July 3, 2003

Today is the day to cheer "Paulie, Paulie..."

How does one combine dazzling wit and a timeless classic? Check out my piece on the song "Chantilly Lace" on Lostbrain.

If you have any desire to see Reinventing the World's "Fiction in Your Inbox, Volume 3," featuring the works of Joshua Kupetz, Shauna McKenna, Christopher Monks, Mark O'Neill, Peter Reese, Patrick Reynolds, and ME!, drop me a line and I'll forward it along. It's a refreshing change from this stupid internet. Don't you hate it? Wait.

Zulkey.com will return next week on a full schedule again. Have a wonderful Fourth of July weekend and try not to poke somebody in the eye with a sparkler. Thanks to everyone who sent me their phobias!

What Are You Afraid Of?

C*ryn Rousse*u:
Growing up on the south side of Chicago I had a fear of farmland. I hardly spent any time in wide open spaces filled with crops. The idea of ending up in the middle of a field of corn miles from civilization scared me stiff. This fear lasted through college when I regularly said that I feel safer, more comfortable in a bad Chicago neighborhood at 2 a.m. than in the country at high noon. All that changed when I moved to Arkansas to be a reporter. Now I'm pretty well comfortable driving around the country, although I do get nervous when my cell phone has no service.

Eric Wrisley:
My lifelong fears are:
- being poked in the eye
- my house catching on fire
- showing up to school naked

There's no story, no reason for these fears. Last
December, however, my house did in fact catch on fire. I'm
still waiting for the other two.

Mary Gustafson:
I’ve had people try to diagnose me with anxiety disorders because I used to get really panicky about certain things, but this kind of dissipated with age. I was afraid my parents would die, that the house would burn down, normal kid stuff, right? (please say it’s normal). But those things went away.

But I had two main fears. One. That we would lose my sister somewhere, on vacation, or wherever. She’s two years younger than me, and whenever she got arm-distance away, I would yell at her to come back. This happened at Disney World, and even the New Kids on the Block concert (note to Claire: maybe you should have people write in about their most embarrassing concert – it was my first ‘rock’ concert though). I was only in fourth or fifth grade when this worried me.

Then there was our first dog. A Yorkie named Toto. I was terrified that’d he’d run away. Sometimes he would get off his leash when we let him out, and he’d take off down the block, sniffing other dogs’ pens. When this happened, I’d start hyperventilating, crying, then I’d run up to my room and cover my ears so I wouldn’t have to hear my mom yelling for him. One time, he ran away overnight, and my parents never told me until several months later. They just left the blanket over his kennel in the morning while I was getting ready for school, so I never knew he was gone. They found him, shivering, under a car in a neighbor’s driveway, but he lived. I was also afraid of big dogs after I got bit by the scariest neighborhood dog. The owners said it was my fault because I moved suddenly, and they said it “could sense your fear.” Whatever! It kept me from ever wanting a paper route.

Many, many years later we got another Yorkie named Colby. One time my sister was home alone with a friend, while my parents were visiting me at school. She let him outside and went upstairs to change clothes. Her friend was looking out the window when a much bigger dog came along, and actually attacked our little seven pound Colby. This dog was huge, and, we learned, had attacked some other people, but he chewed up Colby pretty bad, and my sister and her friend got him in a kennel and got him to our vet. He died later that night. Now, I watch our other Yorkie, Murphy, constantly when I let him out. My sister and I pick him up whenever a bigger dog comes along now if we’re on a walk. If he’s off the leash and gets five feet away, I start panicking again like I used to.

Other than that, homesickness was my other fear/problem. I didn’t last at sleep-away Girl Scout camp more than two days – I was so homesick I cried to the point of puking over and over again, setting camp records. I was the only camper ever allowed to call her parents, and the only one allowed to have them visit, which is when I made my case to convince them to let me come home. I even got homesick when my mom was the troop leader during our campouts. I can’t explain why I was, or what I was afraid of. When I left for college, four hours from home, I started puking two days in advance of leaving. This lasted for most of the first week I was there. I could only keep down water and Goldfish for the first two weeks. My week stomach is notorious. I earned the nickname Ralph at Girl Scout Camp, and have kept it ever since.

Who needs Xanax?

Michael Morgan:
Lightning killed my great-grandfather. It's true. It was sometime around 1930. He was a farmer. As a thunderstorm approached, he found himself out in his fields. My grandmother was pretty smart, so I assume he was. too.
He sought shelter. He stood under the porch watching the storm pass when a bolt of lightning came down, somehow zig-zagged and struck him. My father says that my grandmother wouldn't let the family near doors or windows
during storms.

One afternoon during my teens, lightning struck our tall outdoor antenna while I was watching television. The reception got much worse.

Jay Neimann:
Going Outside. Oh and Video store etiquette. For some reason, I have this really bad fear of incurring late fees, and not rewinding, and shit.I'm serious. Now that I'm single again, I've been renting a lot of videos at my local 4movies/4days/4bucks place and watching them alone. The weekly trips to the video store are often the only direct human contact I have, and I don't want to Jeopardize this fragile social interaction by being Gauche.

Tim Kane:
At some point I become afraid to go to the dentist. I'm not sure why but I'd like to think it was something so traumatic that I am blocking it out, but this is about phobias not my other neuroses. Anyway I know a lot of people are afraid to go to the dentist but I took it to the next level, or, if you prefer, the X-treme. I did not go from the time I was 17 until I turned 27. That's right: ten full years, one solid decade. Then, one day, I had a really bad pain in my mouth. Then I ignored it for about a month. Then I needed to go to the dentist.

