Furiously Happy

Furiously Happy

Adult biography
"Some people might think this 'furiously happy' movement is just
an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of
kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first
because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly
liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would
invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I
speak from personal experience. My husband, Victor, says that 'none'
is the new limit. He should have been clear about that before I
rented all those kangaroos."
If you're looking for a book to smuggle into a church known for
long sermons or a boring board meeting or to peruse in an old school
bibliotheque with actual hushing librarians, you'd do well to leave
Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things to
home. Again and again Lawsons stories will leave you rocking with
loud unhushable laughter and everyone around you sending dirty looks
your way. Even if you are in a dentist's waiting room.
Lawson deals in the surreal. You never know what she will come
up with. My favorite episodes involve taxidermied dead raccoons. You
read me right. She did a number of amusing things with them that her
husband Victor did not appreciate. One day she realized she could
create a rodeo by having them ride her very much alive cats. At 2:00
Victor came down to ask what the Hell was going on. "...I prayed he'd
just go away questioning his sanity, and he did, but probably less
because I'd fooled him and more because he'd married someone who took
secret pictures of cats wearing raccoons in the wee hours of the
morning..."
Some of the other experiences Lawson describes:
*a visit to a diagnostic sleep clinic;
*an arguement with Victor with a reference to George Washington's dildo;
*conversations with her therapist;
*an attempt at marital therapy; and
*close encounters of the (maybe chlamydia carrying) koala kind.
But under the humor there's a lot of sadness and anger. Lawson
lives with clinical depression and anxiety disorder, vaccilating
between functioning and barely being able to get out of bed.
"...Imagine having a disease so overwhelming that your mind causes you
to want to murder yourself. Imagine having a malignant disorder that
no one understands. Imagine having a dangerous affliction that even
you can't control or suppress..."
Only a lot of people won't have to imagine this, especially in a
society where people with psychological challenges are treated far
differently from those with physical diseases. A number of people who
have read this book have been given the comfort of knowing they aren't
the only one. In fact its message has brought people back from the
brink of suicide.
Basically I would recommend Furiously Happy to members of the
human race because it's highly likely that even the most "normal"
member of the species has at least one loved one who deals in challenge.
On a personal note, while some people die of anorexia and others are
cured, a lot of us learn to live with it. I went for a long time
convinced I'd beat the odds. So I felt crushing shame when I'd slip
up. When I acknowledged this might not happen life got easier. I
learned how to recognize situations that could trigger and people who
can help me. Paradoxically I have made it 3 1/2 years (by far my
longest) with healthy weight and attitude toward it.
A great big shout out goes out to the trusted friends who help me when
situations (like being up for reelection) really put me to the test.
jules hathaway



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