So far

[mrissa]

(For those of you just tuning in, I had a procedure to deal with my vertigo this morning, and I'm restricted in activities until Thursday morning. I can't drive, can't exercise, can't bend over, can't lie flat.)

So far it's not the things for which I have to bend over that are the problem, because I just can't do them, and they're much easier to anticipate. So far it's the things for which I don't have to bend over but generally do anyway. Brushing my teeth, for example: I bend over the sink. I can brush my teeth bolt upright, but I tend to bend over. I can reach most things that are on the floor by kneeling and looking down with my eyes, not my chin, until I can see what it is I'm going for. But unless I'm getting something for a reason, it's probably best to just let it go.

Having the dog staying with my folks for a few nights is once again a very helpful thing.

I am tired, and left to my own devices I would lie down. I am not left to my own devices. I will be trying to make the couch and/or the recliner bearable and not-fully-reclined. I am hoping for the best and not much planning on it. I am trying to cut myself some slack over the next few days.

The "quick spins": they are not much fun. I don't recommend them, actually.

Tonight I got noodles at Rainbow* for dinner, and they were lovely and are now abundant in leftover form. markgritter drove and did not mind when I got spinny or when I got weepy. (I am a bit more fragile with my world spinny.) And I got ice cream, many of you will apparently be relieved to know. And tomorrow there will be distractions of various kinds, and I will sit and write some, and it will be all right.

If you like, tell me about something spinny, twirly, tilty, or otherwise physically disorienting. Or tell me about something temporally disorienting.

*That's Rainbow Chinese restaurant on Nicollet, not Rainbow Foods.

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

::HUGS::

Oh, wow, I hope you're feeling all better soon!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Well, I hope not to be spinny and twirly on the ship next week, and have gotten the seasickness patch to deal with it. And had lots of people tell me that I shouldn't need it, because a big cruise ship is nothing like a smaller boat, but dangit, rotating restaurants have been known to make me motion-sick. And video games. And IMAX presentations. And if I get on the ship without a patch, and find that I needed one after all, it'll ruin the whole first day for me because I won't be able to do anything but clutch my head and moan. [/whinge]

In the realm of nifty disorientation, back in 1991 I was in London at the end of their year of special Japan cultural exchange stuff. At the V&A Museum, there was a special installation done by a Japanese artist, in three rooms meant to reflect Japan's past, present, and future.

The first room as the past - the middle of the room had a wooden structure based on a temple pillar and beam, and a small model of a teahouse that you could open up by turning a crank, and windows in the walls around the room that looked in on all sorts of Buddhist mandalas, some neon, some painted, and flute music piped in.

The second room was the biggest - very, very large. It was Japan's present. As you walked in, you heard a cacophany of noise, and were confronted with an inflatable Godzilla stomping a miniature Tokyo. Around the room, there were colorful wallscrolls of anime and other modern art things on the walls and hanging from the very high ceiling, and a maze made of vending machines, a small room with a kareoke machine, and another with easy chairs with massage thingys built in. And then there was the Temple of Noise, with a bunch of squared-off tall metal pillars surrounding a large - over five feet - pile of junk and metal scraps. Each pillar had a wheel on its front and a speaker, and when you turned the wheel a sound characteristic of modern Japan played. It could be anything from the sound of birds and wind in the trees to a jackhammer or horns honking. The final stop in that room was a more traditional temple with fortunes - you shook a box and a stick with a number on it fell out - you took that number over to some cubbyholes and pulled out a peice of ricepaper with your fortune written in Japanese. You then took it to a scanner and scanned it, and it printed out your fortune in English. If you didn't like it - I had to fly in two days and it told me I would have bad luck with travel - you took it to a small scrubby tree, tied it onto teh branches, and tried again. :)

The final room was Japan in the future. The music was a bit more ambient/New Age. The room was lit only by the floor and a wall, which were covered in TV monitors showing random iamges from Japan - comptuer screens, or Tokyo rush hour. The monitors were programmed so that a number of them together made up the image, if you get what I'm talking about - a 6x6 square of monitors on the wall would make up one image of rush hour, while others would have computer screens, and so on. The room itself contained three big things that looked vaguely like satellites, and you could look into them at various parts and see tiny monitors showing weather patterns.

The second room was disorienting from overstimulation, but the third room was disorienting because the floor was all monitors - they were laid into it, and a clear surface was laid over all, so you were walking on it. And because they were emitting light, you didn't have a shadow, and between the loss of a shadow and the monitors a couple of inches below the clear floor, you couldn't ever tell exactly where your foot was going, and it was easy to lose your equilibrium if you were trying to walk around while looking down.

That was an amazing installation, and I'm so glad I was able to go.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The cruise ship we took from Sweden to Finland and back when I was 10 was likely smaller than the one you'll be on. That said, we could feel the waves in the Baltic -- we staggered around the docks on our return to Stockholm like the proverbial drunken sailors. Better to be prepared.

