Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Secondhand Rants will return on Tuesday, April 10.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Nights are the worst. I’d finish this sentence, maybe try adhering to the basic tenets of intelligible writing, but my nose is running. It will be running, I imagine, until such a time as the pollen count drops to normal levels, approximately 3 to 20 months from now. This year’s allergy season, in my mind, is tantamount to a natural disaster. You know how you’ll sometimes flip on the news and see coverage of tornados wreaking havoc in another state? You might stare aghast at the destruction, empathize a bit with the victims, and then–and then it’s time for lunch and onto other matters.

Well, this blog post is the debris. Pollen is the tornado. You’re the detached viewer. The circle of life is at work in this region, and it feels like we’re in the eye of the storm. It’s strange how it works. I’ve noticed daytime tends to be significantly more manageable, with only the occasional sniffle to remind me of how all my glands are in revolt. Perhaps it’s because I’m focused on work, or possibly the fifth floor of the office building just happens to sit above the swirl of allergens, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to breathe.

And then, evening rolls around. Throat swells up. Lungs constrict. Eyes are lit afire. Keep in mind I’m fully medicated throughout the day, including an infusion of all the very best drugs as soon as I return home. It’s a lost cause, though, almost as if nature were saying, “Fuck you, modern medicine. I’m getting the tears owed to me, one way or another.” Makes me wish for normal flu, simply on the fact that there’s a clear endpoint, three to five days out. I also wish I could torch every plant I see–through my swollen eyelids–but then I’d kinda run into an oxygen problem. No, the only thing to do is persist. It’s a delicious symmetry, when you think about it–that which allows me to breathe is simultaneously suffocating me. There was a warm, heavy feeling in my brain when I had this thought. Probably just a sinus headache.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

For me, the passage of time generally manifests itself as the mess of weeks in between holidays, and I think this skewed perspective grew out of checking off the days on the grade school calendar. January, for instance, isn’t the start of the year per se. Instead, it’s the month where you get a day off–to commemorate the sacrifices for civil rights by sleeping in–a mere three weeks after the “Fun Zone,” the stretch of food and merriment known traditionally as November and December. The rest of the year is decidedly lean, with your Labor Days and Memorial Days and Independence Days sprinkled like oases. And then, you have your droughts: March and August, grim slogs of endurance.

I can’t be the only one who perceives the contours of the year like this, right? I mean, I do pop open Outlook every morning to make sure I materialize in the meetings I’ve accepted, at the prescribed hours, but that’s about as granular a view as I take. Otherwise, I picture this haze of days, with Good Friday as a beacon of light, just over a week from now. After that, nothing.

There is something else that helps me parse the days, though. Whenever the mercury rises to the 60s, and nature expands the colors it has on offer, and sunlight insists on overstaying its welcome, I can sense something’s amiss, calendars and day planners be damned. I also notice an influx of allergies, bugs, ice cream trucks, warm blue skies, even a little hope. I think they call it spring.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Secondhand Rants will return on Tuesday, March 27.