of The Throats”, where they put two holy candles on your throat and bless you as a sort of a protection against getting sick, which, given the events of the past year, is actually pretty tame. (See: “Stool Transplants”, or, “The Horrifying Last Resort Treatment For C DIFF Which Thank God I Didn’t Have To Endure, But Which My Doctor Thinks Is Hilarious To Remind Me Of Every Time I Go In For An Office Visit, Even Though I’ve Been Free Of The Disease For Over A Year Now.)

But I am happy to report that everyone survived this incident completely intact, and he and I are getting ready to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary, and he has continued to be involved with Scouting over the years.

The reason I am bringing all of this up now is that he recently received the latest issue of “Scouting” magazine which has been lying on our kitchen table all week. It features a cover story entitled, “Camp Cooking Winners,” but every time I walk by I read it as “Camp Cooking Wieners“, which is no surprise, because despite my chronological age (thirty-six), I’m pretty sure that internally I’ve never gotten past the age of twelve.

However now that I am (allegedly) a grown-up, I feel a certain responsibility to “walk the moral high ground”, as it were, and refrain from even the thought of sexual euphemisms when it comes to an organization that deals with young children. I told my husband that I could feel the eyes of the Troop Leader featured on the cover following me whenever I walked by, silently condemning me for my improper behavior.

“Well if it really bothers you,” he said, “we can just turn the magazine over.” Which he did.

But unfortunately, this didn’t help at all. Because the entire back cover of the magazine is a full-sized ad which proclaims,

“NUTS FOR SCOUTING!”

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

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The other day I walked into the living room and saw a computer generated/animated dinosaur cavorting around on our television screen. That was not at all unusual for our household, but was was unusual was just how flummoxed it seemed to be making my engineering, scientifically astute, technologically savvy husband.

“I’m watching this show about sex in space,” he told me-and then I was flummoxed, and could actually feel important neurological connections in my brain explode as I tried to reconcile his words with what I was seeing on TV.

Because,…what?!

So naturally I had to stay and watch after that, and after treating us to yet another re-enactment of How Dinosaurs Became Extinct (which, if I recall correctly, they lightly referred to as, “One really bad afternoon”, as the reflection of the fatal meteor loomed larger and larger in the eyes of the poor, doomed dinosaur), they then turned the show over to some experts to give us some commentary on how all of this related to us human beings. And sex. And also, outer space.

So they brought out some serious, academic-ey-looking guy, and I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember anything more about him, because I was so completely distracted by his message. Which more or less boiled down to exhorting us humans to hurry up and find a way to leave earth and go procreate in space, or else we too would fall victim to some horrendous natural disaster and be wiped out as a species. Only this time, it would be our own fault, because we foolishly chose to remain earthbound, instead of earnestly seeking out new environments in which to do the deed.

And that is this guy’s job. He is an expert at doom-mongering, and encouraging us to go have sex in rocket ships.

And of course, all I could think about was, “Where the hell do you go to get a Ph. D. in that?!”

My Life As Told Through The Titles Of Elementary School Chapter Books

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(Composed in the style of series such as Encyclopedia Brown, Junie B. Jones, Captain Underpants, and The Magic Tree House)

Volume One: Tigger And The Inappropriate Pee

Volume Two: The Lizard Emergency

Volume Three: The Coriander Episode

Volume Four: Jenny Is A Big Fat Grammar Bully

Volume Five: The Scary Sounds In The Hallway

Volume Six: Oh No, Bailey, What Did You Do?!

Volume Seven: The Unfortunate Verb Mishap

Volume Eight: Tigger And Pip Learn To Share

Volumes Nine to INFINITY: Jenny Goes To The Doctor

Blasphemer

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Lately I’ve been thinking about taking piano lessons again. I played for a long time earlier in my life, from about the age of 5 until my senior year in college, about 14 years ago.

I got this same urge a few years back, and so I started looking around for a teacher. I asked my aunt, who is a professor of music at a college in a neighboring state, for a recommendation and she gave me the name of a good teacher here in Atlanta.

I was a pretty talented pianist back in my day, but when I started taking lessons with my new teacher I realized that I was not even in the same universe as her league. She is very, very good.

I gave the situation the old college try, but it was very hard because I was very intimidated. So one day, as is my wont, I tried to lighten the atmosphere with a little humor.

We were working on a movement of Bach’s French Suite V and she was explaining to me how to interpret some of the ornamentation (like trills) according to the rules of the Baroque period. So, me being me, I responded by saying, “Yeah, and doesn’t it make you wonder just who got to make those rules up, anyway?”

But no, if her blank face and stunned silence were any indication, never in life had it occurred to her to question the Sacred Scriptures Of Musical Interpretation. And furthermore, her horrified visage reproached me, the fact that you would even make such a flippant remark about something so precious and so holy just made kittens DIE!

She’s not my teacher anymore

Thank Goodness For Accountability

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in the form of my husband.

Today before he left for work he looked me in the eye and said, “Remember-you are still recovering from a serious illness. You are not well.”

And it was a good thing he reminded me, because I’d already begun to hear the siren song of a little voice in my head that said, “You know, I bet it would be totally fine for me to vacuum the entire house today all by myself.” And I believed it.

What is that-that part of me that has absolutely no connection whatsoever to reality?

I really don’t know.

All I know is, that part of me will not be vacuuming today. Lying on the couch and watching NCIS on DVD is probably a much better option for me.

Dodging A Bullet

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Apparently this past Monday, September 10th, was A Very Special Holiday known as Free Hug Day.

And if ever there was a time that I was grateful to be The Biggest Hermit On The Face Of The Earth, it was then. Because along with my myriad other fears (See: Snakes, Real and Imaginary, Calling People On The Phone, Going Anywhere Near The Bathroom During A Thunderstorm), I get really nervous whenever people try to hug me. And that’s kind of a problem, because I live in the South. And down here, people hug. A Lot.

I really can’t explain why, but I get really anxious whenever anyone invades my personal space, which has apparently expanded over time until it is now approximately the size of a seven figure, luxury home complete with its own gated community.

Back in my church-going days I used to get so anxious every Sunday. Because in addition to all of the religious issues, such as “Why Everything You Like About Life Is The Gateway To Hell”, I also had to endure The Greeting. In theory I can understand that it seems like a really good idea to make friends with all the people sitting next to you in your pew. But to my way of thinking there is really no need for even a handshake, much less an embrace, when clearly a brief meeting of the eyes and an acknowledging head shake will do. If you have never seen me before that day, and will probably never see me again, then why do you feel it necessary to clutch me to your breast as if I were the Prodigal Son finally returning home?

And while we’re on the subject of breasts, can we just talk for a minute about how awkward it is to be, say, a well-endowed, double D-sized babe, and have to endure a full, frontal encounter with some other woman’s “girls” in a moment that can only be described as, The Big Squish?

I imagine that if you are a guy reading this then you might be thinking, “Hey, having to get up close and personal with breasts? I really don’t see what the problem is.” But I think that if you had to regularly participate in some kind of obligatory social ritual which required you to press your family jewels up against some other guy’s cash and prizes, you would quickly be singing another tune.

So needless to say I did not participate in Free Hug Day, which for me would have translated into Free Have A Nervous Breakdown Every Single Time Anyone Even Looked At You Until You Ended Up As A Quivering, Whimpering Mass On The Floor Locked In The Fetal Position Day.

But if anyone ever designs a holiday along the lines of Free Quietly Sending Nice Thoughts To Other People While Safely Locked Away In Your Hermit Cave Day, I’m totally there.