Where did you find the five dollars?
If you've ever experienced deja vu, that's a sure sign that you're dreaming even now. The real world is much nicer than this dream.
That's a very dramatic bridge to drive across -- heights don't generally bother me, but that bridge gives a surprising sense of being way the hell up in the air.
1: You see, Brock, it is customary among some people to tell a rambling story and then, sensing that said story may have had little or no point, append the "And then I found five dollars" tagline in a desperate gambit to add some purpose (admittedly, a fabricated purpose) for the tale.
The D.M.B. is the only bridge that ever scared me. I used to tense up considerably while on it.
Usually I don't think about bridges and just drive on. However, the approaches to that one let me know how high that thing is and how narrow the roadway is.
I finally am able to steal a weak wireless signal from the neighbors after several days of not being able to. I almost never remember dreams, but since I've been here at the beach, I keep having these long, complicated, and *exhausting* dreams. I liked it a lot better when sleeping was just turning off for several hours.
On a dream-related note, I just finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and was completely entranced the whole way through (but Jesus, did it bleed into the long, exhausting dreams; that was really weird). Has anybody else read any other Murakami and have a suggestion for what to pick up next?
Murakami is usually good, but sometimes they read a bit as if they've been written on automatic pilot, e.g. Sputnik Sweetheart. A Wild Sheep Chase and its sequel, Dance, Dance, Dance might be a good way to go. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is generally felt to be his masterpiece, but you have to be in a fairly stable state of mind to deal with it, as there are passages (to avoid spoilers) which are, shall we say, not easy to think about.
So, you didn't find five dollars?
Murakami: H-B W at E ot W is the most HBWish of the books of his that I've read, so if you're looking for that particular weirdness I can't help you (though maybe The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle? N.b. unread by me). *Not* South of the Border, West of the Sun.
Maybe the short stories? Of the three other novels of his I've read I can't remember very much about two, and the third (Norwegian Wood) is very different.
3,5: I agree with your folks sense of the bridge, but it is interesting that at its highest point it is ~50 feet lower than the George Washington Bridge, which is of course dramatic in its own way, but has a very different feel due to its cliff-to-cliff configuration and double-decking. To me the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (which I've driven across much more) gives a very similar feel (and is 225 feet at its highest point), not surprising since the designer of the Verrazano consulted on the Delaware Memorial.
So, you didn't find five dollars?
I did not. And I'm beginning to wonder whether the expression is less common than I had thought.
10: It seems like the kind of thing Heebie would say. If I've heard it before, it was probably here. However, if you had described it to me in terms like 4, I would have drawn a blank. If I had had to guess the meaning of the title, I would have thought you were saying that's what happened next in the dream as a mark of how freaky/random it was.
4, 10: I'd always heard it as, "And then I woke up; it had all been a dream!" But, gee, do it your way if you insist.
I knew what you meant, Stanley; I'm just giving you a hard time. Like the pals we are, you fucker.
Was this your Fear and Loathing in New York trip?
You really shouldnt drive on ether, Stanley.
If I had had to guess the meaning of the title, I would have thought you were saying that's what happened next in the dream as a mark of how freaky/random it was.
Shorter every Murakami novel I've ever read: I'm a mysterious/silent/cool/laconic dropout/student/regular guy who smokes a lot. I keep meeting beautiful, young, mysterious/crazy women with funny names who insist on taking off their clothes/getting into bed with me/buying me expensive gifts. Sometimes they have a soul-killing sickness that can only be healed by my sweet sweet love. Then there's a horrible accident/murder/weird dream. Then a bunch of other stuff happens, none of which makes any sense. The end.
I liked Underground.
Of course I have bever been to Delaware, that I can remember, but the picture of that bridge gave me a little rush. Studying the picture, I think it immediately reminds me of the initial ascent on a roller coaster. The curve does not let you see the horizon, or what is on the other side of the rise, and you can't but imagine there will be a drastic dropoff. As said above, the narrowness adds to the anxiety.
I have the little "fear-of-falling" moments when drowzy very often, like at least once a night. They not just wake me up, but sit me up straight, sometimes with sweats. I have about convinced myself they are dream interpretations of my heart skipping a beat.
