Saturday, May 07, 2005
My new laptop
Getting my 1st laptop changed my life; before, I was chained to my desk nearly all evening, trying to get everything done that I needed to before bedtime, mostly only able to HEAR TV programs because there's no TV in the room with the computer (and no place to put one). When eBay changed the way their search function worked, eliminating the option to use a huge list of exclusionary terms to greatly reduce the # of auctions in the results, making my daily searches double and even triple their previous lengths, with the pages loading slower than ever (I'd love to know what the heck their tech staff does that makes pages with the same basic stuff load slower and slower as time passes), and I got involved in blogging, which, due to the length of most of my posts, took up a sizable chunk of my time every day, suddenly I couldn't watch ANYTHING on TV unless I wanted to be on the computer until dawn. There was no point in paying for cable and HBO if I couldn't SEE any of it, and more to the point I WANTED to be able to see all the shows that appealed to me AND get to bed at a reasonable hour, so I did the only thing I could think of; I asked my husband to get me a laptop... and when it arrived (he got in on eBay, used), and I was suddenly able to watch TV all night, it was like a miracle.
Then, one day, the problems started; the fan kept coming on and running and running, LOUDLY, making it necessary to close the machine more and more often, for longer and longer periods of time, such that it was really dragging out my computer usage every night. I switched to a different browser, one I didn't like but that was newer and faster, and that helped for a while, but then it started happening again, and it was taking far longer to get the fan to go off... AND, the machine began having problems keeping its ability to access my files on the desktop (via our network), along with some other technical issues, so I started telling my husband that I needed a new one. Last weekend, it got so bad that I told him that I needed a new laptop this week; the old one must have heard me, because it stopped being able to maintain an internet connection Wednesday night, making it effectively useless.
As you might imagine, I told my husband to check out the laptops that were under consideration and bring me a new one on Thursday, which he did; he'd ALMOST gotten it set up for me to use when one of the required restarts to get newly-installed software working left it DEAD, and nothing he could do could bring it back... brand new computer, and a pretty high-end one at that, can you believe it? I knew he could exchange it, but it was still disappointing, and, worse, a great deal of personal info had been transferred to the machine before it died; what if they were eventually able to restart it, and some unprincipled geek suddenly had access to a bunch of my stuff, including my bookmarks, some of which have password info, and the cookies that would allow them to log into my accounts? Fortunately, at the computer store they were disconcertingly ready for this situation, and pulled out and erased the drive in front of my husband, so that even if they DO revive the machine some day, they won't get my stuff-WHEW!! They gave him a new machine, and he brought it home tonight; as far as I can tell, it's working perfectly, and is MUCH faster than the old one, with a far better keyboard and some fancy new features... I'm not ready to pronounce this a done deal yet, since I already had one brand-new machine die completely, but it's looking good so far.
In fact, I've gotta say, this is the most beautiful laptop I've ever seen; it looks like something you'd see in a movie being used by royalty, I swear. About the dozenth time my husband caught me carefully removing specks from it, he inquired if he'd be needing to get some diapers for me; this was a reference to the scene from "Ferris Beuler's Day Off" where the son of the rich man says of his father's cherished sports car, "Ferris, my father loves this car more than life itself... He never drives it, Ferris. He just rubs it with a diaper," NOT to the concept that I'd be too busy on the new computer to ever use the bathroom again, although I suppose that could happen too. ;-)
Among the cool features of this new machine is the ability to have wireless communication with a Blackberry; I'm not going to be willing to get another pricey piece of equipment any time soon, but it's an intriguing thought. A more immediately useful thought is about some friends that we're probably seeing next weekend; they're terrific people, but they're always making an issue of how much they're paying for everything, and about financial issues in general... they don't realize that we're significantly better off than they are, because WE don't make an issue about $, so they're actually making fools of themselves rather than making us feel bad, but this element of our relationship with them still irks me a little, so... I've been telling the better half of the couple about the darling video footage I've been getting of our little squirrel friend, and she of course expressed a wish to see said footage, which she'd expect to do the next time she came to my house, BUT, it occurred to me that the new laptop will hold quite a bit of footage even though the files are gigantic, and I could bring it along with me next weekend so that they could see some clips a few weeks earlier than expected... and I'm already imagining their faces when they, who share ONE computer between the 2 of them, see me plunk down the new machine, that looks every bit as pricey as it in fact was. No, I'm NOT going to tell them the amount we paid for it; the whole point will be to treat this slick new item as if it were nothing, so that the point gets made that the amounts of $ that they make an issue of are NOT an issue to US... and maybe they'll save their tales of wild expenditures for their less affluent friends from now on.
The best thing of all, though, is that my husband will now have my old laptop; the online connection, which miraculously returned to functionality, is still dodgy, but that can be fixed, we assume, and much of what he uses a computer for doesn't require him to be online in any case, so now HE will get to have the wonderful experience of getting away from HIS desk and watching some TV, not to mention hanging around with me and my laptop... modern marriage at its best.
Then, one day, the problems started; the fan kept coming on and running and running, LOUDLY, making it necessary to close the machine more and more often, for longer and longer periods of time, such that it was really dragging out my computer usage every night. I switched to a different browser, one I didn't like but that was newer and faster, and that helped for a while, but then it started happening again, and it was taking far longer to get the fan to go off... AND, the machine began having problems keeping its ability to access my files on the desktop (via our network), along with some other technical issues, so I started telling my husband that I needed a new one. Last weekend, it got so bad that I told him that I needed a new laptop this week; the old one must have heard me, because it stopped being able to maintain an internet connection Wednesday night, making it effectively useless.
As you might imagine, I told my husband to check out the laptops that were under consideration and bring me a new one on Thursday, which he did; he'd ALMOST gotten it set up for me to use when one of the required restarts to get newly-installed software working left it DEAD, and nothing he could do could bring it back... brand new computer, and a pretty high-end one at that, can you believe it? I knew he could exchange it, but it was still disappointing, and, worse, a great deal of personal info had been transferred to the machine before it died; what if they were eventually able to restart it, and some unprincipled geek suddenly had access to a bunch of my stuff, including my bookmarks, some of which have password info, and the cookies that would allow them to log into my accounts? Fortunately, at the computer store they were disconcertingly ready for this situation, and pulled out and erased the drive in front of my husband, so that even if they DO revive the machine some day, they won't get my stuff-WHEW!! They gave him a new machine, and he brought it home tonight; as far as I can tell, it's working perfectly, and is MUCH faster than the old one, with a far better keyboard and some fancy new features... I'm not ready to pronounce this a done deal yet, since I already had one brand-new machine die completely, but it's looking good so far.
