I was going really fast on my bike as a kid. Decided that if I lifted my foot up and slammed it back down, I would go faster!
Missed the pedal entirely, went right off the side of the bike at super fast speed.
I now have road rash scars on my shoulder, hip, and likely under my hair on my head (Gonna shave it all off one day, I promise, just to see).
Even worse, one of my mom’s friends saw me come off and insisted on driving me home and my hip bled all over her brand new car’s blue fabric seat, turning it purple. I was mortified.
Tell me your stupidity! Crazy sunburn? Cooking accident? Driving whoops? I need a laugh so go on!
I waited until himself was upstairs so I wouldn’t be interrupted or embarrassed.
It went pretty well? I think? Right nostril was first for the inflow. Came right out the other side, no problem.
Left side…it felt different. Colder. It came out of the other side faster, and ran down to my throat immediately. So I guess I know which side is the difficult one! I was able to intentionally close off my throat so it didn’t run into my mouth – and still breathe – which makes me think this is something I do not do involuntarily. Perhaps doing this rinse will teach my muscles to close that part off more often?
There was a strange not-smell immediately afterwards. Similar to what I think of as the smell of a runny nose when I am about to get a cold. I have a lot of drainage still, 20mins later. I’m not getting blocked up or anything. It just feels damp in there. I’m doing a good bit of hawking back snot. It tastes extra salty so maybe I didn’t get all of the rinse out.
Oh, and because I’m both curious and disgusting, I drained into a glass container so I could see what came out. Nothing was black, grey, or green – but there were a lot of white bits. Will be interesting to see if that changes with regular use. You’ll be glad there is no photo with this post! I could have, but I’m not that disgusting.
About a half hour later now and the left side is starting to close up. Well, I’ve had a sore spot in there for a few days so I’m not going to read too much into it.
Oh, joy. Hubby just came downstairs and I told him, ‘I did the nose thing.’
He said, ‘I can hear it!’
‘Wait, what?’
‘You sound more “nasally”. I thought you were putting it on.’
Fantastic. I sound even worse than I normally do, it seems. Sigh.
For those who do this, a question. Once a day or twice?
I wake up every morning with a clot of yuck right at the top of my throat. It is solid, it isn’t green, but it has flecks of brown in it.
I googled that shit, after a good few months of waking up thinking I was getting lung cancer.
Turns out that a lot of people have this morning guck. People who don’t smoke, never have smoked, never have smoked anything. So that made me feel a little less cancerous.
Last night, I mentioned to himself that I think I should try a neti pot. Background: My sister has been trying to get me to use one for years. I’m scared as hell by the idea of intentionally pouring anything liquid into my breathing apparatus. I choke on spit. A LOT. Sometimes when I wash my hair water gets in my sinuses and it freaks me out. More of Whhhhhyyyyyy than Owwwww, but you get the idea:
I’m not keen on putting salt water up my nose. I’m for-sure gonna drown. Gonna breathe that shit in, gag and cough until I wet myself. Might as well strip naked and stand on a towel to try it!
I’m scared of large groups of ants to this day because of something that happened when I was about 10 or 11.
My older sister and I got into a fight when we were home alone (I belive it was about whether Boy George was a man or a woman) and she slapped the HELL out of me. I ran out of the house, around the corner to the next block, and sat on a big lump of dug-up concrete that wasn’t quite on the side of the road but also not quite in someone’s yard.
I sat there sobbing my little-kid heart out, face in hands, until I felt something bite my right side. I looked down and I was covered from the waist down in gigantic red wood ants.
Aka carpenter ants. Credit embedded in the photo – that is what I looked down on! Those jaws.
I do remember running. I don’t remember screaming.
My sister heard me from a block away (I remember her saying she never heard screaming like it) – from inside our brick, air conditioned house – as I ran for home. She had me strip naked in our back yard and used the garden hose to get the ants off of me. I don’t remember what happened afterwards, but I think our stupid fight was quickly forgotten and I am still grateful that she forgot our silly fight and helped me so quickly and efficiently. Even when I still had her perfect red hand print on my face!
It’s been a few decades since this event, and if I am ever surprised by an ant, or worse a colony of ants, I calmly freak right the hell out. Or at least I think I am calm when falling over backwards to get away…
What scares you, so long after the immediate threat is gone? We likely all have some serious flashback memories – I will never ask for those. I don’t mean real trauma, but small things like this that have never left you.
I probably don’t need to say again that I’m a huge Stephen King fan. I think I first read one of his books (either Cujo or Firestarter) at age 8, and I’ve never regretted a moment spent in the company of his characters.
I’ve read everything he’s published, I’m nearly 100% sure of that. Maybe a short story or three have gotten past me. Definitely have read every novel, novella, collection of short stories, and his nonfiction works.
