expected to be overwhelmed like that when I went to the Tower of London, particularly the spot in the courtyard between the Chapel and the Tower Green where Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Jane Grey were beheaded.

But I wasn't. I hate it when big significant things don't touch me.

See, but it's not that 3 queens were beheaded there that would've gotten me. It would have been that Anne, Catherine and Jane, in between worrying about their deaths were sitting there thinking, "It's cold in here" or "Whoops, nearly tripped on my petticoat." Not the significant stuff. Though I suppose that's not entirely true either, because we read about these people and know much more about their lives than it's likely anyone will ever know about ours, but they're not exactly real fleshy talky meat until you think that they were sitting right there thinking about the weather or the state of their petticoats.

I've never had weird haunted house experiences -- but two of the most terrifying things that ever happened to me happened in my parent's house, which is mostly definitely NOT haunted, and in house I lived in in college. Using Occam's Razor, the most likely explanations for one story is a mouse, and the other...just psyching myself out. But I felt the most visceral lizardbrain terror in both instances, and I just don't know.

I DO know I wouldn't step into that house's cellar again for anything, and that that was the creepiest damn mouse in the world and that it watched me for 20 minutes while I huddled in bed, not breathing.

she eats alone in her room, as she got in too many fights with her brother and sister and told her mom she "couldn't eat" with them around,

That sounds like classic eating disorder behavior to this non-expert. Not to say that family dynamics can't be pretty fucked up and a teenage want their "own space" even at dinner time. However, hiding your food consumption, one way or another, is a primary sign of an eating disorder.

I hope the therapist can do some good. In the absence of any concrete advice, though, I'm sending lots of {{}} to Robin and her family.

See, but it's not that 3 queens were beheaded there that would've gotten me.

Oh, I don't think the 3 queens part gives the place any extra-special cachet -- I just mentioned them as a point of reference, so that people who know the Tower would know what spot I was talking about.

And Robin, ugh. I'm sorry. Coke is pernicious. I hope everything works out.

Speaking of lizardbrain fear, someone walked into our house last night. We were sitting there watching MI5, the dog ran to the door, and this guy just walked in. Mr. H was yelling at him, and then pushed him outside. It took me a few minutes to even realize what was happening, and by that time Mr. H was on the phone with the cops.

Argh! Heather, that's so fucking creepy. Did they find him? Who was it?

Ew.

And my first case of "looming vertigo"--that is, the weight of tall things, skyscrapers when I'm at ground level and can't see the sky, for example--was in the Dom cathedral in Cologne.

Huh, opposite reaction from me. The German churches were the first ones that didn't feel like the roof was going to come crashing down on me despite the height. Spanish churches felt like coffins. No matter how tall the ceiling, I felt like I was walking into a box and they were going to shut the lid on me. Could be because there was a lot more wood in the Spanish churches. The German churches I went into were more predominantly stone. English churches made me feel like I was in a specimen jar or a diaroma on a museum shelf. Another closed-in feeling.

It has nothing to do with the architecture. It has nothing to do with what religion the church may be assigned to, or its history. It's more to do with the intangibles, the resonance with personal feelings left behind by the congregations.

It has nothing to do with the architecture. It has nothing to do with what religion the church may be assigned to, or its history. It's more to do with the intangibles, the resonance with personal feelings left behind by the congregations.

No, I get that, and I envy it. I think my thing is purely architecture. I'd never had it happen before, and the Dom is immense. It just goes up and up and up, and the stone is black with age. The next time I felt it was at street level in Philadelphia, which is not a particularly vertical town. I've been in large churches, since. One was of a pale creamy stone, Duke Chapel, and it's neither as immense, nor the stone as dark as the Dom, so the comparison really isn't fair, but I didn't have the same reaction. I think mine is purely psychological and physiological. My receptors for psychic awareness just don't work.

"I've never been to England/ But I kinda like the Beatles"