I’m fine now. No worries. Plus, it was like a big pillow. A big, annoying, itchy pillow.

in Random Crap

Victor going through my old pictures:

Victor: Who’s this?

me: Me when I was a kid.

Victor: Um…you have an enormous cast on your head.

me: Yup.

Victor: Are there bars on the windows?

me: Possibly.  I think maybe that was when I was still at hospital.

Victor: This explains SO much.

158 thoughts on “I’m fine now. No worries. Plus, it was like a big pillow. A big, annoying, itchy pillow.”

Read comments below or add one.

  7. Ah memories. My husband recently found a picture of me at 4 standing on top of the bar in my dad’s friend’s basement singing really loudly. “What were you singing, babe?” Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Because my parents were classy. I knew every word.

  11. Were you attacked by a wild bobcat your dad brought home? Head butted by a goat? Or could it be something as inane as tripping over an untied shoelace? Victor is WRONG. This explains nothing. It only inspires questions!

  12. Aw, reminds me of when I had my ears pinned when I was eight. I still remember how much it hurt.

  13. I just have broken wrist and busted lip pictures from when I was a kid. I was a badass back in my day, I tell ya. Looks like you were, too.

  17. Victor failed to notice how peaceful you looked in your head cast. That may be because you are unconsciouse but you look peaceful all the same. He really is “glasses half empty”sometimes”

  22. Did it ever occur to him that possibly it was when they put the tracking device in and didn’t want you to escape before it healed?

  29. I punched her in the face y’all. I had a pretty powerful left hook for a 4 year old.

  30. Did you mean to write “cookie” in the title or were you just thinking about cookies at the time you were writing this? haha. Because now, I want a cookie.

    (HA! I totally was thinking about cookies. Changing it now. ~ Jenny)

  31. I have pictures of myself with two black eyes from when I was four. When people ask, I just tell them they should have seen the other kid.

  32. Perfectly normal — I’m sure I have one just like it in my childhood photo album.

  35. He is just now finding these pictures? Dude did not do his pre-vow research… or was this an arranged marriage?

  37. Wait, what? How are you gonna just leave something like that out there? This wasn’t in your book.

    Storytime, children. We’re all gathered round. Now spill, Ms. Lawson. 🙂

  39. I don’t get the big deal… Clearly your parents went for the “gauze headband” route, as your got yards of headbands for a much cheaper price.

    Right?

  41. I love when I have photographic evidence to support my tall tales of my youth that I tell my children. This one would definitely accompany a tale of alien abduction or experimental science all because of my extreme intelligence. However, I don’t have a photo like this to support those stories I may have already told my children.

  44. Well, it’s a cast, so that means something is broken. I’m voting for being trampled by one of the wild animals around your parents home. Although goats probably do more damage trampling than bobcats do.

  46. Oh dear…. knowing your wonderful medical history… probably something like Ménière’s Disease, with a physician who tried to relieve the pressure surgically!

  48. You would think he’d know not to wonder by now! We all have those pictures though….mine is when I had a broken writst….no bars on the window though….just a cat trying to eat the cast.

  51. I’m voting for random goat head-butting, I think.

    My mother recently told me I liked to put plastic bags over my head as a child. Sigh. I say her attempts to suffocate me combined with my aunt dropping me on my head when I was a newborn (she was 7. I peed on her lap…she let me roll off on the floor. MUCH more interesting to say she dropped me) explain EVERYTHING about me.

  57. I thought maybe I was the one suffering head trauma since I had read cookie but then it was gone minutes later. This pic totally supports our stories told to children though-“when I was a kid in the hospital, there were bars on the windows not pretty paintings on the walls. I also walked miles in the snow to school. Damned spoiled kids these days.”

  58. My guess: Beyonce used a Tardis to travel back in time and trip you. Just for kicks. You hit your head on a giant ball of twine, that, alas, was never to be touched by he who will respectfully remain unnamed.

  60. IF you care….Facebook still says “big, annoying, itchy cookie”……but I gotta tell ya…..it was the hook that pulled me in….itchy cookie? WTF is an itchy cookie? Poison ivy cookies? Ok….I have to stop working and see wtf she is talking about. Thanks for the loss in productivity.

  63. I had this SAME bandage style when I was 6!! I have a growth removed from my inner ear. It was growing towards my brain, and if left untreated, I would slowly start to become mentally retarded. (please forgive me if that terminology offends) True story. It would start pressing on the part of my brain that effects that.
    Now I have no hearing in my left ear, but it’s a lot easier to deal with that issue.