In fact, I've gotta say, this is the most beautiful laptop I've ever seen; it looks like something you'd see in a movie being used by royalty, I swear. About the dozenth time my husband caught me carefully removing specks from it, he inquired if he'd be needing to get some diapers for me; this was a reference to the scene from "Ferris Beuler's Day Off" where the son of the rich man says of his father's cherished sports car, "Ferris, my father loves this car more than life itself... He never drives it, Ferris. He just rubs it with a diaper," NOT to the concept that I'd be too busy on the new computer to ever use the bathroom again, although I suppose that could happen too. ;-)
Among the cool features of this new machine is the ability to have wireless communication with a Blackberry; I'm not going to be willing to get another pricey piece of equipment any time soon, but it's an intriguing thought. A more immediately useful thought is about some friends that we're probably seeing next weekend; they're terrific people, but they're always making an issue of how much they're paying for everything, and about financial issues in general... they don't realize that we're significantly better off than they are, because WE don't make an issue about $, so they're actually making fools of themselves rather than making us feel bad, but this element of our relationship with them still irks me a little, so... I've been telling the better half of the couple about the darling video footage I've been getting of our little squirrel friend, and she of course expressed a wish to see said footage, which she'd expect to do the next time she came to my house, BUT, it occurred to me that the new laptop will hold quite a bit of footage even though the files are gigantic, and I could bring it along with me next weekend so that they could see some clips a few weeks earlier than expected... and I'm already imagining their faces when they, who share ONE computer between the 2 of them, see me plunk down the new machine, that looks every bit as pricey as it in fact was. No, I'm NOT going to tell them the amount we paid for it; the whole point will be to treat this slick new item as if it were nothing, so that the point gets made that the amounts of $ that they make an issue of are NOT an issue to US... and maybe they'll save their tales of wild expenditures for their less affluent friends from now on.
The best thing of all, though, is that my husband will now have my old laptop; the online connection, which miraculously returned to functionality, is still dodgy, but that can be fixed, we assume, and much of what he uses a computer for doesn't require him to be online in any case, so now HE will get to have the wonderful experience of getting away from HIS desk and watching some TV, not to mention hanging around with me and my laptop... modern marriage at its best.
Friday, May 06, 2005
If you could have any ability
You've seen this before, right? "If you could magically be granted any ability"... and the answer is usually something like the one my husband gave, "The ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound... or at least the ability to leap medium-sized buildings with a running start." Not everyone would be quite so facetious, of course, but the point is that our first thought tends, naturally enough, towards "superpowers"; invisibility, being able to fly without a plane, and, if men were honest, to be able to, er, never need Viagra, seem like the best choices, and objectively they WOULD be, if they were available... but what if they weren't? What ability would you choose if you had to pick from abilities that actually exist?
With that restriction, most people jump to something in the entertainment industry; singing, acting, or athletic talent... wealth, fame and adoration come from these sorts of things, so they're great choices if you've got 'em. But what if you don't? What if, in addition to the no-superpowers clause, we add one saying that you can't make more than a good living via your new talent, and can't achieve fame with it... then what would you choose? This is where it becomes a sort of psychological question; what ability would you want just because it would enrich your life, or humanity, or both? You're always supposed to pick just ONE thing, but I'll be daring and pick 2:
1) I'd want to be the greatest world expert in the area of theoretical physics, specifically in those parts of it that pertain to string theory; when they talk about how only a handful of people in the world can understand the math that explains some facets of it, and thus fully grasp all aspects of it, I'd like to be one of the handful. I'd like to be able to look at quantum physics equations and be able to "see" that they describe something no one else has realized yet. I'd like to, ideally, take the sum total of knowledge in this area, and my understanding of karma, and try to merge the 2; just give me the ability, and I'd gladly work on it for the rest of my life... even if no one ever knew my name no matter what I discovered, even if I had to anonymously pass along what I learned to other physicists who could then publish the findings, I'd want to do it because I want so badly to KNOW.
2) I'd like to be able to design clothes at the couture level. I can visualize a huge # of garments, as I've been designing in my head for many years, but I can't sketch or sew them myself, so I can't go anywhere with my "vision"; a couturier can of course do both, and do so with in-depth knowledge of fabrics, trimmings and tailoring, which allows them to know how best to create whatever they've envisioned. I know this seems trivial compared to the other ability, but in a way it's actually a bigger deal, because I'm capable of getting a basic understanding of string theory, enough to think about it and how it relates to my perceptions of the unknown, but my fine motor skills are so poor that I can't so much as draw a doodle or sew on a button at a level beyond what a 5 year old could manage, much less produce the simplest garment or drawing thereof; I'm stuck in the starting gate, whereas normally when someone has ideas and passionately wishes to bring them forth, they can usually create SOMETHING, even if it's the worst poem, song, painting, or whatever, ever produced. Unless I someday meet someone who can take my ideas and do the sketching and sewing processes for me, my designs will never see the light of day in any form, so the ability to turn my ideas into actual garments would thrill me no end... even if I only earned a salary rather than millions, and was only on a design staff rather than being the official, and therefore famous, designer.
Theoretical physics and couture design; I'm sure that must make a strong psychological statement about me, but I'm afraid to imagine WHAT, lol.
With that restriction, most people jump to something in the entertainment industry; singing, acting, or athletic talent... wealth, fame and adoration come from these sorts of things, so they're great choices if you've got 'em. But what if you don't? What if, in addition to the no-superpowers clause, we add one saying that you can't make more than a good living via your new talent, and can't achieve fame with it... then what would you choose? This is where it becomes a sort of psychological question; what ability would you want just because it would enrich your life, or humanity, or both? You're always supposed to pick just ONE thing, but I'll be daring and pick 2:
1) I'd want to be the greatest world expert in the area of theoretical physics, specifically in those parts of it that pertain to string theory; when they talk about how only a handful of people in the world can understand the math that explains some facets of it, and thus fully grasp all aspects of it, I'd like to be one of the handful. I'd like to be able to look at quantum physics equations and be able to "see" that they describe something no one else has realized yet. I'd like to, ideally, take the sum total of knowledge in this area, and my understanding of karma, and try to merge the 2; just give me the ability, and I'd gladly work on it for the rest of my life... even if no one ever knew my name no matter what I discovered, even if I had to anonymously pass along what I learned to other physicists who could then publish the findings, I'd want to do it because I want so badly to KNOW.
