Allow me to preface this by saying I am absolutely terrified by heights. Every time I cross a large bridge (Ambassador, Mackinac) or look out the window of a skyscraper, I succumb to a sickly weakness which transforms my body into humped, jello-y mush, otherwise known as vertigo. I am, however, looking forward to conquering this fear someday by jumping out of an airplane.

The other day, while lying on the couch trying to think of a creative way to find slumber, I decided to see if I could create vertigo on my own. FUN!

I stood up and imagined that the very spot beneath my feet was the peak of a mountain that stretched to the widest point possible below me; which means I would be standing on a mountain roughly as tall as the radius of the Earth. Hmmm....... Still doesn't sound terribly exciting, does it? Well, let's figure this out. The Earth's radius is about 3,950 miles, give or take a few depending upon where you happen to be standing, but inconsequential for our purposes. Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain, measures in at 29,035 feet. Okay math majors. So if I add in this, subtract that, find the derivative of the parabolic curve, and piddle with the paddle a bit, Mount Everest is 5.5 miles high.

So I'm standing on a mountain in my living room, the peak of which is a tiny little strip of rug with flower designs. I tried to use meditative technique to make the rest of the room go black around me, but the best my mind could do was to fold the carpet down in a conical shape from my little plot of real estate. I imagined looking down from the top of the largest hill at Sleeping Bear Dunes. I let my eyes stretch farther then. I made the lake go away and found myself looking into the Great Lakes Basin. Further still I wandered. I could feel the unpredictable currents of wind swirling about like the feathers of a great bird. The ground fell farther and farther away from me. Soon, I was standing atop Mount Everest! I felt a tingle in my spine. Vertigo!

In order to create a mountain 3,950 miles tall, one would have to stack Mount Everest on top of itself..... get this.... more than 718 times! Now imagine this mountain with slightly concave slopes, like a Christmas tree, so that we can conceivably see the bottom of our mountain, 3,950 miles 5 feet 11 inches away (hopefully you can figure out where the 5'11'' comes from). I could even be a bird and take a little foray into the sky above. Whoa!

Haha. Who needs drugs when you're me?