Fear and Loathing in Enfield

Thanks for the shout out, Jen. It is appreciated. We really should talk more. I’m as just a bad sibling as you are.

Anyway, just a quick update on the running for the week and other stuff mentioned here. I was able to log a little over 2.5 miles today before the lightning and rain started. Did it in a little over 30 minutes, really slow I know, but it was the first time that I have really run outside in a while, and it felt good. I did the first half in around 14:30, and walked a bit on the way back, so it was a pretty good second half of the run. I came back and weighed myself and was happy to see that the scale stayed below 300 pounds, deciding to balance at around 294.5, so we’ll just say 295 for the sake of argument. Not to shabby, as I weighed in last week at various points between 288 and 305 depending on the scale. I think I might go on a fast or something in the next few weeks, but I enjoy eating, so we’ll see about that. Maybe a Slimfast fast or something.

Speaking of lightning, I determined today that I might have an irrational fear of it. When people ask what I am afraid of, even if it is me, I often answer “failure.” This can be considered irrational too, since it is hard to quantify. But I think I’ll cover that in another blog later. I also tend to state that I am afraid of spiders. But I am not really afraid of spiders, per se. They do not make me fear for my life. I just don’t like seeing them come out and go boo. Otherwise, me and spiders would be cool. In any case, I am bigger then every spider on Earth, so if the really offend me in their spider-dom, I just murder them.

But how is my fear of lightning irrational? I’m glad you asked. Like many things that have a small chance of happening in our life (plane crash, winning the lotto, finding your exact twin somewhere else in the world), I think it would suck to be struck by lightning. Don’t know why; it has never happened before, and I think I would probably be okay (hopefully). But I was really glad that I got finished with my run before the thunder and lightning started. Perhaps the lightning would have made me run faster, but whatever. I can be afraid of it if I want to be, okay?

Speaking of irrational fears…flying on planes bothers me. Let me clarify: landing and taking off in planes scare me. Once the plane is in flight, I do not worry about it plummeting from the sky, resulting in my imminent death. Nor am I afraid of hijackers on said plane; I would kick their ass and their fake bombs. The take off bothers me for no real reason. Nothing has happened in my lifetime that burned some horrific image in my head. This is just the irrational part of me thinking. But landing, on the other hand, is always a rough time for me.

When I was a kid, I remember seeing the footage of United Flight 232 on the news at night. The plane crashed in Sioux City, IA, which stuck in my head because it is where my father was born. 111 people died in that crash. Now, I realize that this happened nearly 20 years ago and planes have come a long way from that point. It is just another irrational fear that I have. It is not so much of a fear that I no longer fly (I fly, it seems, at least once a month), but it is a fear nonetheless.

So there you have it. I am afraid of stupid things for no good reason. Irrationality at its finest.