16: you forgot about the women just up and disappearing one day, unless that's part of the horrible accident/murder.
My mom, who grew up in Philadelphia, has a strong fear of driving over bridges. I've never heard her mention the DMB as particularly bad, but I remember driving across the Verrazano Narrows with her and her nervousness was palpable.
I confess that I bought South of the Border, West of the Sun instead of any other Murakami novel, on the occasion of my buying it, because of the cover.
In recent years my stock anxiety/out-of-control dream (recurs not too frequently, thank God) has consisted of me driving backwards* very fast under minimal control with traffic, hills and bridges. Very unsettling, and I do notice that the dream always comes to mind (and adds a dollop of anxiety) when I need to back up for a longish distance (something I've never been that good at).
*Maybe it's forwards, one of the two.
Driving into view of the Golden Gate Bridge is an enjoyable experience, every time.
18: true, the women disappearing/committing suicide/never having existed in the first place is a common thread.
4: Ah, so that's what you meant here.
24: Yep. Not that your story didn't have a point. Just joshing you for telling a long story.
Hey wait a minute.
I'm a laconic student who doesn't smoke a lot and I just met* a beautiful, young, mysterious, crazy woman with a funny name! She hasn't gotten into bed with me yet but she did IM me this morning to ask if we should have sex.
*or rather re-met.
WHH using the gmail. Possible discretion slip.
27. You should. Don't be like Osbert Lancaster.
28: That's particularly unusual because it's not the same link in other recent comments.
30: And it's already fixed, so never mind.
And you cook a lot. Ergo you should have sex; the future of the universe and the integrity of this dimension may depend upon it.
My tab-hitting finger was overzealous and skipped a field.
she did IM me this morning to ask if we should have sex
Did you reply?
The D.M.B. is the only bridge that ever scared me. I used to tense up considerably while on it.
Sunshine Skyway, Tampa Bay. The old one collapsed while my family was in Tampa, having driven over it IIRC the day before. Then, in 1999, BOGF and I drove over the new, improved, super-high, and curving one after a long day's drive (starting in Key West) with crosswinds. Jesus that sucked.
I thought that you were going to need the 5 dollars sto pay the toll.
neb prefers being subsidized by poor transit users.
36: Sorta relevant link regarding Delaware and tolls and some other stuff
No, I—I recognize the justice in it. I just don't like doing it. Stopping the car, fumbling in your pocket for the wallet, getting the money out, oh my god it's unbearable.
37 to 34? Well... I'd suspected it was that kind of IM exchange.
Shit, nevermind. Please delete 41--I'd forgotten that 27 was anon. Sorry.
WHH, why so presidential? Isn't this the kind of thing that ought be shouted from the rooftops? Oh, I guess possibly Anna would disapprove.
40: Maybe there's some kind of futuristic technological solution using invisible rays or something. Must try and think...
oh my god it's unbearable.
This seems... extreme.
Maybe there's some kind of futuristic technological solution using invisible rays or something.
And this just seems absurd. Next JP will be telling us about sending human voices through wires.
16: Shorter every Murakami novel I've ever read: I'm a mysterious/silent/cool/laconic dropout/student/regular guy who smokes a lot.
Check.
I keep meeting beautiful, young, mysterious/crazy women with funny names
Not really. {thinks about it} OK, well, actually....maybe.
who insist on taking off their clothes/getting into bed with me/buying me expensive gifts.
Damn! And things were going so well!
Sometimes they have a soul-killing sickness that can only be healed by my sweet sweet love.
{snort}
Then there's a horrible accident/murder/weird dream.
Is that the punishment for the expensive gifts? I've mostly avoided this.
Then a bunch of other stuff happens, none of which makes any sense. The end.
Check. I feel so ...stereotypical. Except... where are my expensive gifts/sex, dammit? I DEMAND A REFUND!
max
['Every human being is someone else's stereotype.']
I'm still having those dreams where I suddenly remember that I have a baby, and where the hell did I put her? And then I panic, but usually the dream supplies a baby fairly quickly.
