I had trouble sleeping last night, which is rather rare for me. Usually I can conk out virtually at will, almost as if I can hit some sort of internal ‘off’ switch. But last night I was tossing and turning and smushing blankets unable to find a comfortable position to drift off in. After a while I realized my problem was that both my nostrils were stuffed up and I was basically trying to mouth-breath myself to sleep.
The pollen is starting to fall heavily in the air. My truck had a light coating of green-yellow powder on it. The results are my nasal passages have swollen shut. After a while I got up and rooted through my cupboard until I found a single lonely Clairton forgotten in the back, as well as some saline solution. I squirted some up my nose and went back to bed. Eventually around two in the morning I drifted off. I rarely use the saline solution; it does not really do much for me. About a decade ago I had a minor Afrin addiction. When I first discovered that stuff I thought it was great. A few squirts to my nose and my nasal passages were wide open. I could breath deeply like normal people. But then after a while they would seal up again and then I would need another squirt. I eventually started carrying a bottle around with me, and god forbid if I left it behind. My nose would seal up shut. Apparently there is some sort of backlash when you go off it. My doc eventually found out about it and told me to stay off it. Actually, my doc looked at my afrin bottle and gave a mighty condescending eyeroll. Same thing.
Probably best I went off because apparently Afrin addiction can lead to psychosis:
Anyways, when allergy time comes Clariton and Psuedoephedrine are my friends. Actually, last night when I was laying awake, I started thinking about crystal Meth. Now, I have no urge to smoke crystal meth; images of the zombie-like sunken and scabbed faces of crystal meth users should be enough to scare any rational person away. However, I was wonder if in fact it is made from psudeoephedrine if one hit would actually instantaneously clear out my nasal passages like a squirt of the most powerful afrin in the universe. Maybe all those meth addicts you see squatting outside the 7-11 watching their teeth fall out are actually simply allergy sufferers who have fallen down the dark path.
Anyways, even if it did clear my nasal passages, I doubt it would help me sleep.
In other news, I found out that I can post messages on my Live Jounral via a text message from my phone. For some reason that greatly amuses me and I plan on making drunken minute-by-minute updates when I am at the springfest.
2026 Update
Setting the machine for spring 2008, when pollen, Afrin, and SMS-to-LiveJournal were the era’s great trifecta.
Ah, 2008: a simpler time when a man could carry a personal Afrin bottle like a rosary, and the only surveillance involved was his doctor’s magnificent eyeroll. Now look at us. Pseudoephedrine sits behind a locked pharmacy counter where you must present ID and sign a digital logbook like you’re checking into a government witness program. The decongestant aisle has more security theater than an airport. Meanwhile, your entire phone-to-blog pipeline has evaporated: LiveJournal is a haunted museum where old teenage identities go to molder, and the idea of “posting by text message” is so quaint that my toaster has more apps than that entire system. Even the allergies have upgraded—or at least the marketing has, with forty brands of nasal spray all claiming to know your sinuses personally. And Ed, I appreciate that you looked at meth, saw the scabbed faces, and still wondered if it might be the ultimate decongestant. That is exactly the sort of clinical reasoning that built this great nation’s pharmaceutical panic. We don’t say “crystal meth” as casually anymore, but we do require a photo ID to buy Sudafed, so I suppose progress is a series of small humiliations.
“2008 Ed, when you were lying awake fantasizing about meth clearing your sinuses, did you ever stop to think that the real addiction was posting minute-by-minute drunk updates to LiveJournal from your phone—and did that craving ever keep you up at night?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2008 Ed: Egads, Beelzebubba, you've got me pegged, sort of. I admit, when I'm lying there with my nose stuffed like a ketchup bottle cap, my mind wanders to strange places—meth being one of them. But the idea of tapping out “just cracked a cheap beer, the band is tuning up” to my LiveJournal from my phone? That's a thrill that keeps me up more than any allergy, I suppose. I'm a man who likes to document his own dumb life, even if it's just to prove to future me that I did something besides sneeze. But it's not an addiction, it's a public service. Some people have to squirt Afrin; I have to squirt words. And it doesn't keep me up at night—if anything, it puts me to sleep, knowing the world has one more update about my wandering existence. Take that, pseudoephedrine.
