KNIVES breaking my teeth (you're damn right it's weird!) physical intimacy (i'm only 16, it's okay, right?)

I saw my sister break her teeth. She was 2, I was 5. My mother was still teaching us how to skate, and she slipped forward and landed face flat down on the ice. Blood everywhere. Right on her two front teeth. The left one chipped, but the right one seemed fine. Being baby teeth that has just come in, the dentist decided to leave them alone. A month later they both turned black. Not grey, BLACK. Dentist pulled them out. She went for several years without front teeth, having to wait until her adult teeth grew in. Poor kid. Saddest thing you've ever seen. She has yet to re-enter a skating rink. Not that weird, Sleepy.

ugh i hate the recurring dream i have of me biting something and my teeth break. Very horrible experience.. and its not even real

Just after my permanent teeth grew in, I was running as fast as i could to 7-11 with a few bucks in quarters to play pinball and this local dog who was running beside me suddenly cut in front of me and I fell flat on my mouth breaking off both of my front teeth. I happened to have fallen directly in front of a ballet school and the most beautiful women in the world came out and lovingly cared for me until I was able to give them my phone # so they could call my mom. It was a bad experience but to this day I'm thankful I didn't bust my teeth out in front of a transmission shop.

I was trampolining as a kid and came down head first on the metalic, non-springy bit. Blood EVERYWHERE. It's not freaky to be afraid of that. You're probably more afraid now. I'm afraid of breaking my ankles. Dunno why. There's very little chance of it happening. and commitment ;)

lately i've had this weird foggy kind of fear that something might happen to my hands. i was in sam ash the other day and saw this guy trying to play the korg trinity. he was missing his right hand, so he could only pick out single notes with the nub on his wrist. i'd rather lose my sight than lose my hands. i spent most of the trip back home with them stuffed in my pockets.

i like fiscal intamacky.

I chipped a tooth at a crowded nirvana show (different one from when I got punched in the eye). this was post-fame, and when they started playing the opening chords of "smells like teen spirit," this 13-year-old kid in front of me threw his head back, somehow making direct contact with my jaw and slamming it against my cranium. I ran my tongue along my teeth, thinking pleasegodpleasegodpleasegod, and at first I didn't feel anything wrong, but then I felt something hard, like a little piece of gravel, in my mouth. a chip off a premolar. my red badge of grunge.

i told my 6'1" karate boy brother that i could kick his ass right after he got out of boot camp. i did ok for awhile, but then he threw me into the fireplace and chipped one of my front teeth. i said "Mommmmmmmm... jer chipped my tooth" my mom replied "Jeramy, don't chip your brother's teeth."

I've been haunted by dreams of losing teeth for years. The teeth keep spilling out of my mouth, or I swallow them and choke. Yucky. Now the dreams have progressed to include my jaw breaking as well. This, supposedly, is one of the top 5 most common dreams. My three biggest fears: 1) being completely alone in the world, with no family or friends or loved ones 2) going blind (I'd rather have no limbs and be missing the other four senses and still be able to see, than go blind. The thought of being in the dark for the rest of my life absolutely terrifies me) 3) seeing (or worse, getting attacked by) demons and/or spirits. My second most common dreams are ones in which I have to beat up spirits. In the last dream, this huge demon with 10 pairs of eyes was trying to bite me, and I tore him to pieces with my bare hands, all the while calling for Jesus to help me. He never showed up. It was awful. Smaller fears: 1) the dark (see above) 2) insects (especially ones that fly) 3) public speaking/humiliation (which are one and the same, in my book) 4) failing in general 5) being betrayed by people I thought cared about me 6) drowning/getting suffocated 7) getting beaten up/bludgeoned about the head 8) going crazy

8) Too late it seems ;) Ten pairs of eyes?!

Hey! ...maybe not ten (I was too busy to count), but they were all in a row, like this: OO OO OO OO OO He was around 10 feet tall, with slimy beige skin and a huge mouth. The demons in my dreams usually try to bite me. I usually fight them with my bare hands (usually by pulling them apart), though in one dream I beat a demon (who looked like a fat skeleton) with a balloon. These are my most frightening dreams. Good heavens, what would Freud say?

You're a FUCKING PSYCHO!

hmm 3 biggest fears 1. finding out that after 10 years of trying not to have kids, that when I'm finally ready I won't be able to. 2. Losing another member of my family in the near future. I actually can't think of anything else that really scares me. I guess I have reached a point now where I know what's important, and I have enough confidence that if I lost my job or anything, that I would find another without much trouble, and the material things I have are all replaceable (and insured). I used to fear death, but since my little sister died, I would almost welcome it, if it meant I could see her again. I just have this feeling that I'm here for the long haul, and death is not something in my near future.

