Project Whore

[itsallovernow]

So, it's no secret that my brain is like a magpie on crack, always looking for shiny things to distract it, obsessing about them and then leaving them behind in the nest.

I never abandon my projects, I just put them on hiatus when other stuff (read: distractions) appears.

So, last week, someone sent me this article: Eek, Run for your lives! The snakes are coming.

Despite my healthy fear of snakes, this just killed me!! Visions of hippy pythons trying to hitch-hike to San Fransisco filled my weekend with glee. (It also guarantees I'm never going to Florida.)

But it also lead to an idea I had for a list project (I want to write a story in list form, sets of lists as communication, the way we meme to show ourselves, the way a good list, like those "My character X" lists are so evocative). And I wanted to start with an "irrational" or "unusual" fears list.

When I mentioned this to Sh., she suggested I turn it into performance art, collect the lists of fears and have people interpret them at will- through poetry, dance, visual arts, type, textile, whatever. I love that idea, love it very much, and so, at the very least, I want to start collecting lists of things that people are afraid of (or that give them a visceral shudder) that are maybe out of the ordinary, or things that are unlikely to happen, but still provoke a sense of dread. So help me out folks, tell me what you're afraid of. It can be anything - big, small, silly, terrifying, absurd, impossible, etc.

I'll even start.

I am afraid of:

1. Snakes falling out of the trees onto me (and while this is irrational, it's also not impossible. Snakes live in trees sometimes, just not in Southern California. This is also why I'm never going to the rain forest. Or the Philippines).

2. My teeth breaking against concrete. (Yes it's specific. No, I don't know why concrete. The teeth thing is all encompassing but only concrete makes me sweat in a bad way.)

3. Sharks swimming in through the pool drain.

4. Earwigs eating my brain. (I blame Star Trek)

5. Tapeworms. Or any sort of parasitical worm that one could see through one's skin.

Sh. is afraid of falling into a volcano and of Big Bird. One of the women in my writer's group is afraid of moths.

*
In further news, I'm currently indulging my historical Americana trivia kink and reading a book on baseball, a book on New York oysters, and the Nixon/Kissinger book.

Comments

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

1. Sharks and deep water in general. Including pools more than six feet deep. The idea of snorkeling in shallow coral reef waters is terrifying. Augh.

2. Stepping on a manhole cover and having it give way so that I fall straight down into the sewers.

3. Static electricity shocks. Maybe this is more of an OCD thing but I go to crazy lengths to avoid them (like pressing water fountain buttons with my clothed wrist instead).

4. Scraping my nails against things like blackboards or the ceramic of a sink or anything slightly rough and rock-like. I'm getting horrible chills just thinking about it.

5. Celled things. Honeycomb isn't too bad, probably because it's regular, but actual cells and cauliflower-like growths and this one succulent of my mom's that's a white celled mass when it first sprouts horrify me. My sister's the same way, so I'm not totally crazy.

This is way, way too easy for my neurotic little self, so I'll stop here. But I sort of feel you on the teeth/concrete thing.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Static electricity shocks. Maybe this is more of an OCD thing but I go to crazy lengths to avoid them (like pressing water fountain buttons with my clothed wrist instead).

A friend of mine is afraid of balloons because they pop. It seems like a similar fear for some reason.

[vaznetti]

1. Sharks and deep water in general. Including pools more than six feet deep. The idea of snorkeling in shallow coral reef waters is terrifying. Augh.

OMG ME TOO! I had to give up swimming laps because I would start to panic at the deep end of the pool. I was sure that the sharks were just out of my line of vision and coming for me. Trips to the aquarium can also be slightly problematic, although I still like aquariums.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I hold my breath when I swim over the pool drain - because of the sharks.

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

When I lived on a small and shallow river I couldn't take swimming lessons at the beach because I'd heard sharks could swim up rivers. My mother tried to tell me in vain that they meant rivers like the Amazon, but we were only like twenty minutes from the ocean and I live in NorCal, home of allll the great whites.

Also, when I was a little girl I saw the beginning of a movie where a woman was swimming in the 12' end of a pool, and someone swam near her and handcuffed her foot to the drain and she drowned. Talk about lifelong scarring.