I've always been weirdly leery of those coat hooks on bathroom stall doors. They are usually right at my eye level, so I sometimes wonder if anyone has ever had one stabbed into their eye. That would really suck, and being that it's a bathroom we're talking about, probably not hygenic at all.
Darryl X. said at 10:28 AM 02-04-2004: Multi-story parking garages. I'm always afraid of some automobile malfunction that will have me smashing through one of those low concrete walls and plummeting several stories to earth.
brandon [email] said at 11:30 AM 02-04-2004: I've got that one too about parking garages.
Other irrational fears: spiders larger than a quarter. Centipedes. The fear that "someone is in the house." The fear that I might accidentally slit my throat with a razor. Fear of choking on meat (actually this one is real, I choked to unconsciousness on a piece of turkey once, at Thanksgiving, my dad had gave me the heimlich) fear of a black planet. fear of committment (whoops that one's not irrational, either)Fear of high, exposed spaces (I'm fine leaning against the window and looking down from the 90th odd floor of the hancock, but put me on the roof of a 7 story building and I become disoriented. Bridges freak me out. Oddly enough, natural landscapes do not. I have trust issues, I think. Fears of alien abduction. Fears regarding the return of dead relatives, especially during thunderstorms. Fears that I shall become paralyzed and devoured alive by the cats.
I have this incredible fear of water I can't see through.
Case in point, when I was 16 or so, a GF and I went on vacation with my parents to Fort Walton, I think. While we were there, we decided that we wanted to go out to a sandbar to dig for sand-dollars. The live ones. Anyway, between the beach and the sand bar, there was a portion that dropped out to about 12 feet, it was maybe 50-75 yards out, the sandbar. She didn't wawnt to swim, so I pulled her in this inflatable boat while I swam. About half-way through the swim over to the bar she starts talking in a low, scared voice to me: "oh, my god, there's a big shadow right behind us." I thought she was fucking with me, so I replied something along the lines of," please don't say that, you know the ocean makes me nervous." The water wasn't exactly murky, you could vaguely make out the bottom, but it was definitely not clear.
So, she repeats her observation, and I glance behind us and sure enough, there is this big, honking torpedo shaped shadow. I immediately started shivering sure that I was about to be bitten by some lurking something. I began to replay jaws pulling that girl under in the first movie in my head. Thanks head.
Once we finally got the sandbar I wanted to kick myself. Had I taken a moment longer while we were swimming to understand what I was seeing, I would have realized that it was the boat's shadow cast at a weird angle. We found sand-dollars, and organic fuzziness made me smile.
Any body of water will suffice, though, if it's deeper than my waist, and I'm the only one in it, then there might be sharks, and they're definitely hungry.
I have a fear of being electrocuted by older lamps. I'm Dave Eggers afraid of having various types of cancer. After reading that 100 Bullets issue, I'm afraid of being framed by malicious hackers.
Things I am not afraid of that I should be:
Dogs
VD
Drug Dealers
Guns
Terrorism
Josh's Monster Koch
Stringing girls along
Not having health insurance
Red Meat
Not having a future
Sonny's crushing wrestling moves
Opinions expressed in the gentleman's club
Buster
Mardi Gras
Myriam's Ass
gen [email] said at 8:53 PM 02-04-2004: I have this incredible fear of water I can't see through. So do I. But I think that's just common sense / survival instinct.
brandon [email] said at 10:05 AM 02-05-2004: I think it's irrational though, since, even in chlorine shocked swimming pools I'm convinced that white-pointers are just outside of my range of view, ready to leap out and feed as soon as I turn my back, and not suffocating as they would be once the chlorine attacks their gills.