If you're talking about deep emotional fears....being and staying emotionally alone forever. If you're talking about heart-stopping can't-breath fears....being alone in the dark and hearing a strange noise. If you're talking about eww-gross goosebumps fears....bugs. Especially roaches and earwigs. Pretty normal, I think.

I,m scared to death of heights,I use to work at a Shoenys in Charelston,W.V.,got pissed off at this one whitetrash cook,told everybody to go to hell and stormed out.I was too young to drive then,so was going to walk across the Kanawha Bridge to get home,made about two steps,looked down and was over come wth the worst fear I,d ever had,took two steps backwards and just sood there paralyzed.If the manager hadn,t came to talk me out of it,I,d still be there.

What a coincidence!!! I'm afraid to eat at Shoneys.

You should be,where I worked,Shoneys was a Bob,s Big Boy,in fact a fellow West Virginian,started the Big Boy chain.Waited on his wife once.

I used to be afraid of the bob's big boy statue. I think I had some nightmares about it coming to life when I was little. glad I've never encountered one while high.

Shoney's just "converted" to Big Boy here in MO. I actually was going to one in St. Charles the other day (I am a sucker for a well-stocked breakfast bar) and right there, proudly displayed on the front door was a sticker indicating that the local health department had awarded the establishment a grade B rating. My breakfast at Denny's turned out to be just fine.

I once drove miles to get to the nearest 24-hour place I knew of. when we got there, I noticed that the sign on the door said the restaurant DID NOT PASS the oregon health-inspection test. I had always assumed that there was no such sign because such restaurants would have to close, but I guess not. we ate there anyway.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch recently reported that a local Italian restaurant was cited by the health department because a cook was caught testing the temperature of meat sauce with his finger. I don't think I want to eat anywhere that employs people dumb enough to do that IN FRONT OF THE HEALTH INSPECTOR.

the day you start worrying about what exactly goes on in restaurant kitchens is the day you stop going out to eat. I regularly eat at places that I'm sure wouldn't pass any american state's health-inspection tests. and I haven't been sick in over a year. I think continual, low-level exposure to bacteria builds up your resistance to them. anyway, I highly recommend that everyone get havrix, the hepatitis a vaccination. two shots, six months apart, and you are immune to hep a for 20 fucking years. (the only downside is that it costs like $60 or $80 or something.) that and don't eat ground beef, chicken, pork or eggs that aren't fully cooked.

It's that continual, low-level exposure to radiation that kills the bacteria in Ukraine. Heptivax is the Hep B vaccine that I was required to get under OSHA rules for health care workers. Three shots, one month and then six months apart. It's one of the better investments you can make in yourself. Save your money and do what Cyst says.

1. getting old and 2. not dying soon enough or 3. having to finally kill someone and get caught

one time i was trying to get the screw tip out of this interchangeable screwdriver tip-thing. The first thing i did, without thinking, was to stick it in my mouth to pull it out. I chipped a rather large piece out of the molar in the farthest back of my mouth on the top left. Also when i was younger- I ran out of my room (i was little, and i ALWAYS ran) into the living and tripped. My chin landed on my brother's knee. I bit a big hole in my tongue. The doctor wanted to give me stitches in my tongue, but i pleaded with him not to. I still have a dent-like scar in my tongue to this day. One of my big fears is getting in such bad trouble with my parents that they send me away. Or ground me inside the house. In fact that would be worse. I do my best to stay out of my house, and when I'm in my house I do my best to suck up and ignore everyone. I'm afraid of people seeing my rear end. To the point where if i'm with a guy and he touches my ass I almost cry. When I was a baby I lived with my biological mother. She was horrible, and I got left in a diaper for much longer than i should have. I have blister-like scars on my rear from it, and I have my ass to this day. It makes me cry.