For God's sake, Stanley, don't be such a big girls's blouse.
Dreams that seem to come true are freaky, man.
You know what gives you crazy ass vivid dreams is effexor. Sometimes I have to ask Mr. B if such-and-such happened or not.
16 Shorter every Murakami novel I've ever read: I'm a mysterious/silent/cool/laconic dropout/student/regular guy who smokes a lot. I keep meeting beautiful, young, mysterious/crazy women with funny names who insist on taking off their clothes/getting into bed with me/buying me expensive gifts. Sometimes they have a soul-killing sickness that can only be healed by my sweet sweet love. Then there's a horrible accident/murder/weird dream. Then a bunch of other stuff happens, none of which makes any sense. The end.
You're forgetting: I like to cook spaghetti all the time (and must use the term al dente when thinking about it), and listen to jazz.
I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, thought it was great, then read some other Murakami books, thought they were pretty good or at least ok, then read a few more and concluded that they all suck.
53: And then I woke up; it had all been a dream!
Also I thought the End of the World parts of HBWEW were irredeemably dull. YMMV.
Best of Murakami is Kafka on the Shore. It's the best because it contains the line "I do anal sex."
That malaria medicine that you take once a week gave me the scariest dreams I've ever had. There was one night when I woke up at three in the morning and decided it was easier to wait for the reast of the world to wake up, than to risk going to sleep and resuming that nightmare.
There are state troopers at either end of the 4.3-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge to drive people who are too scared to drive themselves across.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel District offers a driver's assistance program whereby the Police Department arranges for a District employee to drive a customer's personal vehicle across the Bridge-Tunnel whenever a customer has a phobia of heights, bridges, tunnels, etc. This service is provided to hopefully pre-empt an unsafe incident involving a customer from occurring due to any phobia which may present itself when driving across the facility.
(Also, The Erection Crew)
57: Nicotine patches, if I leave them on over the night, give me very vivid dreams. Not scary, but vivid.
58: That's the bridge I figured I was thinking of when I had the initial dream. Very long and very, very high.
Taking melatonin has been great for getting to sleep before 3 AM, but gives really vivid dreams. Usually not bad dreams, but stressful to the emotions nonetheless.
58: I heard a Park Ranger at Bandelier National Monument offer that to an older couple who were jittery about the drive back up out of the park. Would teo do the same?
Dreams that seem to come true are freaky, man.
Wednesday morning I woke from some troubling dream I couldn't remember with Bryan Ferry's line "Is it raining in New York on Fifth Avenue ... " ringing in my head. Then it rained later that afternoon!
Chantix, when I was on it for a few days back when I was first quitting smoking, gave me amazing dreamscapes. Like, close my eyes, reopen them in Willy Wonka, close them much later, wake up in bed, full on, seemingly constant dreams. Amazing stuff. I was a little sad that it didn't work on me as a smoking cessation agent. Nicotine lozenges, which did work, didn't give me anything but the ability not to smoke.
A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance, Dance, Dance are both great books. AWSC is probably in my top ten or fifteen favorite books read in adulthood.
64: How are the lozenges? I used the patch to quit the gum. Now I need something to quit the patch.
58: I almost sailed a boat into the Bay Bridge. I needed help going under it.
62: That's a rhetorical question, of course. By the time they got across the bridge, the couple would have either 1) adopted teo or 2) set him up with their grand/daughter (depending on what counts as "older").
65: I swallowed a bird to catch the fly
I like to cook spaghetti all the time (and must use the term al dente when thinking about it), and listen to jazz.
Sometimes I'm even the proprietor of a jazz club.
The 750mg Vicodin the dentist Rxed gave me bad nightmares. It's not anything on which I'm likely to get hooked, those dreams up with which I wouldn't like to put.
68: You aren't supposed to quit all at once. I've only been using nicotine replacement for five years now.
For those seeking a less hipsterical alternative to Murakami, I recommend Kobo Abe's "The Ruined Map". Probably the least science-fictional, or only non-science-fictional, of his books.
71: Oh, I know. I've been on the bird for years, too.
