Sentence Sneak Peek - Furiously Happy

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

The first sentence from each chapter of Furiously Happy, it's a mini summary of what you can expect to read.

* I would normally highlight spoilers but it didn't feel right to do that with a memoir...

“No, no.”

“Dear Reader,

       Right now you’re holding this book in your hands and wondering if it’s worth read-ing.”

“You’re not crazy.”

“A few weeks ago I was at the pharmacy picking up my meds and I was staring into the drive-through window and thinking about how awesome it is that we live in a world where you can pick up drugs in a drive-through, and that’s when I noticed something strange next to the pharmacist’s register: And I thought, “Well, that’s . . . odd.”

“When I wake up in the morning I often find messages left to me on my phone.”

“If you were to ask me, “How did you sleep?”

“I think I’m the last person left on earth who hasn’t eaten kale or quinoa.”

“It wasn’t enough blood to be worrisome.”

“The First Argument I Had with Victor This Week

ME: Hey.”

“This year my doctor prescribed me antipsychotics.”

“Victor and I have different ideas about what we should do in our spare time.”

“I feel like I’m making some real progress.”

“Last week a stranger showed up at my parents’ house with an antique, six-foot, dead giraffe head in the back of his truck that he wanted to get rid of.”

“(Note: This is where I’d put a mild trigger warning for self-harm, but frankly this whole damn book—and life in general—deserves a trigger warning.”

“I’ve never been much of one for cosmetic enhancements or additions.”

“There are few things in the world that make me angrier than poverty, the lack of basic human civil rights, and the fact that most women’s clothes don’t have pockets.”

“Sometimes people just need to get away from their ordinary life to escape and recu-perate.”

“I’ve always been a fan of therapy.”

“You know when you’re walking to the trash can at the zoo and you’re holding some-thing important in one hand, and you have something you have to throw away in the other hand, and you’re sort of distracted because you just realized the universal truth that everything is the world either is or isn’t pandas and you’re trying to decide if that’s an important epiphany or not and it’s so distracting that it’s not until you’re halfway back to the lemur house that you realize you’re still holding the garbage in your hand and that you seem to have thrown your car keys in the trash?”

“If you’d like to quickly round up a whole lot of assholes all in one spot I suggest going to the airport.”

“When my last book came out I spent a lot of time avoiding people who wanted to in-terview me because I was afraid I’d say something wrong, or because I couldn’t find pants.”

“Last year my friend Laura woke up when her husband was tapping on her head at two a.m.”

“The Fourth Argument I Had with Victor This Week

Me:  I was just thinking that when I see other people yawn I yawn because it’s conta-gious, but when I see cats yawn it never makes me yawn.”

“So apparently I’m really leaving for the Australian outback tomorrow,” I said to the storm trooper beside me.”

“Last week my friend (Kim) mailed me one of her homemade, educational felted vagi-nas (with a small, felted baby inside of it so children can understand where babies come from).”

“Yesterday my doctor said that I need to lose about twenty pounds to be at “a healthy weight.”

“The One Billionth Argument I Had with Victor This Week

Victor accused me of being insane, but really I’m crazy like a fox.”

“(Side note: I had writer’s block so I got very drunk and when I sobered up I found that I’d writ-ten as essay on parsley, wasabi, cream cheese, and soup.”

“Conversation I had with my friend Maile.”

“When I worked in human resources we used a technique to get people to admit when they’d fucked up, and it worked so well that people would often confess to things that might not even have been true.”

“When I was in junior high most of the girls in my class were focused on the Three P’s: popular, pretty, and petite.”

“For the past several months I’ve been getting these giant goose-egg bumps on my head.”

“I have learned that every person in the world is on the spectrum of mental illness.”

“Always pull a tank dog out of a hole by the tail.”

“So,” said my psychiatrist, “what’s going on today?”

“Me: I just need a trim and maybe some highlights.”

“When I was young we were quite poor, but we never really talked about it.”

“The Fifth Argument I Had with Victor This Week

Me: Does this outfit look okay?”

“We recently moved, continuing our pattern of buying a house, fixing it up, and then putting it up for sale about fifteen minutes before it actually feels like home.”

“Today I wrote a post on my blog.”

“The Sixth Argument I Had with Victor This Week

Victor: There’s cat fur all over the back of your dress.”

“I don’t even remember the first time I did meth in front of my child.”

“BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE A GROWN-UP,” I screamed from a vaguely fetal position in the corner of the office.”

“I’m at the final part of a severe rheumatoid arthritis flare-up.”

“To all who walk the dark path, and to those who walk in the sunshine but hold out a hand in the darkness to travel beside us:
     Brighter days are coming.”