Markus: Do you really recommend the Hep B shot for perfectly healthy individuals? Maybe I'm confusing it w/something else. But I thought Hep B & C were transmitted thru bood & bodily fluids -- i.e. not that easy to catch. And Hep A was trxmtd. theu the fecal matter (i.e. also not easy to catch/unless the folks who prepare yr food are wiping their asses & not washing their hands afterwards). My source for this (& most of my basic medical /disease-realted info) is the Online Medical Dictionary: http://www.graylab.ac.uk/omd/index.html It's a very good resource for basic info. I've eaten at a lot of dives in my day/becuz the food was-is tasty & cheap. The only place I ever got sick from eating at was a Burger King/years ago. And my current next-door neighbor's hse. I haven't there/or at a BK's/since. And my immune system is stronger than avg/ /which I found out when I got tested for the bone marrow donor program. But I take a lot of herbs/which I figure are paying off. I guess what I'm asking is: Is it worth it for a poor person who eats a lot of meat (ground & whole) to pay to get this shot? I tend to agree w/Cyst -- repeated low-level exposure in a healthy person builds up lots of immuniites.

r.c. - you are right, hep b is transmitted through bodily fluids - blood, semen. it seems to me that hiv-preventive behavior also protects you against hep b. that is why I chose not to get it. my doctor recommended it; she said I may eat a salad with blood in it from some clumsy cook. but I did not have a lot of money and was also getting hep a, typhus and tetanus shots that day (just before a long trip to central america), and I felt weird about getting all that at once. and you're right, hep a is transmitted through fecal matter. it is endemic in central america and parts of mexico. if you plan to do any adventuring south of the border, then save up enough money for this shot. no doubt. you're probably ok in the gringo restaurants in cabo and cancun, but if you want to go local, then forget it. and there is lots of hep a being passed around in american restaurants. there's no way to know which restaurant may be next, so that's why I think it's a good idea for everyone to get the hep a vaccine. that and its long period of effectiveness. and because hepatitis is not something that you can go get some medicine for and be 100% better. if you get any sort of hepatitis, your liver will be irreparably damaged. it probably won't be fatal damage, but it will still be hurt. forever. and contracting a or b then makes you susceptible to the more dangerous kinds of hepatitis. the type of food you eat does not have anything to do with hepatitis. these are the main problems with uncooked food: beef - bacteria such as e. coli pork - trichinosis poultry products - salmonella you just need to be sure that your food is cooked all the way through. except for beef steak. you can safely eat steak that's pink in the middle. that's because the meat in the middle of your steak has never touched the cattle's feces. the outside may have touched it, but you cook the outside. ground beef always needs to be cooked brown all the way through. because ground beef may contain particles of feces from when the animal was slaughtered. of course, there are other food-poisoning problems. for instance, food that sits out after having been cooked can act as petri dishes. but don't worry too much. just make sure your hamburgers are cooked brown all the way through.

A few years ago in Phoenix at a Jack in the Box,a cop busted a kid for blowing his nose in the cops cheeseburger.After I read about it in the paper and saw it on the news,I liked to go to Jack in the Box drive through and after ordering a combo meal,I,d say could you throw in a couple of snot burgers?And then I,d tear off.

that's really funny J. the worst i ever did in a drive through was answer they're "is there anything else?" with a "Yeah, can i have that to go?" Trichinosis is no longer an issue with american pork. Pork can safely be eaten 'pink'.

one saturday night I am driving home from a party or jam session or something in my friend's car. We're both drunk, but I am really blasted. I decide that I really have to have some Taco Bell, and we pull into the drive-thru. My friend isn't hungry, so I start screaming my order at the intercom from the passenger's seat. The Taco Bell guy has no idea what the fuck I'm saying. My friend, who had just sitting there quietly, suddenly throws the car in reverse, turns the car around with squeals and smoke and tire marks, and backs the car up the the intercom so that it's now on my side. Taco Bell guy says "goddam man." I give him my order - beef not bean, 4 not 2, etc. Taco Bell guy says, "ok. back through." Which we did.

i gonna get sick

BTW: dreams about losing teeth are a very common symptom of depression. Something abt. fear of your agressive impulses...which makes sense b/c if you are afraid to be aggressive, it's gonna fuck you up.

Just a little housekeeping here, since I've been away: Hep A/B/C/and now D: They all suck, and you don't want to catch them. So as for a healthy person getting a vaccination, I'd say that was the only time it makes sense. I got it (free) because I'm a firefighter/EMT and was required to, as I work around body fluids in uncontrolled situations all the time. But people in normal life also are exposed far more than they realize to other people's blood, etc. I'm a bartender again, seeing the back of the house in one of the better (and the oldest) restaurants in DC. And I'm glad I have the shots. Hep A isn't much of a problem, mostly causes diarrhea and then takes care of itself. However, B is serious. My housemate is an MD doing her reseidency, and has a friend who contracted it as an EMT at 27, was on the wait list for a new liver by 28, and was ready to take a dirt nap by the time one finally came up a year later. Trich is no longer an issue, as mentioned. I laughed my ass off at the Taco Bell story. And to make this an honest post, my greatest fear is getting to the end of my life, lying on my deathbed looking back, and thinking, "God, that was a boring life." This scares me even more than being shot at by drunken Serbs or ending up without a killer pension plan.

pladow, and amen.

