"Window Gazing..."

I’m sitting here in my office, high atop the Citibank building in downtown Midland. I have a wonderful view, I’ll have to post a picture of it for you all some time.

So, I’m sitting here with nothing very important to do today so I decided to enjoy the wonderful view that is the West side of Midland.

Now, I’d like to enjoy the wonderful view of the North, South and East as well, but my windows face to the West so I’m forced to continually look at the same things day in and day out (I’ve only been here 3 days now so I’m sure it will get old later).

I notice I can see the drive in movie theater from here. That got me to thinking, mmm..if I worked nights, I could watch a movie. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to hear anything and probably couldn’t read lips from this distance. Those screens are probably 5 miles from me as the crow flies.

Speaking (well…really typing) of crows flying. As I was staring out the window I noticed a bird fly by my window. We are 15 stories up! So I start thinking, “so this is the bird’s eye view I’ve heard so much about! Not bad!”

But then I realized, we are really high! If I fell from this distance, I’d be sure to be just a large puddle of fat, bones, and more fat on the sidewalk below!

So that got me to wondering, can birds develop a fear of heights? Dogs can, I used to have one like that. So if other animals can have a fear of heights, why not birds? And if a bird develops a fear of heights, what’s he do to get around? Walk everywhere? Pigeons do a lot of walking. I’m thinking they have a small fear of heights. They’d probably be the first bird to go crazy with fear.

Or would it be the road runner? He IS a road runner after all, not some kind of bird with a cool name like Falcon or something that sounds like a high flyer. Perhaps the road runner has a fear of heights. Mmm….could be…could be.

While I’m on the subject, do you think spiders can ever develop arachnophobia? Can you imagine a spider being afraid of spiders? Your baby kid spiders come up to hug you goodnight, you run in terror. Life would be very lonely for a spider with arachnophobia…I’m pretty sure of that!

And, in the worst cases, a spider with arachnophobia would be scared of himself as well! What would that be called? A fear of one’s self? Egophobia? Not sure. But, since I live in Texas and George Bush has shown you all how we Texans like to make up words, I now have officially created the term and syndrome of Egophobia.

Please use the term 3 times today in ordinary conversation. Let’s see if we can’t get it to catch on!

Like many of you, I'm sure, I DID have Agoreaphobia in 2000. In case you don't know what that is, "A" stands for Al. So, like you, I had a fear that Al Gore would be elected president of the United States. WOW that was a close one to getting realized! SInce he didn't, I hug a tree daily now in his honor.

I have none of those other phobias. Thought I should tell you all that. I only have one phobia, and that’s the fear of phobias. I call it, phobiaphobia. I have a nasty case of it too!

Actually, a fear of phobias, or, phobiaphobia if you will, has been present a long time. It's not original with me. Don't believe me?

Franklin D. Roosevelt had it I think. Remember? He said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." SEE! I'm not the first to have phobiaphobia. He had it too!

That’s it for now. I’ve got some more staring to do out my window….