To this day I will not swim alone, my brain must have the assurance that at least one other person is in the pool, lake, pond, ocean, etc. reducing the chances of an attack to 50%.
gen [email] said at 11:07 AM 02-05-2004: Even in swimming pools? Alright then, perhaps that is irrational. But I think that swimming in the ocean in deep waters that you can't see through does carry some risk that some of us - especially those of us who are both fascinated and terrified by sharks - may not be willing to take on a regular or even occasional basis.
linus [email] said at 10:58 AM 02-04-2004: I'm afraid of things falling out of the sky and flattening me. Sorta like in LaBamba. I also can't sit with my back to a door. In restaurants, I must always be able to see if someone is coming in to murder/stab/shoot me.
Though, I guess maybe those aren't coat hook bizarre.
linus [email] said at 11:04 AM 02-04-2004: I'm afraid of things falling out of the sky and flattening me. Sorta like in LaBamba. I also can't sit with my back to a door. In restaurants, I must always be able to see if someone is coming in to murder/stab/shoot me.
Though, I guess maybe those aren't coat hook bizarre.
John said at 1:30 AM 02-05-2004: It's alright with people I know, at my table, but I can't watch others at the restaurant eat. I have to face a wall or window.
brandon [email] said at 10:06 AM 02-05-2004: I hate eating sounds. One of our work-studies used to be the bane of my existence, as she sat next to me and smacked her lips through an entire year of lunches.
ed [email] said at 11:50 AM 02-04-2004: I don't know. I'm not sure that I have any irrational fears left. I still have fears, but the "silly" ones seem to have disappeared. Most of what's left centers on death. Not mine, which I'm fine with, but the death of people I love.
milky [email] said at 12:18 PM 02-04-2004: Fears, justified:
-Significant relapse (always for good reason)
-losing health insurance and running out of meds.
-flunking out of grad school, again
-significant, romantic relationships with women.
-rattlesnakes and copperheads and water moccasins.
-not finding an occupation or career, having no future.
-mental instablility (leading to hospitalization, a breakdown or an "incident.")
-Cops. Damn cops. Just ticketed this morning, too.
-Meth addicts (never more a vile, frightening group of people).
Irrational fears:
-Paranoia related to persecution, trust issues(probably well justified at this ponit, though. People do actively fuck me over).
-Continued erosion of the Constitution.
-No economic improvement.
-Being monitored by the government.
-Heights.
-Classrooms that are small and have no windows.
-Dying alone (we all die alone, technically).
amanda [email] said at 12:23 PM 02-04-2004: I'm deathly afraid of heights. I have a hard time walking down the steps of my lecture hall, because I'm afraid I will trip and fall. I'm fine when I'm sitting or crawling on a high place, but I can't stand up or walk. When I stand, I feel like some unseen force is going to push me over the edge. Oddly enough, airplanes and gentle mountain slopes don't bother me. It's only when I can see a very steep drop down (i.e. a cliff, a fire tower, tall buildings) that I start to feel faint.
I'm also afraid of caterpillars, centipedes/millipedes, and grubs. Before the state started spraying to kill off the gypsy moth/tent caterpillar population, I spent half of the month of June refusing to go outside unless I was armed with an umbrella and a hooded jacket. The thought of a caterpillar falling on me and touching my flesh makes me feel queasy.
I fear being bumped or shoved when I am scratching my eye, because I'm afraid that I will poke my eye out with my own finger. I'm afraid of losing my teeth in some sort of accident, alien abductions, mythical creatures (the yeti, el chupacabra, etc.) attacking me when I'm walking alone at night, and being stung by a bullhead's barbels.
