Discombobulated

Yesterday, the Woman and I headed over to the in-laws for a Memorial Day/”everybody’s born around the same time” gathering. All was going well with much good food and much good conversation filling the day. And then something strange happened.

Near the end of the night I got a little dizzy. It started when her nephew… well, I guess he’s my nephew, too… was spinning around in circles in the living room. Someone joked that he was going so fast that it was making us dizzy just watching. And, sure enough, it was. No big deal. I shook my head to clear it and started to get ready to head out. But my head never fully cleared. My steps were a little uneven, and moving my head disoriented me.

Stupidly I figured the car ride home would be fine and I would be over it shortly. I guess it was fine, but I had to be careful even checking my mirrors to fast. By the time I got home, I had to confess that I was losing my balance and feeling out of it. It was pretty obvious when I had trouble walking in a straight line up the pathway. The rest of the night was largely spent with me trying to sit as still as possible so as not to send me spinning out of control. In other words, imagine being drunk but without the benefit of alcohol to kill your sense of how terrible you fell.

From what we can tell, it was some sort of perfect storm of causes – dehydration, overheating, moving heavy furniture in the morning, etc. – that rattled my head with a bout of vertigo. The Woman got me through the night, but unfortunately it’s not something that goes away quickly. So my plans for doing lots of yard work this holiday weekend have gone swirly, and instead I’m spending today and tomorrow primarily sitting still staring at the TV.

Hopefully I’ll be able to walk straight enough to make it into the City tomorrow night for The National and The Broken West. At the very least, maybe I can sit in front of the computer long enough to get some photos processed – yeah, right!