Easy to say, then, that the way to my heart is through Sai King!
Hubby got me these as a thank you for taking care of him when he was so poorly.
I hadn’t asked for Christine, but she is awesome!
Then this month, I had a birthday. As you hope to do every year! This one came with my first vinyl ‘toys’ – Funko Pop figures.
Pennywise! Yay! And a small part of my King collection in the background. A very small part!
Roland Deschain and Walter Padick aka the Gunslinger and the Man in Black. My favourite series of books, ever, hands down.
This is King’s year – a remake of IT and The Dark Tower are or will be in theatres near you. The series The Mist has been on for a bit, and Mr Mercedes started last week. I must warn you, Mr Mercedes is NOT for kids or anyone who is sensitive; and we’ve only seen the first episode. It’s a wow, for sure, but horrible and chilling, also. They put on screen much worse things than my imagination cooked up when reading the books. Yikes. Ark – avoid!
That title is a snippet of roadside bathroom graffiti that my hero Stephen King immortalised.
We don’t have a fan-vent in our bathroom. Well, we do, but it is a very current work in progress and it literally doesn’t have a current as of yet. So whenwe bathe, the tiny room gets all steamed up. Since I have plants in there that I don’t want the cats to eat, the only ventilation is to open the small top window.
Himself had a shower on Tuesday morning, and when I got home that evening I immediately saw this on our shower curtain:
That looks like bird-poop to me! All we can figure is that a small bird came in through the open window, perched on the curtain rail long enough to stain the curtain forever, and got back out. Without knocking anything over in a panic, which is pretty impressive!
I got to thinking. Scary, I know! What occurred to me is that being able to move your toes independently, curling your tongue, and wiggling your ears are actually primitive abilities.
First, if you can, watch this:
If you can’t or don’t want to watch the video: lie your arms flat, palm up, and touch your thumb to your pinkie finger. If you see this raised thingie in your wrist…
…then you have the unnecessary muscle, palmaris longis, that is only really useful for climbing trees freehand. I have the palmaris longis in both my arms. Hubby does not, in either arm.
Clearly the three Auricularis muscles (ear movers, if you didn’t watch) are more developed in those of use who can wiggle our ears or scalp. From the video, I understand that both of these are traits that quite a few of us have evolved beyond.
I’d like to know – do any of you who do have odd talents have the palmaris longis? Do any of you who profess to have no human tricks have it?
My next question is likely to get fewer answers, but might explain my ‘unevolved’ state.
I’d like to know if any of you who responded to the original post have had DNA testing done on yourself, or close family members. I bought my father the National Geographic’s Genographic Project DNA testing kit a few years back. I won’t go into heavy detail here, but one part of his results does relate to my as-yet-untested hypothesis.
My father has “… about 2% Neanderthal, which is in the range for most of European extraction. (1-4%) No Denisovan.”
If my father is 2% Neandertal, that means I am about the same (the test only works on male DNA). So perhaps I got a bit more from mom, or dad has his own set of throwback abilities. Hi Dad! (Waves) Maybe send me an email and let me know what you think!
So who is in? Let’s see if my hypothesis that we who have wiggly bits that most don’t, also might be less evolved? I certainly don’t take the idea as something derogatory. I rather like the idea that I’m a bit of a throwback.
I can curl my tongue in any direction. Not just in a curl but sideways to the left and the right. I never knew this wasn’t something everyone can do. It seems so simple to me.
My older sister has synesthesia. She also never realised it wasn’t something everyone did! She sees names or words in colour. That is pretty damn awesome. And a shock to realise it isn’t how everyone else sees the world.
I can wiggle my baby toe, or pinkie toe, independent of the rest of my toes. It was way easier before I broke both my pinkie toes (one to tripping while being quite drunk and barefoot, one to a horse that trod on me). Both in the same 6-month span of time, too.
Maybe another odd thing about me is that that I’ve never had another broken bone. Mine are quite strong, despite all my clumsiness and my willingness to throw my body anywhere as a child.
What brought this on is something I’d like to know if anyone else can do.
I can wiggle my ears – but I can also make my eardrums vibrate. I’m going to sound quite insane here, maybe: I definitely, habitually, pin my ears back, like a dog or cat, when I am not happy with the situation. I can push that movement a little more and I hear a wind-like sound in my ears.
Not sure what exactly I am doing, muscularly? I can do it at will. I can wiggle my ears without making the sound, or I can wiggle and make the sound.
Anyone else? I know hubby can’t do any of it from tongue to ear. I’d love to know if anyone else can do my same thing. Or if not, what can you do that it seems others cannot?
This picture might help figure it out. I waited until after Monday as some people only read blogs in digest form, once a week. No new takers, so here we go.
Let me know, if you do guess – would you like a digital drawing?
heretherebespiders 