Score!

!:The fucking freeway. 2:That I,ll can not keep my looks 3:My kids will live with me in their 40,S.

My biggest fears are 1. Getting severely burned in a fire. And surviving. 2.Ending up old & alone. Becuz nobody worth a damn is ever gonna fall in love w/me again. 3. What Markus said. (And I'm happy-happy that you took that bartending gig, M. Enjoy yr summer!)

I fear......... 1)violent death 2) regret 3)rejection

I'll second R.C's 2nd fear. I don't want to talk about any of the others.

one of my biggest fears is driving. now everyone is going to laugh at me. that's fine, you all go ahead and laugh. haha.

I,m not laughing,I have to take med,s to drive,I have panic attacks.It,s so bad I don,t even want to go there,I,ve driven about twice this year.

Driving can be some scary shit. Esp. on those L.A. freeways. Or in FL during the tourist season. Or in Manhattan anytime. I think after you've had a few heart-in-yr-mouth near-misses & survuved/you lose a lot of yr fear. I've found that carrying a big pistol to point at idiot drivers helps relieve a lot of my anxiety.

I used to have panic attacks while driving. I once had to stop at a rest area and call my friends to come pick me up 2 hours away. I got over them while driving across the country. On the highways (Think it's I-90) in Montana on the way to Spokane. Everyone drives like 90 miles and hour and they all drive big assed pick-up trucks and there was nowhere to pull-over so my girl could drive, and I white knuckled it for an hour or so with her talking me down. And after that I've been o.k. But I think fear of driving is one of the most sensible fears extant.

you guys rock.

And it's not driving that people are scared of -- it's getting killed in their cars by some idiot who's going too fast/drunk/too old to still be driving/or too busy talking on his cellphone.

No, uh, I'm afraid of driving. Afraid of the responsibility. This is how my panic attacks started: one day I was driving along and I realized I was moving several thousand pounds of metal at speeds I could not match at my fastest on a bike. I realized that all the stood between me and death was my skill. I was not reassured. Yeah, you can regress it a level and say what I'm afraid of is death, but that really offers no information. I am afraid of driving. I just no longer have panic attacks (knock wood).

Well, I don't drive because it's just not worth it in the Bay Area. My employer runs a shuttle to the Caltrain station...I can walk to Caltrain from my house. The only reason I would drive would be to go out, and I like to drink, so I'd rather carpool anyway. I have a friend who I go clubbing with. Which is nice when I'm drunk b/c he's this big bastard from Stepney & he kind of watches my back.... meanwhile, I sort of deal w/ people for him... he's kind of a withdrawn programmer type. Add that to my the cost of living and the traffic out here, coupled with my lack of depth perception, and the fact that you get pulled over and searched every 3 blocks if you have a beat up car (they don't even bother to give you cause anymore. I'm sorry, were you under the impression that we had a fourth amendment? Only if you're driving a Mercedes, or a Beamer, or an SUV.) and it's just not worth it.

Lucy -- where do you live that yr employer cares enuf to run a shuttle bus from the train station to yr office? Are they hiring?

It's Silicon Valley. People do shit like that there. I also attend a free Japanese class on Mondays.

Lucy, what part of Bawlmer did you live in, and when did you leave? Were you an Institute person? Did you ever go to (a) the Chambers (b) Mt. Royal Tavern (c) the Rendezvous? Do I know you? I left in '94.

I've lived all over B-More. I left in August. I only went to one Institute party. Rondezvous? I only went there a couple times. Do you know Wayne? Sol? (who is, btw, kinda fun to hang out with as long as you don't believe a word he says)

Sol, the guy who used to work for ACORN and may work for some other non-profit, handsome black man in maybe his mid to late 40s? I knew that guy, and didn't believe a word he said, but man was he a blast to get tanked with. Don't know any Waynes. I lived on 31st between Greenmount and Abell, and on Greenmount between 38th and 39th. My band used to play at the 14th Carat Cabaret, and some of my friends (including an ex-) are the collective who run Normal's bookstore. WTF were you doing in Baltimore?

Getting drunk, same as the rest of us. Good town for it.