Mysteries of the mind and body—not explained!
August 24, 2006Henry’s formerly rose-colored eyes (now back to their regularly scheduled whiteness) reminded me of this story my brother told many years back, about a friend of a friend who had this disorder wherein if she didn’t take her special medication every few hours, her eyes would pop out of her head. This story is remarkable not just in the fact that he told it, and that I believed it wholly and without the teensiest glimmer-ette of doubt, or that I told it to all kinds of people, none of whom believed me, but that last year I recounted the tale back to my brother, who looked at me like I was criminally insane. What are you talking about? He said. Who? Eyes popping out of what? Why?
I wanted it to be true so bad that I argued with him for a while, but he continued to glare the glare of the angrily sane at me, and I was forced to give it up. So now I’ll never know. Either he made it up or I did, or no one did and I don’t really exist. Or this is a little like when I was eight and told everyone—because I knew with all that was good and pure in my heart—that Olivia Newton-John had once been married to Elton John. Thus the hyphen. Actually this is nothing like the ONJ thing, which I’m still not over because shouldn’t that be true?
Back to the strange maladies: I experience a nightly…experience (fuck it, I’m not checking a thesaurus) that I’m pretty sure is mine and mine alone. Please dissuade me of this notion, or at least explain what’s going on, o you who do not do enough for me already. You know when you’re falling asleep, and suddenly you’re falling but not really falling and you wake up just before your dreaming self hits the dream-ground? I have that, except different! And here’s how different: instead of falling, I’m suddenly overcome by intense nausea. And just as I wake up, lurching out of bed in the hopes of not soiling my sheets, poof, it’s gone.
You’d think this would keep me up the rest of the night—especially because I haven’t thrown up since I was nine and I have a little bitty phobia when it comes to the act. But this pre-sleep faux-vomit been going on for twenty-three years, so by now I’m all casual about it. Puzzled, but casual. And I know it’s been that long because I brought it up in eighth grade health class, right after it first happened, and everyone went ewwww. This was my classmates’ reaction to almost anything I said or did or wore. Or ate.
In their defense, I was partial to deviled ham.
Reader Comments (99)
Good luck. And congrats!
In other news, a few months after my husband and I married, my in-laws' cat had a litter of kittens. I had grown especially fond of the runt of the litter and was absolutely devastated when, during a phone conversation, my mother-in-law told me it had died. When we went to their house the next day, there was the kitten, happy and healthy. I started telling my mother-in-law what a mean joke that was, telling me the kitten had died, how sad it had made me, blah blah blah. (Hey, gimme a break, here. I was 19.) Mother-in-law is looking at me like I'm insane. She never told me the kitten was dead. Apparently, I dreamed it.
I forget now what my point was in sharing this with you. But I've typed it all out now, so I'll just hit Post and be on my way...
Dad also had a habit of saying this anytime we were about to head out the door: "As they say in the produce business, lettuce go!" What a goofball. (Luckily, I inherited that trait).
Congratulations on the writing gig!
Considering that, I think the eyeball medication story is pretty understandable. Except: what about when she was sleeping? I mean, did she have to set her alarm to wake herself up to put in the eyedrops?
These are the things I would obsess over.
Wow.
right?
No, you are not the only one wondering how in HELL finslippy managed not to vomit since age nine. (What, she was in a coma during her college drinking years?)
You just completely pulled the "rug-O-comments" out from under me.
Thanks.
- M
Our Finslippy has no funsleepy?Has spinflippy fitsleepy?That's unacceptable!Fans lippy for Finslippy's lack of finesleepy.
Does Finslippy findsloppy fan's verbal slapsticky?
Alice, if you read above without a)nodding off , b)hurling, or c)both then,Congratulations! you're cured. I, however, have made myself rather dizzy.
Carry on and cheers on the superdupertopsecretwritinggig!
Doesn't mention vomit, though.