I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it

I have gephyrophobia. (It’s ok – I wash my hands all the time and I’m pretty sure that ya’ can’t catch it that way anyway.) I’ve made mention of this in the past – I believe I talked about last in September, when I had to cross an overpass I’d never seen before, on foot, during a half-marathon.

Tim, Scott, Mike ,and Andy have all seen me deal with this fear – and depending on the traffic, the vehicle I’m in, the lane I’m using, which bridge is being crossed, what time of day, etc it is, I can be paralyzed and awful about it or pretty low-key and casual. (I’d like to apologize publically to Scott, Mike and Andy for the incident I had while we went wine tasting last time. I’ve become much more adept at crossing the Golden Gate now that I have to do so four times a week. I’ve now done it so many times that I can do it topless *and* with music.)

Oh, and I can cross the bridge, too!

I have some acquaintances who are collecting data for an experiment and they wanted to measure my stress levels on the four main Bay Area bridges. Happily, it was a beautiful day outside - hardly any wind, great temperature, and lots of great sunlight. It was a good day for science and I had nothing else lined up so I agreed. (They thought about testing my coulrophobia too, but I had to draw the line somewhere. After all, these folks are just acquaintances – they’ve never even seen me naked.)

I started off in the morning with my coffee run and a minor detour when I was pulled over by a local cop – who looked like any other average 14 year old – who wanted to make sure I had a current registration sticker. I, of course, do – I just hadn’t put it on my car yet so after he complimented me on my driver’s license photo, he put the sticker on for me and I went on my way.

The day was uneventful – but we covered quite a bit of ground … literally. I drove over each bridge twice (“up” and “back”). I used my own car, and borrowed a team members’ truck - sometimes there was a car full of folks with me, other times it was just me and a passenger - sometimes we had music, other times dead silence. No results were discussed with me as to how I “did” (it’s not really a pass or fail kind of a thing), and I’ll do this little exercise a few more times with the crew – at other times of day or night and all sorts of varying circumstances – so that the data collected is as reflective of “real life” as possible. Overall though, I’d have to say I was pretty blasé by the experience.

I’m typing this back at home. The next door neighbor has a teenage son who has, apparently, decided to learn to play the base. He is JUST starting out, but I can safely report that he’s mastered getting the amp volume level to 11.

Hmmm … I wonder what my stress level is now?