2) I'd like to be able to design clothes at the couture level. I can visualize a huge # of garments, as I've been designing in my head for many years, but I can't sketch or sew them myself, so I can't go anywhere with my "vision"; a couturier can of course do both, and do so with in-depth knowledge of fabrics, trimmings and tailoring, which allows them to know how best to create whatever they've envisioned. I know this seems trivial compared to the other ability, but in a way it's actually a bigger deal, because I'm capable of getting a basic understanding of string theory, enough to think about it and how it relates to my perceptions of the unknown, but my fine motor skills are so poor that I can't so much as draw a doodle or sew on a button at a level beyond what a 5 year old could manage, much less produce the simplest garment or drawing thereof; I'm stuck in the starting gate, whereas normally when someone has ideas and passionately wishes to bring them forth, they can usually create SOMETHING, even if it's the worst poem, song, painting, or whatever, ever produced. Unless I someday meet someone who can take my ideas and do the sketching and sewing processes for me, my designs will never see the light of day in any form, so the ability to turn my ideas into actual garments would thrill me no end... even if I only earned a salary rather than millions, and was only on a design staff rather than being the official, and therefore famous, designer.
Theoretical physics and couture design; I'm sure that must make a strong psychological statement about me, but I'm afraid to imagine WHAT, lol.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
The truth about gladiators
In the May 2005 issue of Discover magazine is a brief article entitled "Gladiators Get a Thumbs-Up," which I've copied here in its entirety:
"Hollywood usually shows gladiators as brutalized slaves fighting to the death before bloodthirsty mobs in Rome's Colosseum. Don't believe it, says archaeologist Steve Tuck from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After studying Roman artwork, government documents, and fighting manuals, Tuck says gladiators were like modern-day athletes: highly trained, overpaid, well-fed sex symbols who were not expected to die. They were celebrities.
They were also slaves, but they were permitted to earn wages and own property. Gladiatorial schools purchased the finest physical specimens and then spent months or years training them in armed and unarmed combat. The fighting manuals show that gladiators usually aimed to injure. They tended to stab at their opponent's calves and shoulders and often ended the fight by tossing aside their weapons and shields to grapple. Fatalities--which happened in less than 10 percent of the matches--were usually accidents or the result of a gladiator's poor performance. The ideal outcome of a match was a "standing missio," when both fighters performed flawlessly and neither was defeated.
Gladiators were so expensive to train and maintain that their sponsors--either private or governmental--did not want to risk death or serious injury. At one point Emperor Tiberius limited the games to keep his government from going bankrupt. Later Emperor Marcus Aurelius put a cap on gladiators' salaries. Top fighters earned enough from one bout to buy their own slaves or estates. "Gladiators, like modern professional athletes, could become little corporations," says classics professor David Potter of Michigan State University. The names of famous gladiators adorned common household items like oil lamps. Pottery vessels were painted with images of famous bouts. Children even played with clay gladiator "action figures." "It was a culture that was obsessed with superstars," Potter says, "and the gladiator was a symbol of it.""
Of course, I was blown away to see that the image of gladiators that we've always been given is so radically wrong, especially because, now that it's been explained, it makes perfect sense that it would be the way it in fact was, and would make NO sense for it to be as we've always pictured it, but that pales beside the REAL bombshell of the article; that our sick obsession with people who become famous, which leads to us to idolize them to the point that we want to see their images and even their names all the time, is NOT a modern phenomenon, NOT a product of the brainwashing we get from the media, but clearly a human-nature sort of thing... which would explain the MANIA that an amazing # of people develop for their favorite famous figures, since it's tapping into something already in our brains.
I can see wanting to look at the image of a famous person you're hot for, by what about those who want to look at their fave sports figures or bands or whatever where no sexual feeling is involved; what do folks get from seeing THOSE faces all the time? Even harder to understand; what do people get from looking at just the NAMES of those famous people, bands or sports teams? Sure, there could be the association with good times (concerts, games, movies), but that explanation falls short of explaining the more extreme folks, who after all aren't surrounding themselves with visual reminders of the more-frequent good times they've had with NON-famous people; what's the psychological benefit from being reminded of the existence of the idolized ones by seeing their images and names, especially since we're already thinking about them excessively? Is it the primitive part of our brains telling us that the symbolic representations of the famous people are in some indirect way like having those people actually with us, as we wish they were, and/or that somehow we can absorb some of the glamour and greatness of our idols by having those symbols of them around us?
This might be a bit of a leap, but... since we, perhaps non-coincidentally, apply terms like "worship" to those who feel strongest about their "idols," which they sometimes refer to as "gods/goddesses," couldn't the same concept be applied to those religious folks who feel it necessary to have statues of holy beings everywhere, even on their dashboards, not to mention rosaries, crucifixes, crosses and paintings on velvet? Do they think that God, Jesus, the saints, etc are actually more likely to be there with them, or even ARE with them in some way, if they have these visible symbols of them around as reminders, and/or that they can absorb more of their holiness, their goodness, from these images? I don't know anyone who does that sort of thing, so I can only guess; still, it's an interesting insight, if true...
"Hollywood usually shows gladiators as brutalized slaves fighting to the death before bloodthirsty mobs in Rome's Colosseum. Don't believe it, says archaeologist Steve Tuck from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After studying Roman artwork, government documents, and fighting manuals, Tuck says gladiators were like modern-day athletes: highly trained, overpaid, well-fed sex symbols who were not expected to die. They were celebrities.
They were also slaves, but they were permitted to earn wages and own property. Gladiatorial schools purchased the finest physical specimens and then spent months or years training them in armed and unarmed combat. The fighting manuals show that gladiators usually aimed to injure. They tended to stab at their opponent's calves and shoulders and often ended the fight by tossing aside their weapons and shields to grapple. Fatalities--which happened in less than 10 percent of the matches--were usually accidents or the result of a gladiator's poor performance. The ideal outcome of a match was a "standing missio," when both fighters performed flawlessly and neither was defeated.
Gladiators were so expensive to train and maintain that their sponsors--either private or governmental--did not want to risk death or serious injury. At one point Emperor Tiberius limited the games to keep his government from going bankrupt. Later Emperor Marcus Aurelius put a cap on gladiators' salaries. Top fighters earned enough from one bout to buy their own slaves or estates. "Gladiators, like modern professional athletes, could become little corporations," says classics professor David Potter of Michigan State University. The names of famous gladiators adorned common household items like oil lamps. Pottery vessels were painted with images of famous bouts. Children even played with clay gladiator "action figures." "It was a culture that was obsessed with superstars," Potter says, "and the gladiator was a symbol of it.""
