Continuing

[mrissa]

The problem with vertigo is that it makes you dizzy.

No, wait, I can do better than that. Okay. The problem with vertigo for someone like me is that dizziness is not a condition that responds well to bullheadedness. The point of, "Ooh, no, better not push it," comes much, much sooner than for something like a chest cold or fatigue. I am forced into much more -- um...sensible, is I guess the word I'm looking for. I am forced into much more sensible behavior much sooner.

I hate that.

I am also not keen on standing half-asleep and dizzy in the yard at 3:30 a.m. with a dog who has, shall we say, some bad digestive issues, wondering, if I pass out, am I far enough from the dog that I won't fall in anything truly unpleasant? This is not a favorite question to have to assess.

The day is almost certain to get better from that point. At least, one can hope.

I'm going to take a page from yhlee's book and say, tell me something about the wind. Myffic or personal or whatever. Wind. Go.

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

My favorite nights are windy ones, middle of the night, almost but not quite cool enough to need a jacket on. Everybody's wind chimes get going and it reminds me of the ocean, somehow.

Hope you're feeling more stable ASAP.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

When you have really short hair, no matter what direction the wind is blowing or how hard, you can always see.

And feel it blissfully on your cheeks and neck without fighting desperately with your acres of hair.

(I used to be able to sit on mine; thus the acres comment).

I giggle now every time the wind blows like a sniggering, smug little teenager.

Also, the noise it makes in the trees makes me so happy I could cry. It makes me feel wild and peaceful and thoughtful and crazy all at once.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Mine was nearly knee-length (in the shower--braided as it usually was, it was past my butt) by the time I got it cut, thus it was never ever unbound unless it was some ridiculously special occasion (by which I mean a college dance), as I was afraid of what might happen to it if ever I allowed it to be loose in a breeze. (also, I worried about strangling myself in my sleep if it was loose.)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

When you have really short hair, no matter what direction the wind is blowing or how hard, you can always see.

And feel it blissfully on your cheeks and neck without fighting desperately with your acres of hair.

Yes, I'm enjoying that about my newly short hair. Not that I ever had quite acres -- it was just past my waist at its longest, and only down to mid-back this last time. But the liberation from whipping strands that inevitably blow in your eyes so you can just enjoy the wind, that's quite something.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think I'm more sensitive to wind on my ears than many people are -- I mean that in a bad way. I hate wind on my ears. I would rather wrestle my hair loose or in braids than have wind on my ears, and it's taken me awhile to figure out that "but the wind will blow on your ears" is not actually a deterrent for most people.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have rather prominent ears and on certain days the wind whistles in them. Really.

Long hair, which inevitably becomes tucked behind my ears, never protects me from this. Short hair, fluffed with product around them, does.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Please do not fall in your dog's poop.

And I don't know if you know this, but you can give dogs diarrhea medication meant for adults. We give Frodo half a dose and it helps. He weighs between 80-90 pounds, FWIW. Closer to 80 if he's had lots of bouts with this.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We are trying to get Ista up to 11 pounds.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. I don't guess you can cut up a pill small enough, then. And it sure is hard to get a dog to gain weight when s/he keeps getting the runs. Last summer, Frodo lost TWENTY POUNDS. It was horrible.

Out of curiosity -- would you say this happens more in the summer?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It doesn't happen all that often, actually. This is only the second or third time ever. So that's a good thing, at least.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

You can still give Ista liquid Pepto Bismol in proportionally smaller doses. I get Sarah to take it by using the spoon (spoon back dipped in Pepto works best) to smear it onto her tongue and/or muzzle. She dislikes it intensely but will clean it off and swallow. Best to administer in a spot where cleanup of flung droplets of Pepto pink will be non-problematic.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, Ista is very good about taking medicines, even when she wishes she didn't have to be good.

Probably not the kind of wind you had in mind

[ellarien]

Did you know that the solar wind shields the earth from cosmic rays? And that this (via beryllium isotopes in Ant/arctic ice cores) is how we know that during the Maunder Minimum when there were hardly any sunspots for half a century, the Sun still had cycles?

Re: Probably not the kind of wind you had in mind

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This kind of wind is fine with me! (But yes, I did know that. Not bad to be reminded, though!)

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Wooo, revenge of the dog poop. It is unwise to mock the diarrhea... ;-)

I hope your vertigo passes soon. It sounds highly unpleasant.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever truly internalize the scale of a tall building (or other structure) until I feel it sway in the wind.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Although people frequently say that Southern California doesn't have weather or seasons, it was the Santa Ana winds that convinced me that it does -- just not standard Northern European-temperate weather and seasons. The Santa Anas come in fall, generally. It's a hot dry wind that doesn't cool me at all but feels like a breath off an open oven, that ruffles under my skin, and that says SoCal to me, as clear as the Hollywood sign or a palm-tree-lined road.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

The Santa Anas also have the wonderful effect of temporarily cleaning out the air in the entire basin. Everything becomes, just briefly, bright and clean and the sun actually flashes off the palm fronds. It is particularly glorious to go up to the top of Mt. Wilson on a night after the Santa Anas have blown through -- the view is wonderous and terrifying, with the clean, glittering city "all spread out like a banquet" reaching out for the horizons and only stopped by reaching the sea, instead.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Northern California has seasons, too, but two of them, not four.