  66. MAN!! Now I want a cookie! And I was kind of disappointed to see that there was nothing in this post about a big annoying itchy cookie… I’m going to go eat pizza (and then find cookies somewhere). You should leave the title as is because it’s fabulous and totally throws people off!

  68. Mmmm cookies!
    I’m sure there’s an awesome story behind this.
    Most of my childhood pictures consist of me being topless with my tongue hanging out. Kind of a “toddlers gone wild” deal, I guess.

  70. See, *I* think the bigger mystery is why you’re using the British “at hospital” instead of the American “at the hospital”. I’m sensing secret UK sleeper agentry going on here.

  72. My mother has spent the last six decades telling the story about how when I was an infant, burglars broke into our apartment through the window in my bedroom. She always ends the story with, “If you had made a sound, they might have killed you!” After listening to this for forty years or so, my kid sister finally pipes up, “So that’s when they left the changeling!” It explains so much.

  74. That looks painful! Did you mistake a live kangaroo for a taxidermied one and tried to hug it?

    I’m assuming Victor means this explains why you are so awesome? 😉

  75. My daughter, Gillian brought home a book for me called “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened” by Jenny Lawson. She said it “totally reminds me of you”. After reading the book; I am left contemplating
    a) gratitude that she “gets me”
    b) suicide

  78. This MUST have been when you were recovering from the chupacabra attack. And the bars were there to keep the zombies at bay.

    ~EdT.

  79. People, she CLEARLY was attacked by a hungry zombie! It tried to get her brains, then it noticed that they were warped and left her to die. A local animal control officer dropped her at the local veterinary hospital, and they put her head in a cast, called her parents, and told them that she may be brain damaged for life.

  82. Continuing my efforts to read all of TheBloggess.com backward and I read about Hailey speaking to angels in the cemetary. Now that we know from Doctor Who that those angels aren’t all they appear to be, that angel seems to be staring down at Hailey rather menacingly. Hey Angel! Hailey is not a tasty treat. I repeat NOT a tasty treat.

    And good on Hailey for being vigilant about watching those angel statues. There is a HUGE Jesus statue on the side of a local church and I keep an eye on him whenever I drive past. You just never know.

    VIGILANCE!

  83. Obviously there was either a throw-down with Jenkins or you fainted when you found out Daffodil had been consumed by the homeless folks and cracked your noggin resulting in needing the head bandage.

    Either that or the cow came back for revenge after the baster incident…

    So many possibilities.

  85. What I want to know if, why would your parents think that was a Kodak moment?! Is it the same sort of twisted impulse that causes people to go take pictures of their totalled cars in the junkyard after they get out of the hospital? Or was it an “awww, this may be the last time we see her, we better take a picture” thing? OR did Lisa take the picture with which to torture you later? But seeing maybe she was too young to be seeking blackmail material…yet. So many questions.

  87. I’m a little concerned about the adult-sized corpse-hand in the bed. Is taxidermy legal for humans?

  89. …hm. Similar to the pictures I have of me when I had my second surgery. I looked all half dead and pathetic that time, too. Why do parents insist on documenting such things?

  90. I’m pretty sure this is actually a picture of the first time the full moon went down and you turned back into a human girl.

    Explains the bars on the window, anyway.

  92. Did you notice that the url for this post says “annoying-itchy-cookie” instead of ‘annoying-itchy-pillow’? Just thought I’d point it out since only Jenny would have an itchy cookie…and then i started wondering what would make a cookie itchy and where you would have to be holding the cookie to have it make you itch and this post made no sense to me at because of that. Clearly I need time in the ‘hospital’…

  95. I had the exact same thing when I had ear surgery at the age of 12. I had to wear the giant head cast for several weeks. I couldn’t wash my hair. It was gross.

  96. Actually, it reminds me of somebody being scalped. not that I have experience in that area … but my mom swears I have stitches in my head under my hair somewhere.

    However, I do find it interesting that your parents chose to take a picture while you were sleeping, instead of being awake so you could at least make a face at the camera. Was it one of those, “she’s so much sweeter when she’s Asleep?” Or a “oh look, the mad cobra is sleeping, lets take a picture NOW so that we can be far away before she wakes up!”

  97. At least they didn’t put one of those cones on your head to keep you from itching it… kinda fun to imagine it though.