The list of Japanese novelists I prefer to Murakami is long and presumably still growing. Kobo Abe is indeed good. Secret Rendezvous also seems to me to be vaguely in the same vein as Murakami.
The list of Japanese novelists I prefer to Murakami is long and presumably still growing.
I'm not familiar with any of them, so this would be a good time to tell me.
73: My dad used a hypnotist and quit in a single day. He'd also had an angioplasty, so it may have been the motivation that did it.
If you found Murakami interesting, you might like Kobo Abe. Of the canonical Japanese novelists, I like Junichiro Tanizaki a lot, but his storytelling is much more conventional.
Do I have to wait until comment 100 for this?
Kobo!
'Cause I'm busy.
Tanizaki is great. I really liked Some Prefer Nettles and his little aesthetic treatise In Praise of Shadows had a big influence on me, too!
I liked Some Prefer Nettles a lot, and The Makioka Sisters is one of my very favorites. I don't think I've ever read In Praise of Shadows, but perhaps now I shall!
75: Natsume Soseki, Kobo Abe, Yasunari Kawabata, maybe Kenzaburo Oe. Above all of those, as others said, Tanizaki is great. Also, stretching the definition of "Japanese novelist" a bit, Kazuo Ishiguro.
When I was younger (from my teens through to my twenties) I used to have such very detailed and vivid dreams that I would wake up really uncertain whether they had happened. They are still, in fact, as vivid in memory as if they had happened: only I do know with my reason th
(I realised, 75 minutes after I began this comment, that Torchwood S3 part 5 of "The Children of Earth" was about to begin, and ran away to watch it.)
at they didn't.
I can't remember how I meant to end this comment any more.
his storytelling is much more conventional
'Cause stories about people with sexual fixations on severed heads are totally conventional.
My dad used a hypnotist and quit in a single day. He'd also had an angioplasty, so it may have been the motivation that did it.
I think mindset is pretty huge. I've quit for months, even years at a time based on just waking up one day and concluding that I didn't feel like being a smoker anymore. Unfortunately, I've resumed just as many times based on just waking up a different day and thinking, I miss smoking.
I spent a long, long time looking for Soseki's Three-Cornered World (original title literally the much more evocative Grass Pillow; the translator had a really bad reason for changing it) after reading about it in a not very well written book called Aesthetic Detachment in Japan and the West. It wasn't worth it. Much better Soseki: Kokoro.
Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea is pretty devastating, as is his "Death in Midsummer", even though the book of his stories I have with that story in it doesn't even include the whole story! wtf?
86: Yeah, I've never read Mishima, because knowing a few things about Mishima the person makes me reluctant to dip into his books. And yet I hear lots of good things about the books.
83: Is Torchwood any good?
Also, damn!
88: Do you mean the draft-dodging or the possible homosexuality? Or that other thing.
The bridges I've found really scary are the International Bridge at Sault Ste. Marie and the Bong Bridge between Duluth and Superior. Thankfully, with the right crowd, crossing the Bong bridge results in enough hilarity that all thoughts of acrophobia are banished from one's mind.
Some guys have all the luck: max's life resembles a Murakami novel, my life resembles an Akutagawa short story.
I didn't even know Mishima was a novelist before this.
I can't remember how I meant to end this comment any more.
And then I found five dollars!
"I can't remember how I meant to end this comment any more."
And when I woke-up my pillow was missing.
I don't even have a Mishima.
88: I was wondering when that would come up here.
When it says "junior G8 delegates," does that mean she's jailbait?
88/97: You have seen the entirely exonerating (for BHO) video, yes?
Sarkozy's expression is very funny to me.
89.2: Yes, the picture looks pretty damning, but if you watch the video you can see it is a whole other thing, he is turning to help the woman behind him step down and is not really in a position to observe. Not sure if that is true for Sarkozy as well. Drudge was in ecstasy about it yesterday.
Mishima is a very, very good novelist, but a deeply weird and pretty repugnant ideology and set of ethical ideas shapes a lot of the work (that I've read) -- and not just in the, oh, this guy is a reactionary with ideas that I understand but disagree with way, but in the "this guy's belief system is bizarre to the point of being incomprehensible" way. Really, really beautiful and worth reading, though.