Of course, I was blown away to see that the image of gladiators that we've always been given is so radically wrong, especially because, now that it's been explained, it makes perfect sense that it would be the way it in fact was, and would make NO sense for it to be as we've always pictured it, but that pales beside the REAL bombshell of the article; that our sick obsession with people who become famous, which leads to us to idolize them to the point that we want to see their images and even their names all the time, is NOT a modern phenomenon, NOT a product of the brainwashing we get from the media, but clearly a human-nature sort of thing... which would explain the MANIA that an amazing # of people develop for their favorite famous figures, since it's tapping into something already in our brains.
I can see wanting to look at the image of a famous person you're hot for, by what about those who want to look at their fave sports figures or bands or whatever where no sexual feeling is involved; what do folks get from seeing THOSE faces all the time? Even harder to understand; what do people get from looking at just the NAMES of those famous people, bands or sports teams? Sure, there could be the association with good times (concerts, games, movies), but that explanation falls short of explaining the more extreme folks, who after all aren't surrounding themselves with visual reminders of the more-frequent good times they've had with NON-famous people; what's the psychological benefit from being reminded of the existence of the idolized ones by seeing their images and names, especially since we're already thinking about them excessively? Is it the primitive part of our brains telling us that the symbolic representations of the famous people are in some indirect way like having those people actually with us, as we wish they were, and/or that somehow we can absorb some of the glamour and greatness of our idols by having those symbols of them around us?
This might be a bit of a leap, but... since we, perhaps non-coincidentally, apply terms like "worship" to those who feel strongest about their "idols," which they sometimes refer to as "gods/goddesses," couldn't the same concept be applied to those religious folks who feel it necessary to have statues of holy beings everywhere, even on their dashboards, not to mention rosaries, crucifixes, crosses and paintings on velvet? Do they think that God, Jesus, the saints, etc are actually more likely to be there with them, or even ARE with them in some way, if they have these visible symbols of them around as reminders, and/or that they can absorb more of their holiness, their goodness, from these images? I don't know anyone who does that sort of thing, so I can only guess; still, it's an interesting insight, if true...
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Voluntary amputees
Tonight, on the Sundance channel, I saw a documentary called "Whole," which they describe as follows:
"Delving into one of the more obscure corners of abnormal psychology, Melody Gilbert's 'WHOLE' sympathetically investigates an impulse among otherwise normal humans to amputate a healthy limb. Although not found in any medical textbooks, the condition -- tentatively labeled Body Integrity Identity Disorder (B.I.I.D.) -- is vividly described by psychiatrists and a group of men who have either undergone amputations or fantasize about losing a leg in order to fulfill their ideal body image."
I watched with my jaw dropped in amazement as man after man described feeling like one of their legs didn't belong on their body, wasn't part of their body, shouldn't be on their body, and therefore should be removed. One of the men described how he used to run home from school as a child to put on his "fake peg-leg" and walk around with it on, one of them strapped the offending leg up behind him and went around with crutches or a wheelchair 5-6 times a day... and one of them had packed his leg in dry ice to freeze it solid so that it would be so damaged it would have to be surgically removed, and one of them had blown his own leg off with a shotgun.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There were also references to people who had done things like chop off an arm with a home-made guillotine or put a leg across the train tracks; they'd do ANYTHING to get rid of the limb that they couldn't bear to have, and some of them had died in the attempt. DIED.
It bears repeating: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The men who still had the undesirable limbs talked obsessively about wanting to be rid of them; those that had managed to become amputees spoke of their feelings of pleasure, relief and great relaxation at long last after managing to be de-limbed. They all seemed sane, and there were doctors saying, in essence, "They're not crazy, and aside from this one thing they're totally normal"; the problem is that this hasn't been studied, so they don't KNOW what's going on here... and it's hard to believe that wanting to have a limb removed badly enough to blow it off with a shotgun could fail to be indicative of some sort of a lapse in sanity.
One doctor, who did a couple of leg amputations on men who hadn't damaged them to force the surgeries to be done (and has since been forbidden to do so again), referred to those patients as having "apotemnophilia, an extreme form of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) in which the patient develops a hatred for a body part"; you can read more here
http://www.medicalpost.com/mpcontent/article.jsp?content=/content/EXTRACT/RAWART/3608/55A.html
If, as has been suggested, these people (there are some women, too, although none were shown in the film) have a disorder that makes them miserable that is "cured" if they can get a limb amputated, SHOULD it be permissible for doctors to do it, or is there nothing that can excuse the removal of a healthy limb, or even, as some prefer, TWO limbs? Who controls, or SHOULD control, what modifications a person can make to their own body; the government, the doctors, or the person themselves?
If laws start getting passed to make official what people can and can't have done to their bodies, and all it'd take would be for ONE voluntary amputee to make the national news for people to start screaming for legislation in this area, it could be a slippery slope; the transgender community, for example, which has limited legal rights to begin with, would be an easy target. Some unenlightened people still believe that transsexuals are "sick," that they do NOT actually NEED sex changes, and thus that when surgeons remove parts from them and remodel others they're doing harm to them, even though they're thrilled with the changes; if, once B.I.I.D. has been studied, laws get passed forbidding doctors to chop off legs and arms, is it such a stretch to imagine that gender reassignment surgeries would be banned too, if they make the case that it's the same basic thing? A well-known psychiatrist in the UK has already made the mental connection between B.I.I.D/BDD and transsexualism; if you look here
http://www.ftma.net/lib/03/1119.html
you'll find this:
"Today the best-known psychiatrist dealing with transsexualism is Dr Russell Reid, who runs a private practice as well as working in the NHS. In 2000 Reid was involved in controversy over the condition known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), where sufferers can experience a desperate urge to rid themselves of a limb. Reid was one of the psychiatrists who referred two patients with BDD to a surgeon for leg amputations.
'When I first heard of people wanting amputations it seemed bizarre in the extreme,' he said in a television documentary at the time, 'but then I thought, "I see transsexuals and they want healthy parts of their body removed in order to adjust to their idealized body image," and so I think that was the connection for me. I saw that people wanted to have their limbs off with equally as much degree of obsession and need.'"
I can't imagine that NO American doctors would see things the same way, and plenty of people with an agenda to stick it to the transgender community, especially if they see it as a way of getting at the gay community, would be eager to feign agreement with the idea of surgery harming transsexuals... and just that fast, the transgendered would lose much of what they'd gained in recent decades.
