Random Thoughts About Going on Vacation

It seems like forever.  Actually, it was 6 months ago.  How slowly time passes.

I have a swimsuit, which I look ridiculous in.  But who’s going to notice 🙂

I managed to dredge up a (clean) beach towel.

Since I’m going with two other friends, that means I have to have pajamas or something like them.  I won’t wear them to sleep, but I’ll put them on in the morning.  We will each have our own bedroom.

Note to self:  Among the T-shirts, don’t bring anything black.  (And a huge majority of my T-shirts are black.) Black absorbs heat.

I can’t find my really comfortable shorts.  I’ll buy some when I get there.  Too bad they don’t have a Target on this island.  (I don’t do Walmart–or K-Mart for that matter.)

My grocery shopping is done.  My plan is to cook exactly one meal–steaks on July 4th, with grilled asparagus, and whatever else.  And I’ll make popovers one morning.

St. George Island is only 80 miles from here.  It takes about 2 hours though, because you can only get there on little roads where you can’t go fast.  Not to mention one very scary road where the Gulf is more or less lapping at your tires.  So you would think that a place 2 hours from your house would not lead to excessive planning.  Well, that depends on how obsessive-compulsive you are.

I will worry until the last minute about what I forgot to bring.  This morning I had a moment of extreme panic because I thought I had lost my “list”.  You know, the All Important List.  And the two friends I’m going with will have forgotten some things too.  So we will have to stop along the way many times for gas, salt and pepper, and lip balm.  In other words, it will take us 4 hours.

I will only stop worrying when I am actually in the car and whatever I forgot won’t matter any more.  Then the only thing I have to fear after that  is crossing the 4-mile bridge onto the island. My only phobia, but it’s better as long as someone else is driving.  Especially if she is driving a honking big Ford Expedition, instead of a little baby Toyota.  We went once, when she was driving a Ford F-150, and she was literally fighting for control of the truck as we crossed the bridge.  If I’d been driving the baby Toyota, there is no doubt in my mind I would have been blown off.  I was trying to think of how I would explain that to my boss.  See, the reason I can’t come to work today is that the wind was blowing really hard.

But have no doubt–I will have a good time.  As soon as I quit worrying.   We’ll see ospreys, and pelicans, herons and egrets.  And I have a lot of books to take 🙂

How Your Brain Works

Frankly, I don’t know how your brain works, nor do you.  I don’t know how my brain works either (assuming it does).  And the bad news–or the good news, depending on how you look at it–is that no one else does either.  Bad news if you’re trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s; good news if you get a little queasy about telepathy and “mind-control” stuff.  Not that mind-c0ntrol (behavioral conditioning) can’t be accomplished without actually knowing how it works inside the brain. 

I think a little mystery is a good thing. While there is a certain loneliness inherent in the human condition, expressed in the simple saying, “You can never really know another person”, if you could, would you?  I personally am not ready to be Borg…but I digress.

Today we will discuss two important concepts relative to brain function:  phobias, and chocolate cake. 

First let us define phobia:  it’s something YOU are scared of.  If I’m scared of something, it’s an endearing quirk.  If you’re scared of something, you’re irrational.  Let’s take two examples. 

First ailurophobia, or fear of cats.  Fakename has never understood this, but she has a theory as to why it might develop.  Cats apparently don’t have the facial muscles to be particularly expressive.  They can move their ears, and open and close their mouths (very useful for eating), and they can twitch their noses, but the eyes are the problem.  They don’t blink often, and so appear to be staring, which we humans interpret as aggression.  Not to mention all the times they’ve sucked the breath out of our sleeping babies. 

Second, gephyrophobia, fear of bridges.  This is not as uncommon as you might think.  Let’s pause for a moment to say that an anxiety doesn’t reach the level of phobia unless it affects your behavior.  Such as–I will never again travel from Tallahassee to Jacksonville without going however many miles out of the way I have to go to reach it from the south.  Never again will I do that I-10, I-95 Junction thing with the elevated roadways.  But mostly, it’s bridges over water that are scary. 

This is a relatively new development for me, because I have driven over some monster bridges.  The Lake Ponchartrain Causeway.  Not to mention the Huey P. Long bridge.  The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.  The Confederation Bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island in Canada–actually, I was a passenger for that one, but still.  However, nothing compares bridge-wise to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay.  I date my personal bridge phobia to having to cross it.  I had never experienced anything like it. 

It’s described as “one of the world’s longest bridges with a cable-stayed main span”.   The cables are painted yellow, and here’s the deal:  when you hit the section of road where the cables are, it sets up a sort of optical illusion which is disorienting.  Behold: 

Curiously, Fakesister shares this fear of bridges.  Last year she took a trip to northern California and we had some discussion about how and if she would make it over the Golden Gate.  Somewhere out there is a scientist who would like to study us. 

Finally, some scientists did an experiment that went like this:  A group of people were asked to memorize either two-digit numbers or seven-digit numbers, then all they had to do was walk down the hall, go into another room, and repeat the numbers.  But they were interrupted by being asked to choose a snack:  a refreshing bowl of healthy fruit, or chocolate cake.  It turns out that the people who had to remember seven digits were twice as likely to choose the chocolate cake.  This proves, or suggests…something or the other.  There was no word on whether either group remembered their numbers.  You can see the story, which aired on NPR,  here.