I think jms's jihad against Murakami is unfair but pretty hilarious.
101: How was the picture damning? All I saw was the back of a woman in a dress. Was there more?
101: It isn't for Nicolas, who practically pulls a muscle craning his neck to keep looking. Et voilà.
Yes, the picture looks pretty damning,
Damning? Even if it was exactly what it looked like it would be amusing.
93: The other thing with the cup?
I recall Abe's "The Face of Another" as pretty compelling, even more so in light of recent face transplant news. Dazai Osamu's semi-autobiographical No Longer Human is similarly upsetting/disturbing as well as iconic, as is Oe's also semi-autobiographical A Personal Matter (I really need to read more Oe). Mishima is generally disturbing; I remember especially The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, based on the story of the young monk who burned down one of Japan's most revered temples. For short stories, Modern Japanese Stories is an excellent collection, though it's nearly 50 years old; I don't know of any contemporary anthologies.
The only Abe I've read is The Box Man and I couldn't really make much of it.
YOU KNOW WHAT?!!!
Abe's The Box Man and Nikolaides' Vanishing-Point might go well together! God knows they are both very impersonal, confusing books. I will have to propose this to the only other human I know who's read the latter.
BTW, I understand why it's not OK for BHO to check her out, but it's OK for me, right?
106: Damning? Even if it was exactly what it looked like it would be amusing.
I'm a prude.
In re the title, did Stanley also find an arm, a leg, or a wife?
112: Dammit.
If only I could access other pictures of attractive women to check out. Maybe after JP's fantasy toll-paying device is developed, the boffins will get on my dilemma next.
Don't click on the link in 113, it's a trap! (An open-ended one, but a trap nonetheless.)
I hate bridges, especially the Tobin and especially the lower deck, the middle lane of which is always under construction so that one is forced to travel in one of the extra-narrow outside lanes from which you get a good view of the extensive areas of rust on the guard rails, such a good view that I can't go across it anymore, and in fact I'm getting tense just thinking about it.
How strange. Google doesn't encode the quotation marks in its URLs anymore or something? Link in 113 should be this.
116: Scariest bridge I have ever driven across. There's a guardrail now. McCarthy Road, Alaska.
Rio Grande Gorge Bridge outside of Taos is pretty good as well, partly because you're driving on a very flat stretch and suddenly there's this deep, narrow crack in the Earth.
Althouse doesn't think the video is exonerating.
This is the bridge that impressed me when I was a kid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_Bridge-Tunnel
120: Althouse has gone off the bridge. That's just plain nuts.
120: Shockingly, given her unashamed piggishness towards Jessica Valenti in response to the Bill Clinton blogger lunch picture.
120: Onion rings put that woman in mind of vadge, so . . .
The young lady in question is wearing a rather intriguing dress, with transparent layers! and dangling sleeve-things! I would have probably done a double take too.
122: Yeah, BHO keeps looking down and in the same direction well after the ass has sashayed elsewhere.
Come on. The link in 120 is hilarious. (Although not in the way it was intended, I don't think.)
125: The dress is nice; I had the impression the dangling sleeve-things were a scarf tossed back over her shoulders. But I haven't watched the video.
Anybody wearing a dress like that to whatever functionary-style event it was would be glanced at, no?
127: Well, yes. Which opens the question: "Is it nice to laugh at the totally barking mad?"
re: 130
I hated the first few episodes so never watched the rest. I have no idea if it got any better. Anyway, YMMV, it seems. Then again, I found quite a lot of the more recent Dr Who episodes fairly tired, too -- to the extent that I missed more than I watched, I think -- although I enjoyed some of them quite a lot.
Minne: Some guys have all the luck:
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BAHAHAHAHAHA. OW. That hurts.
max's life resembles a Murakami novel
A small sub-section of my life may resemble a Murakami novel (I've no idea, I'm just going by jms's description) without any of the rewards.
No. If I'm going by some kind of standard like that, think the first six minutes of Conan, mixed with Empire of the Sun, some bits from Deliverance, High Plains Drifter, TEH Road Warrior, and various urban crime story movies. Plus some blaxploitation, and maybe Bill and Ted or Wayne's World or something like that mixed in for amusement.
max
['I could probably make a better list. Oh, well.']
