A couple two tree random things before we get started here:
- I’m scheduled to get my first dose of the vaccine tomorrow afternoon. It’s through my job, and I signed up the moment I was eligible. Needless to say, there’s differing opinions on it. But I’m totally onboard. We have to get this shit behind us. So we can get back to baseball stadiums, concert halls, and a normal non-stilted trip to the goddamn Cracker Barrel. Oh yeah, and for health reasons too, I suppose.
- Yesterday I randomly chose a pair of underwear from the drawer that caused me great discomfort throughout the day. It wasn’t a tightness issue, it was the way they’re designed. There’s a mashing effect, and not enough give. Know what I’m talking about? There has to be some give! An uncomfortable pair of underwear can flat-out ruin your quality of life. Yet, at the same time… a comfortable pair is rarely appreciated. It’s like some jobs I’ve had in my life: I was only noticed when something went wrong. I was nothing more than a corporate ball sock. In any case, I will be more careful with my selection today. And, perhaps, a weeding out should happen soon?
I recently stopped at a Sheetz convenience store on my way home from work and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich: Swiss and cheddar on sourdough, with a slice of ham. And as I was standing there waiting on it to be prepared this dude walked up and started engaging a touch screen. Hey, whatever. Portly men with dinosaur feet need to eat too. Also, the sandwich was delicious, in case you were focusing on all the wrong things.
The main topic I was planning to write about is something that happened to me a half-dozen or so times when I was a kid. It was before fifth grade, I know, because it happened at our first house on 21st Street. Are you familiar with something called sleep paralysis? I saw it mentioned somewhere online recently, and it triggered some unpleasant memories.
It’s where you’re asleep but dream you’re awake — and paralyzed. It’s genuinely terrifying. Your heart starts pounding, and it feels oh-so-real. I also recall trying to yell for my parents and not being able to do that either. Like I say, it happened maybe five or six times, all when I was young. But, thankfully, not once after 6th grade or so.
Have you experienced this horror? I’ve read that people have had heart attacks as a result of sleep paralysis, and I can believe it. It’s terrible.
I also had a dream, around the same time, that my parents were killed in a nightclub fire. I mean, they weren’t hanging out in too many nightclubs at the time, so there were plot holes. But it was so detailed and real that I remember my grandfather breaking the news to me and my brother, and seeing the news reports on TV. I can see the outside of the smoldering building in my mind. It still gives me a full-body shiver when I think about it. Crazy!
Thankfully that insanity stopped — after puberty? I don’t know the science behind it, but I’m happy it ended.
Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? Do you know what I’m talking about? Share your stories in the comments section, if you’re so inclined. Also, did you ever have a scary dream a long time ago that still haunts you? Not a “really weird dream” with Harry S. Truman, Mr. Whipple, and a salsa band. But something that was full-on terrifying? Please share. And, by the way, what do you think our Sheetz friend dreams about? I’d like to get your thoughts on that too.
And I need to call it a day, my friends.
I’ll be back soon, very soon.
Have a great weekend!
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I have many times. Lately – I keep thinking someone is breaking in my house in the middle of the night. So I end up lying there listening for someone coming up the steps.
Well I hope he got a Monster energy drink to go with his sandwich. They don’t look like good snow feet.
I don’t know that I’d call it sleep paralysis, but I routinely have a dream where I’m awake but numb and unable to move. I don’t find it scary, I’m not being eaten by a giant spider or anything. I just can’t move, and frequently the room is much larger than it is in reality.
I watched Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels again yesterday. What a great movie that is.
I’ve never suffered any form of sleep paralysis, but I’m very familiar with problematic underdrawers. Yesterday, I was wearing a pair of elastically-challenged boxers which worked themselves down to my knees. My wife tells me to throw them out, but I just throw them in the laundry to be worn, and complained about, again.
Yes, I’ve heard of it. Did it stop when you moved to a different house? There could have been something going on in the house. (I can see see the eyerolls now!) But I’m serious. Any occurrences unexplained besides the sleep paralysis? Just a thought.
I have so many weirdo dreams, I wouldn’t know where to start. Some bother me for weeks….or completely override my mood for the day.
I had similar dreams when I was little… around 8 or 9 years old I think I learned to realize they were dreams while asleep and started controlling them in my sleep, from what I recall. I don’t really dream much anymore.
I just got my 2nd dose of the Moderna yesterday, and my better half has been fully Pfizered since the first week in January being a urologic oncology PA. It was nice for us to feel comfortable flying commercial last week and hitting the slopes knowing we were (me partially) vaccinated. I’m already booking more flights to catch up on my vacationing that was substantially curtailed in 2020.
The first shot of the Moderna didn’t do anything other than cause a sore arm, like a flu shot. The 2nd dose that I got yesterday morning had me up last night with the chills and a right arm that was pretty much useless due to agonizing pain. Today, aside from being tired from the difficulty sleeping last night, I feel just fine with only a mildly sore arm. Admittedly, I have a low tolerance for discomfort of any kind.
Have definitely struggled with sleep paralysis. It’s quite terrifying. For me it was also coupled with nightmares associated with PTSD. The doctor prescribed me an alpha blocker, and I haven’t had any incidents since.
Random thoughts . . .
