MR WRONG: Crystal healing
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 40
NOW HOLD ON ONE MINUTE DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
The next chapter of The Stairs appears here at Indignity tomorrow (Friday), so now is the time to get caught up on THE STAIRS, Tom Scocca's serialized work of fiction!
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: My Ears Are Attacking My Eyes and Making Them Go Like This-sihT-This
A NEW MALADY has grabbed ahold of me, it’s wild, I have been feeling not so good at keeping my balance, like, sometimes when I’m outside my castle in our tiny but active yard, cutting the stupid grass that insists on growing everywhere, I sorta bob and weave a little, and I always hope nobody is watching me, because I think it’d look like I was a little wasted on alcohol, and I don’t like to be judged by my neighbors, even when I am a li’l bit wasted on alcohol on my own goddamn property, thank you very much, officer, please get off of my lawn, hic! Urp!
Anyway, and as I have complained about for years and years,
JOE MACLEOD
I always thought this sorta lack of balance had something to do with my treacherous lumbar region and spinal nerves, but the other day I was performing the Special Prescribed Exercises for my back, which really work and make my back feel better, but as I was going into the movement called “open book,” on my right side, as I described an arc with my extended left arm and followed the route by turning my head, all of a sudden I felt like somebody pulled the handle on a slot machine and set the reels in motion inside my fucking skull, beep-beep-beep-beep.
So I googled that shit, like “vertigo when tilting head” and I got
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, also called BPPV, is one of the most common causes of vertigo. Vertigo is the sudden feeling of spinning or moving.
BPPV causes brief periods of mild to intense dizziness. Certain changes in the head's position most often set them off. This might happen from tipping the head up or down, lying down, or turning over or sitting up in bed.
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo! I am experiencing paroxysms of vertigo! I don’t like it! Plus, my fucking eyeballs! I didn’t notice at first because it was all so disorienting, the dizziness and feeling of falling but in a circular way, when I turn my head at a certain angle right now, I go into slot-machine mode inside my head, and my eyeballs go ping-pong-ping back and forth completely outta my control, it’s so fucking weird.
Atypical rhythmic eye movements, called nystagmus, most often go with the symptoms of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.
Anyway, I’m proud of myself for my self-diagnosis, and the cause is these crystals inside your ear canal, and there is a Procedure where you lie on a table and tilt your head a bunch of ways and the doctor watches your eyeballs go ping-pong-pang and then you tilt your head some other ways and all that shifting around conveys the tiny but offending crystals to some other chamber in your ear (mine has 36 chambers, hiyo), so it’s kinda like one of those transparent-tube kiddie games with some sorta liquid in it where you’re trying to move the sparkly shapes into another part of the game, but this is not a game, this is my skull! I’m not a dope, I’m going to see my doctor and get this shit checked out before I try any home remedies.
I hope I get some respect from my doctor, though, and they concur with my Medical work, and don’t laugh and say “nah man, you got a brain tumor,” argh!
Also! Like, I don’t know how you feel when you’re reading this stuff, but I am a three-finger and one thumb typist, plus I gotta look at the keys, and now when I type the Mr. Wrong column, tilting my goddamn head down to look at the keyboard is making me a little nauseated! Is this some sorta Instant Karma?
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, May 3, 2026
★★★★ The clouds were white and sturdy and moving steadily east, spaced out on a deep blue sky. As they went they cut off the sun and released it again so the colors out the windows could surprise anew. The foliage of a skinny high-rooftop tree darkened to a winey purple and then strengthened back to lipstick scarlet. The street was strewn with green samaras. The sun showed off a row of out-curving gable-top decorations on St. Nicholas Avenue and then tried to do what it could with the architecture of the Bronx, only to end up picking out a vast tangled beard of dead vines dangling from a vacant billboard frame, then getting in among the unmown roadside weeds and making them phosphorescent. The wind had pulled the end of a floor-length curtain out of a less-than-floor-length apartment window and was flapping it against the outside of the building. Back home, the light behind the ninth-grader's glasses made it obvious how badly they needed cleaning. By late day the sky was entirely blue.
New York City, May 4, 2026
★★★★★ The cat stared, enraptured, at the smears of light bouncing off the top of the window sash onto the ceiling, and possibly also at the suddenly obvious hank of cobweb swaying there. Dislodged, the cobweb drifted down through shadow and light like a cloud until it could be caught. A notebook held up was enough to keep the sun from baking the laptop while allowing the rays to soak into the head and arms. The day was getting warmer but not too much so or too fast. A small corps of dirtbikes roared up Central Park West with one rider holding a wheelie while he climbed up to stand on the saddle. Between lichen and moss and ancient layering brought out by the light, the usually gray rocks along the Park were faceted in post-Impressionist chunks of color. A batter on one ball field launched a ball so far it came up near behind the outfielders on the next field, as they waited for someone to hit them one from the opposite direction.
New York City, May 5, 2026
★★★★ A helicopter chugged a little too low against the cloudless, haze-touched sky. Street trees cast shade so thick they left just a few dapples of light, but even so, smells were starting to bake out of the pavement. Still, this was at most a draft version of a hot day, with none of the humidity worked in yet. A shred of cloud sped northward, melting to grains and then to nothing as it went. A warm wind was blowing through the afternoon, unburdened by the accreted meaning and menace of the California version, just a diverting uncanniness. Grit and litter slid uphill in the bike lane. Withered petals or other tree bits rose above the tossing branches and fluttered on the evening sky like a flight of insects.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
Here is the Indignity Morning Podcast archive!
TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of a sandwich selected from Conservation Recipes, compiled by The Mobilized Women's Organizations of Berkeley, California, published in 1918 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
WAR BREAD SANDWICHES
War bread.
1 cream cheese.
6 olives.
1/2 cup pecan meats.
Chive butter.
Rub cheese to a paste and add olives and nuts, finely chopped. Spread thin slices of war bread with chive butter, and an equal number of slices with cheese mixture. Put them together, dress edges and cut diagonally.
If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by our continued offerings, be sure to send along a description of your experience and a photo or three to us here: indignity@indignity.net.
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
