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Tuesday Trivia

Fun Time Open Thread: Scary Stuff

I had it all planned in my head that I was going to do some candy trivia tonight, inspired by the fact that I have been eating a disturbing number of Nestle’s Crunch limited edition Girl Scout Cookie candy bars – you know, to support the Girl Scouts. Then I sat down at the laptop, surrounded by Thin Mint Crunch wrappers, and thought, “I’ll do phobias instead!” It would seem that my sugar-addled brain thinks all the long words are fun to say.

So, without further ado, do you know the layman’s terms for the following phobias?

  1. Xanthophobia
  2. Phagophobia
  3. Ailurophobia
  4. Ichthyophobia
  5. Pyrophobia
  6. Pediophobia
  7. Hydrophobia
  8. Gephyrophobia
  9. Coulrophobia
  10. Ablutophobia

It can be fun to come up with names for fears that don’t have official designations. In looking up all these phobias, I came across “anatidaephobia,” which is the fear that somehow, somewhere, a duck is watching you (invented by Gary Larson for Far Side) and “hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia,” the fear of long words. My two personal phobias are microphonophobia (fear of microphones*) and fishasquirmaphobia (the fear of touching a live fish). What about you? What would you name your unusual fears?

*Considering how many people are afraid of microphones – I found lists of symptoms and possible treatments pretty easily – you would think they would come up with a name for it.

By [E]SaraB

Glass artisan by day, blogger by night (and sometimes vice versa). SaraB has three kids, three pets, one husband and a bizarre sense of humor. Her glass pendants can be found at www.etsy.com/shop/AngryOwlStudio if you're interested in checking it out.

36 replies on “Fun Time Open Thread: Scary Stuff”

GAWD!  the waiting, the waiting, the waiting!

potential employer told me i’d know by Friday at the latest and it’s only Wednesday morning and my stomach is in knots!

is there a term for the irrational fear of thinking-you’ve-made-a-good-impression-only-to-find-out-they-thought-you-were-a-dweeb?

Can anyone recommend some kind of lip treatments worth trying? I have a lip peeling/chewing problem and it’s bloody bad right now, literally. What I’ve got limited successes with so far are Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream, shea butter and ricinus oil, but still, my lips never seem to heal properly.

my grandad used to recommend smearing bird poop on your lips.  according to him, it wouldn’t heal them so much as keep you from biting or licking them.  of course, he also drank wine at every meal (and every snack for that matter), so he may not have been a pillar of wisdom.

Yep – here’s my suggestion – first, you have to get those lips exfoliated a bit. Get some sugar (brown or white, but I like brown better) and a tiny bit of an oil (olive or coconut work well) and scrub them lightly, then leave on for a minute. Rinse this off. It may sting a little if there’s a cut but won’t make it worse. Until any cuts heal, avoid things that have petroleum jelly or anything drying. I highly recommend coconut oil at this point; it’s good for so many things that it’s worth getting if you don’t have some! You’ll want to apply it regularly (it’ll sink into your lips nicely) and then put a thin coat of something like castor oil over it, to keep it from being ‘too yummy’ and having you lick your lips (which dries them out). I also highly recommend the Fresh Sugar lip balms. They come in several colors (each feels a bit different too), and have a new clear ‘advanced’ formula that I bet is super (I have tried the Plum, Rose, Honey, and Clear). They are Not Cheap, but they are awesome. Make sure that you do the exfoliation every now & again too. Hope that helps!

Lush makes a very good sugar scrub for lips, if you aren’t adverse to spending a bit. I use the pink bubblegum flavored one. When my lips get super cracked though I tend to just use it gently on the not cracked areas. Then lip balm in a flavor I don’t like (mint in my case, added bonus my breath smells better).

The only thing that works for me is Blistex Medicated Lip ointment – but a very specific one, not the average chapstick. I don’t know if this is outside the US. It has a great slanted applicator that is so smooth. It helps me the most when I apply just before going to bed, as well as during the day. I second exfoliating first though.

Here it is: http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/blistex-medicated-lip-ointment-for-severe-dry-lips-and-relief-from-cold-sores/ID=prod6040402-product?V=G&ext=frgl_Google_Beauty

So, I just got this text from my BFF:

“[Our high school literature teacher*] is now principal of [our Catholic all girls high school*]. God save the Queen.”

This is the woman who tried to argue that Edna didn’t die at the end of The Awakening. She is the reason I had to read Winesburg, Ohio the singularly most dreary book on the planet. Every time she left the room we would move furniture, except for the one time we didn’t. Then she spent the rest of the class alternating between cajoling us to tell her what we had moved, and threatening us with extra homework if we didn’t. I both laugh and weep for the school.

*Names redacted to maintain privacy.

  1. Xanthophobia- Yellow
  2. Phagophobia- Swallowing
  3. Ailurophobia- Cats (I’ve been erroneously accused of this one, which is why I know it)
  4. Ichthyophobia- Fish
  5. Pyrophobia- Fire
  6. Pediophobia-Dolls
  7. Hydrophobia- Water/ another name for Rabies
  8. Gephyrophobia- Guys named Geoff?
  9. Coulrophobia- Ridiculously colored things?
  10. Ablutophobia- Bathing

Edited because I miss read one of them.

 

Too funny, the ones I thought I knew I didn’t, and the ones that seemed to easy to be correct actually were. (6 & 7 and 5 & 10).

I’m surprised there isn’t a fancy name for mine – fear a BFR (big freaking roach) will fly into my hair.

I wonder what “fear of getting hurt because you’re extremely clumsy” is. Because that’s kind of my life. I also have a giant bruise on my leg because Bruiser cat jumped from the dresser and used my thigh as a spring board to hurl himself into the hallway. I am a walking accident waiting to happen.

I’m only sure about fish, fire and water ones. And 2 makes me think of fear of eating or being eaten.

Whining is dull, so skip the following at will.

I’ve been feeling very low about my writing lately. I was happy-ish, happier than in a long time anyway, over something I wrote in late May, but since then, it’s been down a steep hill. It’s at such an incredibly bad place right now that I’m cringing over every sentence, and I’d hate bigger chunks of text too, if I could actually form anything coherent. I don’t understand why this is happening, and as having faith in my own abillity hasn’t really been among my strong sides to begin with, I have no clue how to fix this. But I need to, and it cannot wait.

Whenever I get into a “Everything I do sucks” slump, it’s usually because I’m comparing myself to someone else. The only cure I have found is reminding myself that it’s MY work, and it doesn’t have to look like someone else’s stuff. If I am in an actual slump, and I can’t seem to find my groove, the only thing that works taking a day off, or doing a few things I know I can do in my sleep to bolster my confidence.

Thanks. The thing is, I don’t really get a kick out of stuff I can do in my sleep unless it’s in comparison to other people struggling with it. It doesn’t seem as anything special otherwise.

I might re-read some of my past writing that I’m reasonably pleased with, and then try to emulate that.

1. I really want this to be fear of fantasy novels

4. fear of fish?

5. fear of fire

6. fear of dolls

7. fear of water?

10. fear of bathing?

On another note, I went home from work early yesterday, and I stayed home sick today. I did go in for about an hour for one meeting, then I came home. I am super behind. I can work on things from home, but I’m worried that everybody at work thinks I’m a faker/slacker.

 

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