What about the removal of significant amounts of healthy tissue for things like tummy tucks and breast reductions (yes, some of the latter are done for valid medical reasons, but not all)? How much of your healthy body should you be allowed to have removed just because you want it removed? When is it sick and when is it not to want it, and who decides that, and based on what? Should surgery be seen as a cure for mental illness, EVER?
What if it turns out that there's a medication these folks can be given that would eliminate their desire to lose limbs? Does that change anything? If B.I.I.D. IS a version of BDD, and that same med would also work for regular BDD, would some patients wanting plastic surgery be told, "you can't have surgery, because if you take these pills you won't want to change this anymore?" How could they tell would-be patients with BDD from those without it? How many wealthy or famous patients do you think would be stuck with that diagnosis if laws were passed requiring doctors to make that analysis... and how many greedy doctors wouldn't bother questioning anyone?
What happens when the first voluntary amputee who later regrets it, and you KNOW it'll happen, sues the surgeon?
What happens when someone with acrotomophilia (sexual attraction to amputees) persuades a sexual partner to get an amputation, or when someone gets an amputation to gain the affections of an acrotomophiliac... and before you say it could never happen, remember that some sick people have killed their kids when they had the hots for someone who didn't want the kids around, which is FAR more extreme.
I'd NEVER have imagined that people existed who wanted to become amputees; I cringe to contemplate what else people want that I haven't heard of yet...
"Delving into one of the more obscure corners of abnormal psychology, Melody Gilbert's 'WHOLE' sympathetically investigates an impulse among otherwise normal humans to amputate a healthy limb. Although not found in any medical textbooks, the condition -- tentatively labeled Body Integrity Identity Disorder (B.I.I.D.) -- is vividly described by psychiatrists and a group of men who have either undergone amputations or fantasize about losing a leg in order to fulfill their ideal body image."
I watched with my jaw dropped in amazement as man after man described feeling like one of their legs didn't belong on their body, wasn't part of their body, shouldn't be on their body, and therefore should be removed. One of the men described how he used to run home from school as a child to put on his "fake peg-leg" and walk around with it on, one of them strapped the offending leg up behind him and went around with crutches or a wheelchair 5-6 times a day... and one of them had packed his leg in dry ice to freeze it solid so that it would be so damaged it would have to be surgically removed, and one of them had blown his own leg off with a shotgun.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There were also references to people who had done things like chop off an arm with a home-made guillotine or put a leg across the train tracks; they'd do ANYTHING to get rid of the limb that they couldn't bear to have, and some of them had died in the attempt. DIED.
It bears repeating: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The men who still had the undesirable limbs talked obsessively about wanting to be rid of them; those that had managed to become amputees spoke of their feelings of pleasure, relief and great relaxation at long last after managing to be de-limbed. They all seemed sane, and there were doctors saying, in essence, "They're not crazy, and aside from this one thing they're totally normal"; the problem is that this hasn't been studied, so they don't KNOW what's going on here... and it's hard to believe that wanting to have a limb removed badly enough to blow it off with a shotgun could fail to be indicative of some sort of a lapse in sanity.
One doctor, who did a couple of leg amputations on men who hadn't damaged them to force the surgeries to be done (and has since been forbidden to do so again), referred to those patients as having "apotemnophilia, an extreme form of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) in which the patient develops a hatred for a body part"; you can read more here
http://www.medicalpost.com/mpcontent/article.jsp?content=/content/EXTRACT/RAWART/3608/55A.html
If, as has been suggested, these people (there are some women, too, although none were shown in the film) have a disorder that makes them miserable that is "cured" if they can get a limb amputated, SHOULD it be permissible for doctors to do it, or is there nothing that can excuse the removal of a healthy limb, or even, as some prefer, TWO limbs? Who controls, or SHOULD control, what modifications a person can make to their own body; the government, the doctors, or the person themselves?
If laws start getting passed to make official what people can and can't have done to their bodies, and all it'd take would be for ONE voluntary amputee to make the national news for people to start screaming for legislation in this area, it could be a slippery slope; the transgender community, for example, which has limited legal rights to begin with, would be an easy target. Some unenlightened people still believe that transsexuals are "sick," that they do NOT actually NEED sex changes, and thus that when surgeons remove parts from them and remodel others they're doing harm to them, even though they're thrilled with the changes; if, once B.I.I.D. has been studied, laws get passed forbidding doctors to chop off legs and arms, is it such a stretch to imagine that gender reassignment surgeries would be banned too, if they make the case that it's the same basic thing? A well-known psychiatrist in the UK has already made the mental connection between B.I.I.D/BDD and transsexualism; if you look here
http://www.ftma.net/lib/03/1119.html
you'll find this:
"Today the best-known psychiatrist dealing with transsexualism is Dr Russell Reid, who runs a private practice as well as working in the NHS. In 2000 Reid was involved in controversy over the condition known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), where sufferers can experience a desperate urge to rid themselves of a limb. Reid was one of the psychiatrists who referred two patients with BDD to a surgeon for leg amputations.
'When I first heard of people wanting amputations it seemed bizarre in the extreme,' he said in a television documentary at the time, 'but then I thought, "I see transsexuals and they want healthy parts of their body removed in order to adjust to their idealized body image," and so I think that was the connection for me. I saw that people wanted to have their limbs off with equally as much degree of obsession and need.'"
I can't imagine that NO American doctors would see things the same way, and plenty of people with an agenda to stick it to the transgender community, especially if they see it as a way of getting at the gay community, would be eager to feign agreement with the idea of surgery harming transsexuals... and just that fast, the transgendered would lose much of what they'd gained in recent decades.
What about the removal of significant amounts of healthy tissue for things like tummy tucks and breast reductions (yes, some of the latter are done for valid medical reasons, but not all)? How much of your healthy body should you be allowed to have removed just because you want it removed? When is it sick and when is it not to want it, and who decides that, and based on what? Should surgery be seen as a cure for mental illness, EVER?
What if it turns out that there's a medication these folks can be given that would eliminate their desire to lose limbs? Does that change anything? If B.I.I.D. IS a version of BDD, and that same med would also work for regular BDD, would some patients wanting plastic surgery be told, "you can't have surgery, because if you take these pills you won't want to change this anymore?" How could they tell would-be patients with BDD from those without it? How many wealthy or famous patients do you think would be stuck with that diagnosis if laws were passed requiring doctors to make that analysis... and how many greedy doctors wouldn't bother questioning anyone?
What happens when the first voluntary amputee who later regrets it, and you KNOW it'll happen, sues the surgeon?