[ckd]

At MIT, they had to put up a large Calder sculpture (the "Great Sail") to cut down the wind from the river so that you could get through the doors of building 54, though that may be a myth.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I have always loved the wind. I love the sea too, more than I realise when i can't see it, but the wind is always there, and you can't see it.

One of my favorite fairy tales is the woman who loved the west wind.

I have written wind smut.

When my hair was long and loose, the wind would play with individual curls--I miss that about my long hair--but my hair is usually too thick to blow about in the wind, at least not in any wind that it is pleasant to be in. The unpleasant breezes, alas, are very common around my office--Boston is actually the windiest city in the US, I've been told, and I work in the windiest area of the city. I think the hancock building messes about with currents, but I've watched people in heels on wet sidewalks get literally pushed into the street by the wind, as in sliding along across the pavement.

I still love breezes of any kind, to the point that I leave my window cracked just so in the winter so that sometimes, depending on the weather, a breath of cold air will sneak in. I also sleep with my face in the breeze from the fan, which results in very sore throats and headaches, but I still do it instinctively.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I love wind. When I was a baby it would always pacify me to be put out on the patio on a breezy day, and if I was crying, my mother could just blow in my face and I would stop and start giggling instead. I have to fight consciously to keep myself from making wind at least a minor character in every single piece of fiction I write, as a mystical signifier for magic and portent and spirits loose in the world. As a kid growing up I would sit out in the tree in our back yard on windy days and pretend to be a weather witch, and summon up the wind and rain by singing to them. Sometimes in my head I am that weather witch still.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

it's been blowing like crazy here in the outer reaches of The City. last night because my boyfriend had to get up at 4 a.m., i decided i was going to sleep on the couch to give him a better chance of quality sleep in the short hours he had. but i was foiled because we have one of those rain guards on our chimney (it looks like a darth vader helmet) and it was RATTLING and RATTLING around in the wind! normally i like that sound, don't ask me why, but not when i'm trying to sleep at 1:30 in the morning. so i abandoned that plan.

at 7 in the morning the wind was STILL blowing, blowing things against the house, blowing my unripe apples off the trees. we never get this much wind here, it's an odd weather pattern and it may be blowing the fog away.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You have a Darth Vader chimney. That's so cool.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

practical question: Could you locate a chair in the backyard to sit on lean on at times like this?

wind: One of my favorite things about our little house in Houston (it was a great little house, and I wish I could have brought it with us when we moved away) was the master bedroom. It had windows on the north and east sides, and the attached bath had one on the south. There were trees all around the house and the bedrooms were on the second floor, so they were level with the branches. When they'd blow in the wind, even with the blinds closed you could see the branches move. It felt like rocking in a tree house.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The situation of me being out in the yard and dizzy in the middle of the night comes up so rarely -- I think this is the first time -- that putting a chair out there would just mean something to mow around without a lot of actual benefit.

[carnotite.livejournal.com]

The Dine' (Navajo) Tsé Bit' A'í - the Winged Rock (http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/9404/shiprockwh2.jpg) and the Anglo Shiprock (http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/9946/20060830073436aayg4.jpg) both imply kinship with the wind.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

When I lived in the Philippines, sometimes we would go up into the mountains on vacation. Leaving the dirty, thick, hot air of Manila and being able to spend time sniffing cool winds that smelled like pine is one of my happiest childhood memories.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

At night. Wind moving tree branches casting hard shadows from the streetlights. Definitely fall winds; spring winds aren't nearly as interesting, and though thunderstorms are wonderful, they're a little intense for wind appreciation. If the wind is a bit brisk, the sounds are wonderful too. And they bring smells from wherever they've been.

[violsva]

There used to be two really tall spruce trees at the back of my neighbour's backyard, in the corner near ours, and when I was a child I'd hear the wind howling in them at night and feel scared in a wonderful sort of way. They're cut down now.

I remember at elementary school, where the field had no trees in it, except for very tiny ones at the side and one at the back corner, and the wind would blow straight across it and I'd run with it with my arms spread expecting to fly away any minute.

In the fairy tale East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon, the heroine goes to the winds for help and I used to have amazingly vivid images of the winds, and of the girl riding on the back of the north wind.

I love autumn winds, and definitely prefer them to cold, damp autumn rains and humidity, which is what we're having now.

[jry.livejournal.com]

Despite the fact that I have been unsuccessful in taking one of my own and have never seen one, I still feel certain in my heart that it is possible to take a still photograph that will evoke the wind. For some reason, whipping flags and bowed trees don't quite do it.

