there's probably a night or two in my past where I almost drank myself to death and didn't realize it until the next day.

My friends and I were talking about the fact that none of us actually knew anybody who'd directly died from drinking too much. And we were heavy, heavy drinkers in college. My one friend said she came close, waking up and finding that she puked off the side of her bed. If she'd been passed on her back rather than her side...who knows. We did know a guy who, when very drunk, decided that he could leap a 30 foot gap between buildings. Not so much. OH! And the following year a friend of the gap leaper jumped off an overpass on Storrow Drive (when very drunk and depressed about his dead friend) and he survived.

Personally, I don't know that I've come that close. (Knocking all the wood.) Except that I drive about 30 miles on 95 every day. And, it's possible the guy who attacked me in my house could have had a knife (he had used one to slice the screen to break in th window). But he was too stunned by me fighting him that he never had a chance to even think about using it before he decided to run away.

I once looked out from the top of Dixville Notch Promontory, in New Hampshire, and thought I was already falling the 2000 foot drop to the ground. I wasn't; I wasn't even close;

I always get that feeling when looking out from mountaintop lookouts. But I still want to look. There have been a couple lookouts in the Rockies and in Yosemite that I've had to lie down on my belly and crawl out to the edge in order to get the view I wanted to see. I just got too struck with vertigo to walk upright to the edge.

Hell, I get that feeling when visiting upper floors of capital rotundas and looking down from three flights up. My imagination just takes over and I feel like I'm already falling.

I get that feeling looking over the rail of a big boat (ferry). And mountains, and such, too of course. I still climb things. Just very slowly and carefully.

Oh hugs!

I must mention how delighted I am that all of you survived your close calls. Because really the world is a better place with you in it.

I'd always kind of thought I had a fear of heights, but upon reflection it seems it's really a distrust of trees, rickety ladders, etc. I'm fine looking over rails at extensive drops and whatnot as long as my actual footing is stable.

Except that I drive about 30 miles on 95 every day.

Hah. A friend of mine called her boss to let her know she was going to be very late, if she made it in at all. Boss: Oh, you got caught in the traffic jam from the awful accident? I figured you leave early enough to miss it. Friend: I am the awful accident.

She rolled her car three times at 70 mph and ended up upside down in the median. She was fine. She called 911 from the car. When people bitched that week about how late it made them (took some people 4 hours to get in) she would helpfully pipe up "That was me!"

See, that's the weird part -- it is the only vertigo I have ever experienced in my life. I really thought I was already falling, and had just somehow failed to notice the part about my feet leaving the rock.

I used to know somebody who called that kind of anticipatory experience a "fear-wish," i.e. that it's something so blankly terrifying that you start to hope it will happen just to make the fear go away. I know that kind of thing happens on bridges all the time: the bay bridge in Annapolis has cops on duty who will drive you across in your own car, if you ask, because sane, ordinary people sometimes report the overwhelming desire to drive off the side for no reason.

I have been in some hairy landing situations with crosswinds and puddlejumpers

Never been especially close to death that I know of, but this one time on approach to Charlotte, the puddlejumper got hit with a gust that seemed to flip us up into an awful steep bank for a moment, and really gave me an adrenalin jolt.

Speaking of scary stuff, the IRS wants to allow TurboTax to sell your tax return info. [link]

Friend: I am the awful accident.

Holy cow! I'm glad she was okay!

My fear is getting in front of a big rig and then traffic coming to a standstill on a down slope and the truck not being able to stop in time and accordianing me. So I try my best to put at least one smaller vehicle between me and the big trucks.

I have a fear of slopes. Not of sheer dropoffs. Those makes sense. But slopes are tricky. Maybe you can scrabble up, maybe you can't.

Never actually had an accident or anything on one, so I have no idea where this comes from.