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

[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!