I'm also afraid of dying in some wacky, "weird news" type accident; the news of which that is spread across the internet comedy wildfire so that everyone can reflect on what an unlucky (though humourous) break my death was. I just know that I'm going to end up dying after being bludgeoned to death by a loaf of french bread, or when a mysterious giant squid sucked from the ocean by a rogue waterspout falls to earth and lands on me. I just know it.
xmeredithx [email] said at 12:30 PM 02-04-2004: 1. the anti-theft devices in stores and shopping malls going off when i leave, even though i haven't stolen anything. i cringe every time i exit a store with one of those systems.
cecil [email] said at 12:59 PM 02-04-2004: This morning I saw what I thought was a tarantula in the parking garage and I gasped. Turned out to be withered maple leaf. I don't think I've ever even seen a real tarantula before.
anotherben.. said at 6:48 PM 02-04-2004: i used to dream i was going to die in ohio. i had the dream pretty regularly and have since decided i am never going there again. i also get kind of nervous during bad weather because of another dream i had where a stop sign that had been thrown into the air by a tornado is falling. i see the sign coming down and start running but the sign keeps catching the wind and getting closer and closer to me. every time i have this dream the sign hits me and buries itself into the ground through my head.
gen [email] said at 8:50 PM 02-04-2004: Severed (human) heads. I got over cadavers, but I draw the line at severed heads. Of course I'll have to cross that line in 2 weeks, but until then, I remain convinced that I cannot handle the sight of a severed head - I will faint/vomit/break down. There's something about a severed human head - the site of facial expression/emotion/rationality/humanity, frozen/contorted in pain, empty opaque beady gaze, ... I can't handle it.
And just think of the symbolism - we used to sever heads and impale them on spikes as an expression of authority. Having your head chopped off and impaled on a spike was the ultimate embarrassment/punishment/display of power and dominance.
marcia [email] said at 9:05 PM 02-04-2004: small admissions:
irrational:
i'll admit that i'm still a little scared of gobbly-gookies under my bed. when i'm feleing especially scared, i do leave the light on in my apartmet. i never had this fear before i bought a real bed with a real frame.
i'm afraid of my cat attacking my face while i'm asleep.
i'm afraid of being brutally raped and murdered in front of people who don't help me.
car crashes
plane crashes
insects in my bed (cockroaches and ticks, especially)
katie said at 12:27 AM 02-05-2004: most fear winds up being irrational. even if the object being feared is genuinely fearsome, the act of being in fear becomes bigger and more dangerous than the object being feared in the first place. i have nothing to fear but fear itself, rather.
that being said, i fear:
- ice on the stairs
- squeaking noises on the Metro
- Halliburton's television commercial
- The corner of the dining room where the dog likes to poop
- holding babies
- ladders
- armageddon
- writer's block
- house fires
- being lonely
- the BRPD
- losing all my teeth
- arthritis
- my great-aunt louise's emphysema
- prison
i'm sure there's lots more, but this list has made me need to go to the panic room or listen to talking heads or possibly cook an omelet and shiver.
Baby Duck said at 2:24 AM 02-05-2004: For the longest time I thought girls wanted to literally eat me. Today I'll still freak out if a girl bites me or tries to give me a hickey or something.
I hallucinate sensations inside my body that cannot possibly be happening. I have will-trained myself to dismiss/ignore them.
If I can feel myself falling asleep, I can't. I have to randomize my late thoughts so I don't notice the drifting off.
sonny [email] said at 11:53 PM 02-08-2004: I am 100% serious I am not trying to be funny.
I have a fear of 1970's retail interior decorating.
when I would go shopping with my mom in the 80's sometimes we would go to some "not so nice" areas to shop and I would be worried for my Mom and at 8 years old you really can't do much to protect her. well If we were in a crappy old shopping complex it would not usually be remodeled it would look real 70s. like alot of orange and brown and yellow. and maybe green walls with white latice in front of it. kinda felt like the mall in that one Zombie movie where they are in a mall. Is that day of the dead? I have this really vivid dream of my family being accosted by a van of hippies in front of the Zayre's in laurel md. We tried to run away in our station wagon and they pulled up next to us and this like 2 foot tall Playskool character hippie doll pops out of the VW insignia and has a phone and says "it's for you " and the phone cord wraps around my mom's neck and strangles her.... uh yeah Brown orange and yellow creppy leftovers in a sketch area . Hippies stay away from my mom.