That does sound very interesting at the V&A. I think I would have had trouble with walking on monitors, but it might well have been worth it!

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's when things interfere with habitual kinds of things that they keep Intruding Into Your Attention.

I'm glad the thing itself wasn't horrible. And that you had ice cream.

I once went on something called "The Turkish Twist" at Canobie Lake Park. (http://www.canobie.com/) This is one of those things where you stand on the floor, against the wall, and the ride starts spinning really damn quickly, and you start sticking to the wall, and then the floor drops down, so you're /really/ sticking to the wall. And then the floor comes back up and the ride slows down, and you stagger out feeling pummelled and, if you're me, weirdly exhilerated.

I had thought I was going to hate it, but I liked it a lot. As a rare occurrance, anyway. I don't need the 'almost but not quite wanting to throw up while going wheeeeeeeee!' sensation more than once every few years.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There was one of those in Kansas City at Worlds of Fun, but they called it the Finnish Fling, I believe. For me it wasn't actually very effective. I don't know why. It was interesting but not particularly exhilirating or disorienting. The rest of my Girl Scout troop liked it much better than I did. I didn't dislike it. It just wasn't a big deal for me.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Disorienting: I have trouble seeing left from right. However, I can easily feel the difference.

I realized this while being given a car ride in London. My mind kept going "Argh! No! He's turning left instead of right!"

Not physically disorienting, but definitely disorienting: I once woke to see a burglar climbing through my window. I reached for the gun under my pillow, and he left hastily.

Once I was fully awake, I remembered that I'd never owned a gun in my life.

[aranel.livejournal.com]

This morning, while practicing aikido, I got smacked in the nose but good--two of us collided while doing forward rolls, which are sort of like fancy somersaults that you do from a one-knee-up-and-one-down pose rather than sitting. Like this (http://www.bodymindandmodem.com/KiEx/FrontRoll.html). (And wow, that video clip is kind of dizzying in and of itself.) It was temporarily disorienting, and now whenever I bend my head down, my poor bruised nose hurts. So I sympathize with the "oh, right, guess I shouldn't bend that way" feeling. Hope you feel better very very soon.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I know that nose-dizzying feeling from tumbling class in high school. I hope you feel better soon, too!

[rosefox]

I'm helping a recent ex to work through relationship difficulties with one of their current partners. It's extremely disorienting.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And yet a good thing to do, sounds like.

[rosefox]

Very much... not least because it's doing a lot to help me get over him. *) I'm quite fond of him, but now have no desire whatsoever to be in a relationship with him.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, all for the best, then!

[matastas.livejournal.com]

Quick spins. Bah. I fall over just because it's a Tuesday in June. Fell off the second (bottom) step the other day, landed flat on my ass. Haven't been able to balance on one leg for three years.

You kids and your 'vertigo.' *gums oatmeal*

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

I have been following this and unable to comment because of time issues. I am thinking of you and hoping this will do the trick. Sorry for all this awful awkwardness.

I had a sinus infection once and was amazed at how many times this supposedly upright member of an upright species bent over. Gah!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My mom keeps saying, "Keep your chin up! No, really!"

Anyway, I've been thinking of you, too, and hoping things improve soon.

Spinny Head

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Before I got my migraine meds, I used dramamine to deal with the feeling of motion sickness everytime I moved my head. My migraines present with symptoms other than the headache being much stronger, so it took a while to figure out what was wrong. It was much like being dreadfully hung over on a tilt-a-whirl.

Re: Spinny Head

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have an anti-dizzy med, but I am supposed to avoid it until tomorrow morning, at which point it will probably (we hope!) be less necessary. Happily I have a strong stomach, so dizzy and nauseated don't always go together.

Migraine auras of all kinds suck. Mine are probably the mildest and easiest to deal with I've ever heard of. They are more a warning than an unpleasantness themselves.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

Remember the spinny tilty ride at worlds of fun? the one with the yellow cages we had to be locked into because after the drum got up to speed they tilted the whole thing on end? And how even though it was awkward and agaist the rules we four still tickled one another? Yeah, good times.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do remember that. I remember that in quite tactile detail. Good times indeed.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

This isn't physical disorientation but cultural, and I think it's kind of widespread. Any time I don't understand a certain number of people around me, or I think I shouldn't understand them, I start working in Spanish. It's embarrassing if I'm at a Lunar New Year celebration and can't stop chirping, "Buenas!" and ridiculous if I'm speaking to more than two Caribbean-accented people-- I have a lot of trouble with certain accents, and if I can't understand you, my brain says you're speaking Spanish.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have a problem with languages I recognize but don't speak. Japanese, for example: I know enough Japanese to sometimes be able to pick out, "[noun] and [noun] and three-in-the-way-you-count-cylindrical-things [noun] [verb]," out of a string of conversation. But that's not very useful, generally. Or else I will hear, "blah blah blah more slowly blah and blah." Again not useful.