Yeehaw, mucka lucka!

I'm reading Jenny Lawson's (aka, The Bloggess) book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir. It is awesome. It is funny and honest and just crazy enough to be real. She talks about random crap from her childhood - her father was a weird taxidermist (as opposed to a normal taxidermist), she went to a seriously strange agricultural high school, her first time trying acid led to a deep exploration of the concept of Smurfs - but she also talks about really painful things, even if it's with a funny anecdote. An entire chapter is about her miscarriages and another about her struggle with generalized anxiety disorder. I've never had a miscarriage, but I do struggle with anxiety so I found that chapter pretty amazing. She writes that she wants to hide under tables and in the bathroom; I want to pull my comforter over my head and hold onto a pillow until the room stops spinning and I can breathe again. I don't have the social anxiety she does, but I love her retelling of stories she's told while feeling socially anxious (e.g. getting stabbed in the face by a serial killer who turned out to be her cat, warnings against necrophilia, swallowing needles that turned out to not really be needles). She said she often gets awkward silences and wary stares. I think that's ridiculous! #1, if someone is telling a story about not really getting stabbed in the face by a not real serial killer, you need to hear that shit out. We've all been there - telling a story that's falling miserably flat - so have some sympathy, and if it's a story about a near-stabbing by a not-serial killer that's definitely worth a few minutes of our time. And #2, if someone is telling a story about necrophilia and they're getting uncomfortable and you can tell their mind is trying to figure out how to escape to the bathroom or under a table, help a sister out and engage in the story. And then maybe offer to show her where the bathroom is.

So I'm not done with the book yet, but I'm caught in the paradox of wanting to do nothing but read and wanting it to last forever. I'm now reading about her dad the taxidermist dropping a sack of live ducklings into the middle of a room with her daughter and nieces/nephews. You just can't make that stuff up.

Now you need to get off the computer and just rest.

When I first started working, I wasn't sure if my boss liked me. She wasn't a fuzzy, chatty Southerner. She didn't laugh a lot. Her emails were (are) often one liners - direct with no fluff. When she intercommed me with a, "Hey Anna, can you come up here," my heart would stop and I would wonder what I had done wrong. She has this eye roll and eyebrow raise that I couldn't read (though now it cracks me up and I try to be just ridiculous enough to get her to do it). But I liked her, and as we've worked together these past few months I have really grown to respect her. She isn't a fuzzy, chatty person - and I am really glad. I know she will always be honest and direct. She handles mistakes by telling us to fix it (and helping us fix it) and to do better next time. Novel, right? She works hard and expects us to, but she also operates under the philosophy that our jobs aren't our whole lives and we need to take time off. Even if she has to force us...

View from the floor

I had some back spasms last week that pretty much laid me out flat for the whole 7 days. I know that rest + drugs are the only cure but I just kept figuring they would go away. I also know I'm not indispensable at my job (so the organization isn't going under if I'm not there), but I was raised to push through pain and keep going. There was really no degree of sickness that warranted staying home from school unless you were actively vomiting. I know the purpose was to develop a good work ethic and to be responsible, but let's be honest - sometimes you just need to stay home.

Urgent care is the place to be!

So when Shamae says to stay home and rest, I know she means it. I was attempting to work from home while lying flat when she sent me one of her famous one line emails - the title of this blog. This was after I tried to go into work the day before and she sent me home with an unceremonious, "bye." Seriously. She came into my office, saw my heating pad, and just said "bye" while waving me toward the door. So I took Shamae's advice (i.e. command) and shut my computer. She also suggested I might need to go see a doctor, which turned out to be a good idea. Over the next couple days I watched an entire season of Grimm and slept a lot, thanks to the muscle relaxer Flexeril. And - surprise, surprise - felt better. Now I'm trying to rework my narrative to weave in this new way of thinking - stopping to rest and take care of yourself, that doing so isn't self indulgent or lazy. So thanks, Shamae. This one's for you.

Easter made me kinda sad

Not sad in a Good Friday kind of somber, or in a "oh i'm longing for the sweet bye and bye" kind of sad. That would be weird. It's like a sad homesickness. I'm not sure why, either - Easter has never been a big family holiday or anything. I mean, we'd get together after church and have lunch and an egg hunt. But I'm not really tied to the holiday with any particular memory that I know of, even though I do have good memories (sorry, Jesus). Maybe it's because Easter happens at the change in seasons. It's in the spring - a nice but transitional season, at least in the South (maybe other places get a full 4 seasons, but down here there is summer and winter with spring and fall as month-long transitions between the two). I'm not good with transitions. Maybe it's because it is a special day with pressure to be special happy, which always makes me morose. I'm not good with being forced into something. Maybe it's because it is a special occasion and I want everyone I love to be in one place for special occasions and I'm sad because they aren't. Maybe it's the letdown from being with people I care about for a special occasion and then all going our separate ways afterward. Like I said, I'm not good with transitions.