122: Althouse has gone off the bridge.
She's been off for years.
We drove through one of the tunnels in the Baltimore harbor when I was a kid. I had fully expected the walls to be glass and had looked forward to seeing all kinds of fish and probably dolphins. Because we were under the water!!1! It was going to be AMAZING. I was one sorely disappointed kid, I tell you what.
Yes, the tile-lined tunnels in the East are disappointingly reminiscent of bathrooms.
137: I've never understood the tiles, actually. It's pretty, from a certain perspective, and you can overcome certain curvature issues. But people hadn't figured out that those tiles are going to get mildew in the grout. Not to mention the tiles falling off here and there.
How are tunnels in the West equipped, I wonder.
There aren't very many tunnels in the West.
I think tunnels to go through mountains are more common than tunnels to go through bodies of water. I'd be surprised if there weren't more tunnels per capita in the west than in the east. Wikipedia's list of tunnels in the US.
Yeah, the tunnels I remember in the West are through mountains, and they're lined with concrete. The tile is probably about moisture, come to think of it.
There's a great tunnel into Zion National Park that has these bus-size openings every so often off to one side. The first time I drove through it was during one of those spectacular thunderstorms you get in the Southwest, so we'd be driving along in total darkness and then see a mysterious and rather breathtaking valley pop up in arched frames, obscured by rain and mist, with a waterfall cascading from near the peak of one of the mountains.
112: The age of consent in France is 16. If I were watching video shot in the Vatican I could ogle 12-year-olds.
If one is riding a loop around the Marin headlands, at one point one must go through a very narrow tunnel in which all the cars seem to think it's hilarious to honk frequently. This is really quite distressing to me as I cycle.
I was about to mention Zion, but I see I have already been pwned.
Here's a pretty good article on tunnels and tunnel construction at How Stuff Works. A lot of interesting info but nothing on the tiles. One tidbit, some underwater tunnels, including the Ted Williams in Boston, are really just trenches into which is placed a pre-constructed tube.
193 fatalities building the Hoosac tunnel through the Berkshires in the 19th century.
One tidbit, some underwater tunnels, including the Ted Williams in Boston, are really just trenches into which is placed a pre-constructed tube.
The Transbay Tube for BART is the same way. I guess underwater labor is real expensive, so the more you can do with the piece of the tunnel above ground, the better.
144: you're not familiar with the work of harmonicist Bruce "Creeper" Kurnow?
Also I think the largest diameter tunnel in the world is where I-80 goes through Yerba Buena Island between the two spans of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge. Two decks, each with five (six? not sure where the exit/entrance ramps are) lanes of traffic.
Ah here we go, another How Stuff Works article, "Why are the insides of tunnels usually covered in ceramic tile?." Main points seem to be: durable, easy to clean (grime does not embed), water resistant (but the grout does not have either those), easy to fit to rounded/irregular surface, cheap to replace individual tiles if they crack, and reflects light well.
Christ, we have to help the poor now? No wonder my taxes keep going up.
You don't have to, Walt. Just, you know, watch your back.
Rather than taking my hard earned money, couldn't we just give them Stanley's five dollars? After all, he just found it.
Well, the Navajo Nation has opened a casino in Gallup. Maybe it'll make a lot of money for them.
156: Tell a long story and then you'll find your own five dollars. Fact.
53: Speaking of tolling...
Hrmmm.
Unscrupulous car dealers in Reservation border towns like Farmington and Gallup take advantage of Navajos' poverty and lack of education to massively rip them off on the financing terms in ways that can be either legal or illegal.Claytie Williams got into trouble for ripping off black people in Odessa-Midland that way back when he was running for Governor. ALL finance schemes that are aimed at the poor are generally ripoffs through and through.
The moral of this, to the extent that there is one, is really just that it sucks to be poor.Ayup. You can't rip off rich people - they might sue. You can't NOT rip off poor people - how the hell else can you make a profit off of them?
max
['Efficieennnnnttttttt mmmmaaaaarrrrkkkkkeeeeeeettttttsssssss.']