What happens when someone with acrotomophilia (sexual attraction to amputees) persuades a sexual partner to get an amputation, or when someone gets an amputation to gain the affections of an acrotomophiliac... and before you say it could never happen, remember that some sick people have killed their kids when they had the hots for someone who didn't want the kids around, which is FAR more extreme.
I'd NEVER have imagined that people existed who wanted to become amputees; I cringe to contemplate what else people want that I haven't heard of yet...
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
An odd tech triumph
If you're the observant sort, and I'm betting you are, you've noticed something nifty alongside of my URL in your address bar (if you use IE, you might NOT see it unless you bookmark my site); a cool pink and black graphic that says "OMNI." I chose that "word" because it's short for "omniverse," and thus is the screen-name I use when I post in the blogosphere; I chose the color pink because, like the name, it's really "me." Since my tech knowledge is almost non-existent, there's a story behind every technical innovation on my blog, and this time it's extra-weird:
Because I use an old browser (it's much easier to do things on because it's so simple), I'd never seen a favicon (that's what those little graphics in front of the URL's are called, as I just discovered) until very recently, when I had to start using a newer browser to do my eBay searches (those eBay pages take too long to load on an old browser, sadly); when I naturally started bringing up some other sites in the newer browser, there the favicons were. They looked pretty neat, but it didn't occur to me that what those big corporate sites had was something *I* could have, because I hadn't seen it on any blogs yet... and getting something to appear up in the address bar seemed a little too advanced for me.
Finally, I DID see one on a blog; my friend Sam's excellent blog, specifically, located here
http://sams-stuff.blogspot.com/
Being utterly lacking in any ability with graphics programs, before I got too excited I asked my husband if he could make me one of those little icons, and he assured me that he could figure it out; he also knew a little bit about favicons, and so was able to bring the source code for Sam's blog up and point out the relevant line of code, which saved me having to sort through and start guessing what might be doing it... yes, that killer effect comes from ONE line of code placed in the header section of the template.
My husband got to work on making me the image you see, which had to be done with a special plug-in that would produce an ico file, as that's the only file type that can be used; the process took longer than necessary, as always, because he insists on ignoring what I've asked for and doing a bunch of other things I don't like, after which a protracted argument is required before he'll attempt doing it the right way... you'd think he'd want to do it the way that would get it done most quickly, but you'd be wrong, lol.
I knew I'd need to find a new online file storage site to store the image on, as my current image-storing host doesn't accept ico files; again, Sam's source code did the trick, as I used the URL in her code to get to the site she uses, and long before the image was ready I'd registered there and was ready to go. Once the icon was completed and transferred to my machine, I copied the code from Sam, stuck it right at the top of the header section of my template as I'd been told to by my husband, substituted the URL of my favicon, republished, and...
You KNEW it couldn't possibly work the first time, right? I THOUGHT it had, as the icon did in fact show up in the address bar, but before I could get my husband in to look at it, it had VANISHED, to be replaced with the default image. My husband said to try putting it at the very END of the header section, so that Blogger would read it last and so not override it; that sounded good, but the reality was that the default icon loaded, and then mine, and then the default one again... and this happened on every computer, and on every browser we tried.
I took another look at Sam's code, and saw that she was NOT using a Blogger template, or at least was using one so different from mine that no real comparison could be made to see what she might have done differently... and I had to wonder if it was even POSSIBLE to have a favicon with a basic Blogger template, especially since a search of a bunch of other Blogger blogs revealed no one else that had one.
Stumped, I posted on some coding forums asking for help; only a few people responded, and they were all seeing MY favicon, not the default one... leaving me to wonder if there was a browser issue involved, or some other weird thing I couldn't even imagine. It turned out to be the latter; today, when I brought my blog up in a newer browser to get to work on it, the favicon loaded just fine. I tried it on all the browsers on all the computers, and they were ALL fine. We have no idea WHY. Someone suggested that it might have been a cache issue, but some of those browsers had never had my blog loaded on them before, and so didn't HAVE a favicon in cache for it... leaving us without so much as a GUESS for what might have happened to make it keep failing before.
Is there such a thing as blog gremlins?
Anyways, the thing that matters is that it seems to be working now, so I won't sweat the hows and whys; I'm pleased and proud, as always, to have taken another step forward into tech-ness.
Because I use an old browser (it's much easier to do things on because it's so simple), I'd never seen a favicon (that's what those little graphics in front of the URL's are called, as I just discovered) until very recently, when I had to start using a newer browser to do my eBay searches (those eBay pages take too long to load on an old browser, sadly); when I naturally started bringing up some other sites in the newer browser, there the favicons were. They looked pretty neat, but it didn't occur to me that what those big corporate sites had was something *I* could have, because I hadn't seen it on any blogs yet... and getting something to appear up in the address bar seemed a little too advanced for me.
Finally, I DID see one on a blog; my friend Sam's excellent blog, specifically, located here
http://sams-stuff.blogspot.com/
Being utterly lacking in any ability with graphics programs, before I got too excited I asked my husband if he could make me one of those little icons, and he assured me that he could figure it out; he also knew a little bit about favicons, and so was able to bring the source code for Sam's blog up and point out the relevant line of code, which saved me having to sort through and start guessing what might be doing it... yes, that killer effect comes from ONE line of code placed in the header section of the template.
My husband got to work on making me the image you see, which had to be done with a special plug-in that would produce an ico file, as that's the only file type that can be used; the process took longer than necessary, as always, because he insists on ignoring what I've asked for and doing a bunch of other things I don't like, after which a protracted argument is required before he'll attempt doing it the right way... you'd think he'd want to do it the way that would get it done most quickly, but you'd be wrong, lol.
I knew I'd need to find a new online file storage site to store the image on, as my current image-storing host doesn't accept ico files; again, Sam's source code did the trick, as I used the URL in her code to get to the site she uses, and long before the image was ready I'd registered there and was ready to go. Once the icon was completed and transferred to my machine, I copied the code from Sam, stuck it right at the top of the header section of my template as I'd been told to by my husband, substituted the URL of my favicon, republished, and...
You KNEW it couldn't possibly work the first time, right? I THOUGHT it had, as the icon did in fact show up in the address bar, but before I could get my husband in to look at it, it had VANISHED, to be replaced with the default image. My husband said to try putting it at the very END of the header section, so that Blogger would read it last and so not override it; that sounded good, but the reality was that the default icon loaded, and then mine, and then the default one again... and this happened on every computer, and on every browser we tried.
