Snuffleupagus

Mood: Logy
Hair: Curly, but probably straight as a stick by noon
Snappy Comeback NOT to be used today: Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it? (this should be posted above the Schedule Nazi's desk)

So yeah, allergies suck. Big shock there, eh?

I'm allergic to (among other things) corn pollen. I live in the exurbs in the Midwestern U.S. Will someone shoot me, please?

I spend a lot of time every autumn praying for a hard frost. Just one. That kills all the baddies, including the mold (yep, that's another allergen) and the dead leaf gunge. No that's not the technical name, but the more leaves on the ground, the worse I feel....it's probably the mold, but it's some very special Dead Leaves Mold that makes my head hurt, my eyes burn, my nose feel like Victoria Falls (or the Sahara) and my lungs scream. I've been putting Patanol in my eyes at least once a day now for almost a month. It no longer seems to be working. Neither is the Rhinocort, the Allegra, the Benedryl... and the Albuterol makes me psycho. So the prayers for killing frost have begun.

Which is insane, because I HATE winter. I have cold hands and feet non-stop for 8 months of the year. Hot flashes have mitigated that a bit, but now I get cold extremeties AND a sweaty torso. I tell ya, it just bites.

When I grow up, I'm moving to Arizona, never leaving my air-conditioned condo, and wearing nothing but cotton for the rest of my life, with flip-flops.

Oh, wait. I am grown up. Shit. So much for that plan.

So back to being thankful that, unlike my sister, I'm only allergic to pollen. She can't eat anything with corn in it: no sweet corn of course, but also no corn syrup (pop, cookies, candy bars...everything sweet in America has corn syrup in it) and no corn oil (no potato chips, tortilla chips, margarine...). Read some labels sometime; it's a killer. Hint: dextrose = corn.

Gack. And thank goodness that in 2004 there are meds, because I really do think that if there weren't, I'd be dead. For real. And that would TRULY bite.