ALL finance schemes that are aimed at the poor are generally ripoffs through and through.
Word. There's nothing like working in a consumer law office to drive this point home.
DREAMS OF BRIDGES TO TUNNELS IN 100+ COMMENTS. YOU PEOPLE ARE AS EASY AS YOUR MOTHERS.
I probably should have emphasized that I was genuinely concerned whether what happened in the OP was an actual "panic attack". I guess I should ask, you know, a doctor.
163: I probably should have emphasized that I was genuinely concerned whether what happened in the OP was an actual "panic attack".
And I meant to say something, Stanley, and it slipped my mind.
{dons Karnak hat} Anywas, I'd say: no. What you got is a precursor. Panic attacks are usually worse. You likely would not have been able to bring yourself to drive across the bridge. ('I was gonna open the door, but I couldn't because I panicked!') Usually you get some serious heart palpations, sweating, might faint, room spins around, &c. and generally feeling like you're going to die.
Even if it was one, it wouldn't mean much until you had another. One freakout does not justify prescribing the fix for panic attacks, which is anti-anxiety meds. If you have one, and they start recurring, THEN you go to the doctor and say, 'Please, may I haz exciting drugs?'
That's a terrible and not-helpful definition, but nobody really knows what the thing is, except basically you freak out and your brain induces a hormone storm.
max
['I wouldn't worry about it; it sounds like a kinda scary bridge.']
bob@7: that sounds like a mild version of hypnagogic sleep paralysis, which is more common than the WikiP article suggests: i used to get this a LOT when i was younger, but change of diet and cutting down on late-night coffee made a difference (esp.instant coffee)
re torchwood: i only saw one ep of this week's five-parter so fare, and enjoyed it a lot -- as did a lot of my friends who, like ttam@131 had disliked the early stuff and tuned out, but have raved about this new series
i thought the original concept -- the frontline against alien incursion will be manned by sexual outsiders -- had terrific potential: but the writing was very hit -and-miss, and the imagining of a world of sexual outsiders was lame and constrained (i guess i wanted a scifi queer as folk, which boy did i not get)
plus the chemistry of the original torchwood team was more or less non-existent (barrowman is as tremendously unconvincing bisexual, for a start); anyway they killed off half the original team at the close of the last series, and seem to have dialled back the SF QoF ambitions, which is sad in respect of some Sam-Delany-on-mainstream-TV sense, but probably for the best given the skills of the team to hand
you guys!! I am so happy! my younger daughter had to go to the ER (new york-presbyterian) yesterday, and the doctor said if she developed a fever or stomach pains or vomiting I had to bring her back, at which point they would admit her. so, this morning, fever. I packed up ou stuff and went back to the ER and the nice nurse sent us right back home! the fever isn't high enough to worry about and I need to give the antibiotics a chance to work. they meant, a fever over 102.5, which they should have, like, mentioned. so I was dead sure we were going to be in the hospital for a few days, and now we're not! that was the best trip to the ER ever. now that I'm spending so long in NY unexpectedly, maybe I should meet up with people tonight?
Take a quick trip to Boston too, alameida. Is Sufu back in town?
Sufu Twutufush.
That's a great relief about your daughter, al! A meetup would be fun if you've got time -- dry, to make up for Monday's excess.
Is Sufu back in town?
I was figuring tonight was The Sifu and Blume Special Night, based solely on the fact that most weddings seem to take place on Saturday and he just the other day mentioned having a car full of champagne.
163, 164: I don't know much, but my sense is that max is right -- that the definition of 'panic attack' includes significant physical symptoms. I had a friend in the Peace Corps who got sent home because they thought she was having panic attacks, which were like max described. Turned out after she got home that she was actually having a medication interaction thing, and that the emotional freakout was a reaction to the racing heartrate and so on in her case rather than the cause of it.
170: Seems right about the physical symptoms. I ran it by a bandmate who was recently on meds for panic attacks. His heart got a bit dodgy—like, emergency-room-now dodgy. He said it sounded like I was probably just freaked out and/or over-caffeinated.