I took another look at Sam's code, and saw that she was NOT using a Blogger template, or at least was using one so different from mine that no real comparison could be made to see what she might have done differently... and I had to wonder if it was even POSSIBLE to have a favicon with a basic Blogger template, especially since a search of a bunch of other Blogger blogs revealed no one else that had one.
Stumped, I posted on some coding forums asking for help; only a few people responded, and they were all seeing MY favicon, not the default one... leaving me to wonder if there was a browser issue involved, or some other weird thing I couldn't even imagine. It turned out to be the latter; today, when I brought my blog up in a newer browser to get to work on it, the favicon loaded just fine. I tried it on all the browsers on all the computers, and they were ALL fine. We have no idea WHY. Someone suggested that it might have been a cache issue, but some of those browsers had never had my blog loaded on them before, and so didn't HAVE a favicon in cache for it... leaving us without so much as a GUESS for what might have happened to make it keep failing before.
Is there such a thing as blog gremlins?
Anyways, the thing that matters is that it seems to be working now, so I won't sweat the hows and whys; I'm pleased and proud, as always, to have taken another step forward into tech-ness.
Monday, May 02, 2005
ow
Men, be warned; this post is partially about "female matters"... if that makes you uncomfortable, skip down to the next entry.
Why is it that, when so many women have cramps non-stop for several days each month, ibuprofen, the OTC med that works the best for cramps for many people, only lasts FOUR FRIGGING HOURS?!! And don't tell me it's 4-6, because I've never had ibuprofen last me even 4 hours and 1 minute, not even when I'm sleeping; when the pain is at its worst, 4 hours to the second after I took those final couple of pills, I wake up from a dream of pain to the reality of pain, and have to get up and stagger to the bathroom for the next dose... and when the pain isn't so bad, I just don't get rested no matter how long I'm in bed, because there's enough pain to keep me from sleeping deeply, but not enough to wake me up.
Yeah, it sucks.
You can get cold medications that are time-released for up to 24 hours... so why can't they do the same with ibuprofen? How obvious of a step is that, right? There are all sorts of pain that people self-medicate for, not just cramps, and most of those pains will last far longer than 4 hours, and most of those people would like to be able to SLEEP for more than 4 hours before having to re-dose, so why are the various producers of ibuprofen pills NOT making a time-released version, when the market for it is HUGE? Heck they could charge double, triple, for the time-released version, and hordes of people would line up to pay it; if you ever hear that any company HAS made a time-released version, buy as much of their stock as you can afford.
If you're reading this and are male, and are wondering about the other OTC pain pills; Tylenol doesn't really work on cramps, as it's not an antiprostaglandin (and prostaglandins are responsible for cramps), aspirin is weak and irritating to the stomach, and Aleve isn't as strong against cramps for most people... and believe me, for some of us, NOTHING is as strong as we need it to be.
Before my mother had me, she was being given some sort of prescription pain pills that were given to patients who'd had open-heart surgery for their postoperative pain for HER cramps; I don't know if mine are as bad as hers were, but they're pretty grim... there are plenty of months when even taking the absolute maximum dose of ibuprofen it's supposed to be safe to take, 5 pills, doesn't damp the pain down enough for me to sleep.
I'm used to pain of various kinds (I have bursitis and lower back trouble, too), but this can be so intense, and you can't hold it back by holding a body part still, and, worst of all, it can make it difficult to THINK; when you have this semi-conscious chant of "ow ow ow" going on, it's hard to produce any dazzling feats of intellectualism... so I gave up trying and just wrote what's on my mind, like I always do.
Why has medical science done so poorly in dealing with pain? We all know people who have headaches, backaches, arthritis, and other non-deadly ailments, for whom no pill that they can take eliminates the pain... WHY? Then, there are the people with things like cancer who suffer unspeakable agony, because nothing helps them... WHY? Why, when they can do all sorts of seemingly miraculous things to help and heal, can they not shut pain OFF, not even for a comparatively trivial thing like menstrual cramps?
Tonight was the worst night for this particular cycle (and I say WAS, because it's full daylight out now, and I haven't been to bed yet), and the ibuprofen has FINALLY settled it down to a dull roar, so I'm going to jump into bed and hope for more than 4 hours of sleep. My final thought; if and when they DO find a way to switch off our perceptions of pain, it will affect so many people, nearly ALL of us as various points in our lives, that it might be the greatest medical achievement of all times.
Why is it that, when so many women have cramps non-stop for several days each month, ibuprofen, the OTC med that works the best for cramps for many people, only lasts FOUR FRIGGING HOURS?!! And don't tell me it's 4-6, because I've never had ibuprofen last me even 4 hours and 1 minute, not even when I'm sleeping; when the pain is at its worst, 4 hours to the second after I took those final couple of pills, I wake up from a dream of pain to the reality of pain, and have to get up and stagger to the bathroom for the next dose... and when the pain isn't so bad, I just don't get rested no matter how long I'm in bed, because there's enough pain to keep me from sleeping deeply, but not enough to wake me up.
Yeah, it sucks.
You can get cold medications that are time-released for up to 24 hours... so why can't they do the same with ibuprofen? How obvious of a step is that, right? There are all sorts of pain that people self-medicate for, not just cramps, and most of those pains will last far longer than 4 hours, and most of those people would like to be able to SLEEP for more than 4 hours before having to re-dose, so why are the various producers of ibuprofen pills NOT making a time-released version, when the market for it is HUGE? Heck they could charge double, triple, for the time-released version, and hordes of people would line up to pay it; if you ever hear that any company HAS made a time-released version, buy as much of their stock as you can afford.
If you're reading this and are male, and are wondering about the other OTC pain pills; Tylenol doesn't really work on cramps, as it's not an antiprostaglandin (and prostaglandins are responsible for cramps), aspirin is weak and irritating to the stomach, and Aleve isn't as strong against cramps for most people... and believe me, for some of us, NOTHING is as strong as we need it to be.
Before my mother had me, she was being given some sort of prescription pain pills that were given to patients who'd had open-heart surgery for their postoperative pain for HER cramps; I don't know if mine are as bad as hers were, but they're pretty grim... there are plenty of months when even taking the absolute maximum dose of ibuprofen it's supposed to be safe to take, 5 pills, doesn't damp the pain down enough for me to sleep.
I'm used to pain of various kinds (I have bursitis and lower back trouble, too), but this can be so intense, and you can't hold it back by holding a body part still, and, worst of all, it can make it difficult to THINK; when you have this semi-conscious chant of "ow ow ow" going on, it's hard to produce any dazzling feats of intellectualism... so I gave up trying and just wrote what's on my mind, like I always do.