But the day wasn't a total loss. I went to church with and had lunch with some good friends, and I got to see my uncle in the middle of the festivities when he dropped off my Easter basket from my aunt. I learned how to put someone in and get myself out of a choke hold (thank you, Adam). I also did the following:

1. Killed a wasp. This is a major accomplishment because wasps (and spiders and roaches) make me do two things: run away and shriek with terror. Well, scream bloody murder is more like it. I heard it between my blinds and the window as I was lying in bed. I stayed really still for a minute, praying it was just a fly. When it got more persistent, I opened the blinds and had a moment of cold panic before I ran out of the room. I returned with a bottle of spray bleach and a rolled up copy of the latest CBF Newsletter, and sprayed and swatted until the thing was dead. At least twice I considered screaming as loudly as I could, but no one was home so it wouldn't have helped.

Don't judge. It's clean now.

2. Cleaned my box fan. This sounds like a fun task except my box fan is 4 years old and has never been cleaned. That's four years of dust, dirt, hair, and who knows what else collecting in those tiny little grates. I took the front and back panels off, attempted to wipe one down with Clorox wipes, and realized it was going to take forever. What I needed was a driveway, a garage, and a hose with running water. I live in an apartment, though, which means no driveway, garage, or hose with running water. I did the next best thing...took them in the shower with me. I needed to rinse off after a walk, so I just threw them in there, too! It worked really well. They're nice and clean and being blow-dried by the actual fan part of the fan. Booyah.

3. Took a walk. That sounds like a lame-o thing to report, but after a week of lying flat with back problemos, a walk felt really good. And really slow. I think it took me 20 minutes to walk one mile. I probably should eat some more chocolate to keep my strength up.

Retorts: chocolate cakes you can eat again?

I stopped to put gas in Tigerlilly the other day on my way to work. As I was putting the gas hose thing back in the gas hose holder thing, this nearby voice says "hey gorgeous" in a slimy tone that any girl knows means one thing: a leering male construction worker (or any other no talent ass clown of that genre). Sure enough, it was a lawn maintenance worker and his lawn maintenance worker friends. Chimp fucking little bastards. Who the hell do they think they are? Did I invite them into my morning? Hell no. I felt sick like I'd been punched in the soul, and as I fought the rising hysteria, I gave them the most withering glare I could muster. In that second, I couldn't decide on a good enough retort. Do I say nothing and not dignify their behavior with a response? Do I throw something at them - like a rock or a hand grenade - or spray them with something, like 20-foot wasp spray (or in the gas station situation, regular unleaded)? While I did consider throwing rocks at them (even though there were no rocks at hand), I think I've decided to try a disdainful eyebrow raise with a haughty "as if" as I literally look down my nose at them. I mean, it worked in Clueless.

Eww. As if.

One of the first blogs I ever wrote was back in 2008 and it was called Honk if You're an Idiot. I wrote about the dumb things men have yelled at me while I was running and how it made me feel. I think I may have even mentioned throwing rocks. At the time I was still operating in terms of polite lady-like behavior and I'm not sure I would have thought I could respond with anything more than a disgusted head shake. Now, thinking in terms of protecting my acre, I feel a little less considerate of their feelings and little more considerate of mine. In terms of my acre, they might just get a royal "get the fuck off the lawn."

Yeehaw, motherfuckers!

"'For some people,' she explained, 'happiness isn't a choice. You wanting to be happy and expecting it to just happen is the equivalent of someone with brown eyes wanting blue eyes and expecting that to just happen.' 

The sadness that comes from depression is not rooted in anything real. I'm not sad because of anyone or anything. I don't know why I am sad. I just am. I don't know why I worry about things that are so far out of my control. I just do.  And I so wish that I didn't.  

Most people who don't believe in depression also don't believe in being medicated for it...Instead of drugs, they'd say, why don't you "do more of the things that you enjoy?" 

"Tend to your garden."

"Find a project, something to focus your attention on." 

"Read, 'The Secret.' "

Bite me.

These patronizing ("The Secret"? Are you serious?) prescriptions infuriated me, as if the reason I wasn't happy is because I hadn't tried hard enough."

An Optimist's Battle With Depression

Stephanie Gallman