One of the things I miss about smoking (http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000114.html) was how it made the dynamic movement of the air visible to my eyes.

Hmm. Is transparency a subjective quality of our atmosphere? If we could see some other way would the patterns of flow be visible? Hmm.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think it may be more the opposite: that we have the sense of sight as we do in part because this is a range and type of sensing that allows for a fair amount of transparency of this atmosphere.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Wind makes me think of sailing. I learned to sail at summer camp, in these teeny little boats called Sunfish. You sat on the deck, and put your feet in a little footwell in the center. They were small enough for one person to sail, but we usually sailed two to a boat.

In a stiff enough wind, the boat would tilt so far that one edge would go under the water, and we'd perch on the other edge and lean back to keep the boat from going all the way over. My partner and I loved to practice the jibe - a way of changing the boats course where the nose of the boat briefly points straight into the wind. There's a kind of suspense to it - as you point straight into the wind, everything goes kind of slack, and then as the boat turns and catches the wind again, the sail snaps from one side of the boat to the other, fast enough that it'll hit you if you're not careful.

One day we discovered that if you jibed in a sufficiently strong wind, the little Sunfish would flip clear over. We loved the sensation of going topsy-turvy so much that we did it over and over, yelling "Jibe Ho!" at the top of our lungs and then *splash*! This distressed our instructor, until he figured out we were doing it on purpose.

I've sailed a few other kinds of boats since then, but I still think that for pure fun, nothing beats a Sunfish.

[redbird]

Willow trees dance with the wind, but it's wind in maples that tells me rain is coming.

[writerjob.livejournal.com]

In the old story -- you remember the one where the girl had to bring back fire in a paper and wind in a paper ...?

Wind in a paper was a fan.

I remember the woven straw fans the old ladies used to use in church.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know that story. What was fire in a paper?

[writerjob.livejournal.com]

The story goes ...

Once upon a time three brothers in China married three girls from the next-village-over-the-hill.

Their new father-in-law became very impatient with these silly girls because, though they were hard-working and obedient most of the time, the months went by and they would not be content to stay with their new family. They wanted always to gad about back to their old village to visit their mothers.

[And who shall blame them, says I, with this passive-aggressive old fart running their lives ...]

So one day before he sent them on their way to visit ...

'When you return, you must bring me fire in a paper,' he said to the oldest son's wife. 'You must bring me wind in a paper,' he said to the middle son's wife. 'And, you,' he said to the youngest son's wife, 'must bring me music in wind. If you do not bring me these simple things, then do not return at all.'

The foolish girls nodded and giggled and traipsed off across the rice fields to go gossip with their mothers. In the afternoon, when it was time to go home, however, they remembered their father-in-law's words.

"Aaaaahhhh!' they wailed, sitting down by the side of the road. "We are lost. How will we ever find wind in a paper, fire in a paper and music in wind? We can never go home again and see our wonderful husbands! These marvels do not exist?"
Many extraneous tears were shed.

Fortunately, about then, a cheerful young girl came by driving a water buffalo. "Why are you crying?" she demanded. And they told her the whole story.

"You have been very foolish young women," she said. "But I shall help you."

[But she didn't suggest poisoning their annoying father-in-law which is what comes immediately to my mind, at least.]

The young girl ordered them to hurry back to their old village and fetch three things.

At sunset, the Old Man saw his three erring daughters-in-law returning . He thought to himself, 'They will be well abashed for their foolishness.'

He said, "Daughters of my house, what have you brought me?"

The oldest stepped forward, "Honored Father of my Husband. I have brought you fire in a paper." She set the paper lantern on the table and lit the candle inside. It glowed a rich red throughout the whole room.

The next daughter bowed before him. "Honored Old One, I have brought you wind in a paper." She drew a paper fan from the sleeve of her kimono and fanned him gently with it.

The wife of the youngest son held out the wind chimes she carried. 'I will hang these at the door," she said. "The wind will play within them to make music in your honored house."

The Old Man was so pleased by the cleverness of his three daughters-in-law that from that day forth he treated them with kindliness and respect, and the three girls, knowing how close they had come to disaster, were always diligent in their work and loving to their new family.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Poisoning the unreasonable is a way out of so very many fairy tales, and yet so few seem to use it!

[sesquipedeviant.livejournal.com]

in bed

me: *farrrts*
partner: "The Kraken Speaks!"

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

Vertigo is one of those things that does not respond well to human will. The muscles can be guided; the nerves and sensations aided by actions. What we do and the emotional stance we do it is slowly but surely shapes mood and bodily feeling.

Disorientation of the inner ears tends to make a muddle of all that.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, and I hope you feel better soon.

Wind? Okay. I still don't understand the physics of how sails work.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Try this. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sails)

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I'm trying, I really am.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you understand airplanes?

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I understand lift working with thrust. I understand the lift part of sails, but not so much where the thrust is coming from. The shape and weight of the keel, apparently.