Why has medical science done so poorly in dealing with pain? We all know people who have headaches, backaches, arthritis, and other non-deadly ailments, for whom no pill that they can take eliminates the pain... WHY? Then, there are the people with things like cancer who suffer unspeakable agony, because nothing helps them... WHY? Why, when they can do all sorts of seemingly miraculous things to help and heal, can they not shut pain OFF, not even for a comparatively trivial thing like menstrual cramps?
Tonight was the worst night for this particular cycle (and I say WAS, because it's full daylight out now, and I haven't been to bed yet), and the ibuprofen has FINALLY settled it down to a dull roar, so I'm going to jump into bed and hope for more than 4 hours of sleep. My final thought; if and when they DO find a way to switch off our perceptions of pain, it will affect so many people, nearly ALL of us as various points in our lives, that it might be the greatest medical achievement of all times.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
When you get the creeps
You know the feeling; it's late at night, and you're alone in the house, or, worse, outside somewhere alone, maybe taking out the garbage, and some little movement of shadow or crackling of leaves that you'd have barely noticed before sundown makes your heart speed up and goosebumps break out all over your body. It makes perfect biological sense that unexpected noises and movements would make us hyper-alert, but what is it about it being late at night that magnifies the effect so dramatically? How do the mechanisms in your brain that control all this KNOW that it's the middle of the night, even when you're in a well-lit house and can't see the darkness outside? (And in the parts of the world that have darkness nonstop for months, what happens to this reaction, does it eventually start to fade, or are they jumpy month after month every time they step out into the dark?)
The weird thing is when your mind apparently decides that there isn't enough stuff creeping you out, and so starts to manufacture some for you; for example, I've noticed that if I look at a doll or stuffie from across a dim room, or look at its reflection in a dark window, it eventually seems to start moving... the face changes expression, the mouth might move as if it's whispering to someone/thing unseen, the arms or hands will make threatening gestures... and no amount of knowing that it's absolutely not real makes my eyes "unsee" what I'm seeing. What's the biological or evolutionary value of THAT?
The REALLY weird thing is that dolls and stuffies, I think by virtue of having faces (and this ties in to why people often have a subconscious fear of them, and also of mannequins and ventriloquist dummies, hence their frequent appearance in horror movies/shows), can seem somehow menacing even in a brightly lit room if the hour's late enough: A few nights ago, as I was finishing up on my laptop, I heard some odd, stealthy-seeming rustling sounds from somewhere nearby, and my exhausted mind instantly went into overdrive, and adrenaline flooded my system; by the time I located the source of the noises, which was a stuffie that had slid down such that it was pressed against the blinds and was moving them a little as it continued to slide, I was wired. I hoisted the stuffie back up to its proper place, and happened to look at its sweet, smiling face, and... I got the creeps BIG time. The longer I looked at that fuzzy, innocent visage, the more I got that feeling you get watching, say, Chuckie pretending to be a normal doll, knowing that any moment it's going to erupt into violence... and no matter how loudly the logical part of my brain insisted that it was just a harmless stuffie, and that I was freaking myself out by focusing on it, the primitive part of my brain kept reacting as if I were in some sort of danger.
Is that about as dead-wrong as the animal instincts can be or what, lol? Somehow, the combination of the odd noises, the late hour, and the resemblance of the stuffed animal to a real one made the caveman brain go into overdrive... and it left a lasting impression, too, because I just tried giving the stuffie's face a long stare, and I felt a tiny prickle of unease. There CAN'T be any value to a person of something like THAT, so my best guess is that the ability of the brain to imagine that things that aren't quite perceptible might be predators, which WOULD be valuable, can be over-active, and thus start imagining that things that have already been verified to be non-predatory are nevertheless dangerous; horror movies use that to scare you, but they have to work at it a little... I think, I HOPE, that most people's imaginations don't run away with them like mine did.
Stephen King once said something like, "People think it's great to have a vivid imagination, but what they don't realize is that it can turn on you like a cannibal with razors for teeth"... and he's SO right.
The weird thing is when your mind apparently decides that there isn't enough stuff creeping you out, and so starts to manufacture some for you; for example, I've noticed that if I look at a doll or stuffie from across a dim room, or look at its reflection in a dark window, it eventually seems to start moving... the face changes expression, the mouth might move as if it's whispering to someone/thing unseen, the arms or hands will make threatening gestures... and no amount of knowing that it's absolutely not real makes my eyes "unsee" what I'm seeing. What's the biological or evolutionary value of THAT?
The REALLY weird thing is that dolls and stuffies, I think by virtue of having faces (and this ties in to why people often have a subconscious fear of them, and also of mannequins and ventriloquist dummies, hence their frequent appearance in horror movies/shows), can seem somehow menacing even in a brightly lit room if the hour's late enough: A few nights ago, as I was finishing up on my laptop, I heard some odd, stealthy-seeming rustling sounds from somewhere nearby, and my exhausted mind instantly went into overdrive, and adrenaline flooded my system; by the time I located the source of the noises, which was a stuffie that had slid down such that it was pressed against the blinds and was moving them a little as it continued to slide, I was wired. I hoisted the stuffie back up to its proper place, and happened to look at its sweet, smiling face, and... I got the creeps BIG time. The longer I looked at that fuzzy, innocent visage, the more I got that feeling you get watching, say, Chuckie pretending to be a normal doll, knowing that any moment it's going to erupt into violence... and no matter how loudly the logical part of my brain insisted that it was just a harmless stuffie, and that I was freaking myself out by focusing on it, the primitive part of my brain kept reacting as if I were in some sort of danger.
Is that about as dead-wrong as the animal instincts can be or what, lol? Somehow, the combination of the odd noises, the late hour, and the resemblance of the stuffed animal to a real one made the caveman brain go into overdrive... and it left a lasting impression, too, because I just tried giving the stuffie's face a long stare, and I felt a tiny prickle of unease. There CAN'T be any value to a person of something like THAT, so my best guess is that the ability of the brain to imagine that things that aren't quite perceptible might be predators, which WOULD be valuable, can be over-active, and thus start imagining that things that have already been verified to be non-predatory are nevertheless dangerous; horror movies use that to scare you, but they have to work at it a little... I think, I HOPE, that most people's imaginations don't run away with them like mine did.
Stephen King once said something like, "People think it's great to have a vivid imagination, but what they don't realize is that it can turn on you like a cannibal with razors for teeth"... and he's SO right.