  103. I am gonna take a guess. You were playing in your yard, and turkeys decided to attack. To escape, you climbed up on the roof of your house. And then there was a bear pelt on the roof, which you weren’t expecting so it startled you. And then you fell off the roof. And the turkeys pecked your unconscious head.

  107. It’s nice that you’re able to still surprise your husband. My husband is no longer surprised when I say crazy things like I have no idea what’s going on in my novel. My characters won’t listen to me anymore. That just gets a nod and a you’ll straighten them out.

  109. Having received a lot of suspicious stitches in my head when I was very young, I now have confirmation: somewhere out in the world there are TWO escaped gorillas, who can read and write (albeit clumsily, with their huge hands), who have trouble running on all fours, who would be solid citizens now if not for that unnamed doctor’s unspeakable experiments.

    It’s a pleasure to finally meet the other subject.

  111. You were balancing on a wall, when someone threw the carcass of a dead animal at you. This took you somewhat by surprise, so you gracefully swan-dived off the wall into a pile of rocks and split open your head?

  113. I have a picture of myself with my arm in a cast when I was 5. I look surprisingly like Caroline Kennedy.

    It looks like an ear thing to me. Aren’t they now assymetrical?

  114. Was Mike Tyson in the vicinity? I assume your ear had been gnawed off…I’m glad you were able to grow a new one. Yay for you!

  115. Finally…the appropriate hairstyle to wear with a head injury. Why has this never been in Glamour?

  116. I was recently in a coma for about a month and when I came out of the coma I had tubes going in and out of me everywhere: 4 down my throat, 2 out the other end, one in my neck, another in my shoulder, one in my foot, a couple in my arm…. Shortly after I woke up and before I finally got to go home, my mother told me that she wished she had taken a picture so I could see what I looked like. I was like “Really?!! What’s wrong with you?!!”

  117. I suspect you were jumping on the bed when Original Lisa pushed you off.
    Or should I say punched?

    Or you fell out of the window waving at soldiers? That could explain the bars. Maybe.

    Bars. Now I’m thirsty. Off for vodka!

  118. OMG! It’s kind of spooky, I have one somewhere (okay, my mom probably still has it) that’s very similar, but with the bandages over my eye as well! Except, no bars; just the curtain with the moaning chick in the next ER bay behind it… ah the memories.

  120. I just sat in Barnes and Noble for 3 hours reading your book. I had never heard of you, but I had written a novel about my crazy family and when I saw the dressed up mouse, I thought we might be related. WAtching you pull out all the family stops was so healing and when it comes out in paperback, I’ll buy it and read it from beginning to end. It was Wonderful and today is my birthday, so I feel doubly blessed. Thanks.

  121. The reason why hats are so popular …

    Side note: if *anyone* had a photo of me asleep I would hunt. them. down.

  122. This is most definately one of those times where reading the comments is as much fun as the post. And, now I sort of feel like I’m stuck in the mystery of your childhood illness, which is like a total cliffhanger that would happen at the end of The Young and The Restless or something.

  124. Oh my God, this SO needs to be a contest where we have to guess what happened to your head, and then the most original answer (and probably the one closest to the truth) wins… a mini Pony Danza!

  128. My favorite part of this whole post is how you accidently called it a cookie. Then, when I came back to show my husband just how amazingly strange your mind works, the word cookie was GONE! Now my husband thinks we’re both crazy… which sucks because I was trying to keep that from him until he upped his life insurance again.

  131. So I’m guessing your parents had your ears tucked? The bandage looks similar to the one I sported for a week at the age of 12….lol

  134. It’s like that time that Hailey thought spiders were in the eggs in your fridge except instead of fridges’ it’s ‘Mummy’s ears when she was a kid’ and therefore your post about competitive ear-bleeding vs. Victor is all starting to make sense because clearly, you were having a relapse of your childhood trauma.

    The disappointing part is that Victor’s only just starting to make sense of it now.

    I, on the other hand, shant judge you or your ear juices. Because that’s what friends do. 😉
    H

  136. You never cease to amaze. Also now everyone’s waiting for you to explain how it happened.
    I think Victor’s being a little judgemental…I mean, so what if there were bars on the window? That can be a good thing.
    And for all he knows you were at hospital because your mum was sick and being you, found a pile of bandages and decided to bandage up your head ‘Just like Mummy’s, Daddy, look!’ then fell asleep because hey, self-bandaging is tiring.
    That’s totally a reasonable excuse, right?