Once I went I needed a root canal, but first my wisdom teeth had to come out. Then once my dental insurance would start paying again I needed something called an on-lay. All in all it was a lot of work. Now, over a year later, it is done. I went for a check-up last week and there were no cavities, a clean bill of dental health. My dentist said to the hygienist, "Well, it seems like Tim has really learned his lesson." It made me feel a little foolish and a little childish, it also made me wish I didn't have to go to the dentist.

Andy Knight:
Oh, man, I hate bugs. I don't know if it's really a phobia,
because I have no problems killing the nasties. Stomping,
spraying, burning... I've even taken down a rogue wasp in my
bathroom with nothing more than a sponge-topped mop and a towel while dressed only in my skivvies. Maybe I'm just a
raging anti-insectite. I even take down the 'cute' ones.
The ones that prompt people to say, "Hey, he's not harming
anyone." I'll slap that butterfly bitch to the ground and
smear it with my heel and then it won't be harming anyone.
Oh, and the flying bugs are the worst. Flies go for my
ears, gnats for my nose, moths for my hair, mosquitoes for
my blood, and those damn wasps and bees go straight for the
dignity. Yeah, laugh it up, funny boy. You like to see the
big guy running and ducking, weaving complex patterns
through a maze of chairs and tables. Just wait until I get
a weapon and a defensive stance, I'll send that bad boy
screaming your way and then we'll see who's laughing.

But as for honest to goodness full-blown phobias, I've got
my fair share. Public speaking, crowds, strangers and
travel are my big four. Only the public speaking one has me
running for the nearest exit, the others just make my
stomach eject its contents before trying to eat itself.
Oddly enough, I've always wanted to be a standup comic. A
standup comic who doesn't travel and has no audience. Yes,
that would be the life. I've even worked out an opening
routine about the phobias which are keeping me off of the
stage. It's very funny. You should stay home and not see
it some time. You'll laugh your ass off. Or maybe someday
I'll get all girded up in the loin area and make a big trip
to New York City and... no, no I won't.

Annie Logue:
I am afraid of heights and of dogs. I am leery about flying, despite my illustrious past as a United Airlines Premier Executive. Put me on a plane on which someone has put a yippie dog under the seat in front of him, and I am a total basket case. I have never been on a ledge with a dog next to me.

I am also afraid of Macintosh machines, because a Mac Lisa once overheated and reformatted a disc that held a term paper. This was in 1986, but I am a bitter person who holds grudges.

Liz McArdle:
I actually had to go to the eye doctor this weekend because I woke up on Saturday and I thought I had pink eye.... turns out to be an allergic reaction sort of thing. And yes, I nearly threw up on the doctor when he tried to come at me with a q-tip.I had none of that, and we decided it wasn't necessary. But he was really nice and I know his family so I tried to keep it together. I had a wedding that day so Iasked him if I could still wear mascara-- I was like, "Please? that's all I'll wear?" and he was like, "Thats all? you'll be a big hit!" It was funny. Good old eye docs.

Tung Le:
My parents say I was a horrid baby. I cried all the time. By "all the time" I mean I cried continuously from about nine months to three years old. Because I cried so much, my dad had to find creative ways to shut me the hell up. One time when I was three, sitting on the sidewalk miserable and grumpy, my dad pointed to the ants crawling on the ground
beside me. "If you don't stop crying, they'll bite you and kill you." I stopped crying in sheer horror. I haven't cried since. You know, because of the ants.

Laurie Gallardo:
Interestingly, I had a severe dragon phobia when I was a child, of all things.

People love to think they’re being original when they tell me, “Uh…Laurie…you DO know that those don’t really exist, right?”

Well, of course, I’m quite aware of that reality. However, I think it was the images of dragons…animated, paintings, drawings, sculptures or statues, etc., that freaked me out to no end. I believe that the root of this fear is the dragon that the evil Maleficent turned into in the Disney version of “Sleeping Beauty,” which my mother took me to see when I was very young. It is a most impressive beast, pitch black with a deep purple chest, and frightening yellow eyes. Great art work, but scary for little kids, I guess.

Scott Neumyer:
remember being terribly afraid of burglars and house fires. Nearly every night I'd lie in my bed and imagine what I might do if someone were to break into our house or if the whole place simply caught fire. I slept with a lead pipe under my bed that - by the time I finally got around to repainting and rearranging my room a few years ago - had made a permanent indent in the carpet. Its hollow end was filled with spider webs. I remember imagining scenarios where I'd hide behind my bedroom door, pipe grasped firmly in hand, just waiting for the perfect moment to spring out and surprise the burglar with a shot to the head. (A shot that, in reality, wouldn't have had much impact at all judging by the weight of the bar and my ability to lift it). In the case of a fire, I'd imagine myself climbing onto the short porch outside my bedroom window and jumping to safety as the flames engulfed all my belongings. In some of these scenarios I saved my dog and - when I had one - my hamster.

While these phobias plagued my nights as a child they did, however, instill in me a great love that I still hold in my heart to this day - rain. Particularly the heavy kind with maybe even a little thunder and lightning added into the mix. My logic being that no one is stupid enough to go out and rob a house in the rain. They'd get soaked. And if my house were to spontaneously combust, the falling rain would surely put it out. Nights when it rained hard and fast and for a long time were peaceful for me. I slept well. I still do.

And although I've pretty much worked through these phobias, I still believe I sleep best on those rainy nights when the streets are slick, my driveway is mud, and I can hear the drops on my roof like a metronome or the beating of my heart, lulling me to sleep.