Jeff, I had no idea that you and Adam were old guys like me. The 65+ set is having a hard time finding vaccine because we’re not very computer liberal. I’d call somebody and complain, but I can rarely get a decent dial tone on my ApplePhone. But anybody who can get ahold of the vaccine is crazy to turn it down. Live and be well.
And I notice that since you’ve started updating a little more often, some of your readership is returning to the commentariat. Bikerchick was always a kick in the pants. Nice to hear from her.
My thoughts about the pictured gentleman were the opposite of Limey’s. It seems to me that those claws would grrrrrrip the road, but I don’t know much about snow, although the local television stations claim we’re getting something like seven feet tonight. They’re raising their voices.
Harry Truman might or might not have a middle name. When I was in school before the Great War, we learned that the S stood for nothing at all, and that we should therefore omit the following period. Well, life and style sheets change, and the fuckers at the Harry S. Truman library now say that the S should be perioded. As an ancient, I’m opposed to change, and I ain’t gonna do it. I’ll be happy to pay the library bastards in advance. Here, fuckers: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Since the name doesn’t pop up frequently in written conversation, that should be a decade’s worth, and should cover post-mortem references (I mean my mortem, not Harry’s).
Don’t let the snow get in your underwear. That would only exacerbate the situation.
John
. . . and Bikerchick knows about these things. Did your brother ever disappear for a couple of weeks and come back looking a little like Betty Grable? There is more in Heaven and earth than is dreamed of in your philosophy, Jeff.
jtb
I’m only 40 (39 when I got my first shot) but I fall into the 1B category in Texas so I took it. The smaller population area I live in isn’t nearly as hard pressed for vaccinations as the larger population areas in the state.
I apologize, Adam, for going off like a five dollar pistol. My wife and sister are both in high risk groups and haven’t been able to get a hit of the vaccine. That’s certainly not your fault. I try to be a gentleman, and sometimes I fall short. Thanks for being more civil than I was.
best wishes and good skiing,
John
My brother is in the same group… diagnosed with cancer and undergoing chemo in 2020 and he is on some huge waiting list in the DFW area. Another friend of mine was given a cancer diagnosis 6 months ago and has been in and out of the hospital for the past six months. He ended up driving 6 hours to a vaccination site in another part of the state to get his first dose last week. It appears that they’ve about doubled their distribution recently to account for everyone needing a 2nd dose, so hopefully y’all can get them soon!
It’s not just TX, I have my first shot scheduled next week and I’m having a 5 to 6 hour roundtrip drive way out into Sheetzland to get it.
Yeah – I’ve had that throughout my life, although not so much the last few years (and never since I got on a CPAP machine). For a long time I attributed to caffeine: my brain is awake but my body is truly asleep. I. COULD. NOT. MOVE. And I was always afraid that if I didn’t SOON – I would die. Besides, my breathing seemed to be fkd up at the same time – so yeah: death by suffocation. I would struggle mightily in the ‘dream’ and finally ‘break through’. But it was terrifying and so disconcerting. I actually went to the trouble of telling my mom about it (probably in college) and it scared her too – hearing about it. To this day I don’t know what cause my “paralyzed wakefullness” and it’s never actually helped to know I wasn’t the only one experiencing it at one time or another. :/
Adam is right that if a shot comes your way, take it. I’d be all over that, but I’m in the last-priority catchall category so I don’t expect it to be available to me before Ballsweat Season. Adam is also right to go skiing. I’m sufficiently lazy that I haven’t gone in quite some time.
And it is indeed great to see the return of Bikerchick (how’s the antique business?). Next thing you know we’ll be seeing Knucklehead.
Maybe Knucklehead has lost her English and speaks only Italian. Is it possible to lose your English? If you strike the cue ball low left and it follows the object ball into the pocket, do you just shrug and say, “It must have lost its English.”? I think there’s a problem here with conservation of energy. It takes a lot of energy to learn a language that has as many irregular verbs as English. Maybe it’s conservation of spin. That would be a political problem, which we won’t discuss.
jtb
A dream that has stuck in my mind for 50 years. I was 9 years old at the time. I was on a space mission upon what appeared to be the USS Enterprise. However everyone but me had towels covering their head. As I went, one by one , to each member , I pulled the towel off their heads, and they screamed “DERR,DERR!” at me. Still remember that, clear as a bell, to this day.
As I have struggled with insomnia, for a month, since the concussion, I no longer sleep enough to go into the REM stage.. and dream. What’s the frequency, Kenneth?
To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause: there’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life; for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscover’d country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
Doesn’t happen often but I recall a strange sleep paralysis where someone dressed as a cockroach was trying to take a skin sample from my arm with a knitting needle. I was able to fight it off but then it was replaced by a super tall clown with yellow pants who was trying to do the same thing. I was trying to scream but couldn’t. I not into the dream analysis thing but had watched a ‘Modern Family’ episode which had Fizbo the clown in it a few days prior.
ibid.
I’ve had sleep paralysis a few times, except I wasn’t dreaming I was awake, I was actually awake and unable to move.
Jason, how is your boy? You first posted about him impending arrival several years back. Just wondering!
AWG, He’s doing fantastic !! He’s a math wiz. Jason Henry, we call him. Thank you!
Never had total sleep paralysis but I have had dreams (fairly recently too) where I try to walk but my legs will hardly move at all and I’m doing a modified Frankenstein amble. Oh yeah, totally not interested in discovering the meaning of this…..
Mike