  138. Could be so many different injuries, so many choices, like the buffet at Golden Corral.

  139. Awwww even the little kidney dish there too just in case you throw up, but YAH you survived and methinks Victor is correct……. It may explain everything xxxxxxxx

  140. A day late and I missed out on the cookies, good thing the comments filled me up.
    My guess, you were kicked by a dead pony. I didn’t read about that yet in your book, but I’m only on page 58 (proof..”Draw Me A…Dog”) and it’s been over a year. Either I’m a slow reader or I’m not depressed enough to read that some people were actually worse off than me.
    ps; luv the book, just like my childhood, ah, the memories.

  141. Your mom had your ears pinned back so nobody would know you are the illegitimate daughter of Clark Gable?

  143. Oh no what happened? Did you try to crawl into a live deer (well, buck with antlers)? Sadly that made me giggle.
    I love your convos with your hubby .they remind me of my own convos. With my hubby. Hell, and myself. Im my own conversation partner.

  144. I had that exact same bandage 7 times!!!!! Including the “sick trough”,( repeated ear drum reconstruciton using autograft…)
    In my day, they used to do a half head shave prep….and my mother wondered why i didn’t want to go to school.
    That, and being 5 foot nine in grade five, and the new “bald” girl at school, during one of the last ones…

  145. Oh. My. God. I had the SAME weird, totally unflattering, social-life killing head bandage after a car accident. I’ve never seen one as humiliating as mine before. Thank you!

  146. Lobotomy? Fashion statement? in-grown ear ring? You look so cute and normal…just shows you can’t judge outward appearances. Luv ya.

  148. Looks like a photo of Jamie Summers before they took her into surgery to make her the Bionic Woman…

  151. I read your book, I don’t remember this being mentioned in the book. Please don’t tell me this is in book 2? Where is book 2? You said in Seattle it would not be another 11 years. Where is BOOK 2? How many chapters you got written so far?

    Wow, I am still sugar buzzing from left over Halloween candy. I need a Latte to calm down.

  155. I have to be honest- I’m actually jealous you got medical attention AND a cute kid pic to go with it. You look precious *kiss for that*. I still have bumpy scars on my head from a severe lack of stitches. And I’m with everyone else, hope it’s in book 2!

Leave a Reply

MY BOOKS:


shop

Subscribe to the bloggess, y'all.

Enter your email address and receive notifications of new posts by email. It\'s like I\'m stalking you, but more efficient.

Archives

ALL THE COOL KIDS ADVERTISE HERE:

I fucking love these people & not just because they support my wine-slushee habit:

Flourish in Progress: (T)hug Life: Part hood. Part good.

Pregnancy Calendar at Alpha Mom: Amalah’s week-by-week guide to the miracle of pregnancy and all the various indignities that come with it.

The Mack Files: Digesting life in bite-sized pieces through the lens of clichés, quotes & “truisms”.  Often irreverent, always honest.

Barking at the Moon: If your dog is your furry child, you will laugh out loud at Tracy Beckerman’s book about her family & a one-dog wrecking ball named Riley.

Kieran’s Humor: Not suitable for children, the sensitive or those hoping to get into heaven.

Go Doc Yourself Podcast: When a good doc ends, the klatch begins… Join hosts, scientists, and friends, Erin McCourt and Erin McCartt in weekly documentary dissection.

Welcome to xanaru: A mostly funny blog about the quest for happiness through authenticity, Great Danes and indiscriminate swearing. Plus hand-painted, custom artwork on bags, jackets, backpacks & more.

How the Hell Did I Not Know That?: Humorist Lucie Frost shares daily Instagram reels with learnings of the day—words, music, whatever–with plenty of laughs and all the curse words.

Beautiful Writers book: Writers! This coming-of-career memoir (w/ the BEST advice from celeb authors, real shit you haven’t heard) is life. A page-turning beach read doubling as how-to. #Magic

The Dating Days of Marta O: When I told my sister I was building a blog she said: “Do people still read blogs?” I do not know, but if YOU want to read it, here it is. Keep in mind, my stories about dating after 40 are for the brave.

Where Do I Belong? A memoir of Sarah Carrington: The unbelievable story of growing up in a religious cult in the mountains of Northern British Columbia. What happens to you in life doesn’t make you strong; rising above it does.

CONNECTED: A Personal Journal for Ketamine Therapy Created by writer & patient Katherine Davis for this powerful clinical treatment. If considering ketamine for major depression, check out this essential tool.

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh: SO GOOD.

Discover more from The Bloggess

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading