I used to have lots of issues with allergies in the past, then I read somewhere that sometimes people with lots of allergies also have lots of stress and maybe the allergies are just physical manifestations of stress. It was written with all kinds of conditionals and whatnot so as to not offend those with real (or deeply realistic) allergies. So imagine I’m writing it the same way. Imagine I’m saying everyone has real allergies except me.
So yeah, once I read about the psychosomatic allergies I took it seriously and mind over matter took over and I talked myself out of my allergies proving that they were in fact psychosomatic.
Now part of my issue is that ever since this worked for me, I try to convince myself that all my health problems are probably psychosomatic. Interestingly, it’s one of the reasons why I took so long to seek medical attention for my depression. I just figured I was being a big baby and it would pass. Actually, you’d be surprised at how often I heard some refiguring of that statement from friends of mine but whatever.
Anyway, allergies. Yeah. For 3 weeks now my nose is gunny, my eyes itch and run, I’m tired and I have crazy mad scientist mucous. I refused to even acknowledge that this was happening. This was not happening. Not at all. My nose does not itch, my eyes are not gooey, I do not feel like crap.
All I could find to take at work was some sort of generic cold pills. The decongestant helped but not really. I feel like crap. I need to take medicine for this, but if I take medicine then I am admitting that I have a problem and then it’s all “is it real or is it psychosomatic? is this runny nose real or just a manifestation of the stress that I hate dealing with?”
I’m wondering if I can use this to get another burrito out of David. He bought me one last night (chili verde sin cebollas from Pineda).

I met Patti and her mom and her sister and her neice for lunch today at the Uptown diner. The beauty of the uptown diner is their hollandaise, rich, buttery, eggy, delicious. When you order a benedict you get enough hollandaise to cover your entire plate including the thick, crispy slab of hash browns. I could write sonnets to the hollandaise.
I usually order the cajun benedict made with spicy andouille sausage. It feeds my craving for spiced pork AND hollandaise. Perfect.
What did I order for lunch? Not the cajun benedict, my usual order or even the biscuit and gravy benedict (served with your own defibrillator!). Nope. I ordered a giant bowl of oatmeal and a side of cantaloupe. What the fuck is wrong with me? I hate oatmeal, I hate it so much. Or at least I did until 6 months ago when I was overcome by a craving so deep I had to go to the store and buy some and I ate it almost every day! Now I purposefully shun the cholesterol and pork for oatmeal and cantaloupe.
See also: my insane consumption of cheerios and my habit of consuming a pound or more of carrots for lunch on any given day. Or even an entire evening spent at Nyes with someone else driving and all I drank was diet coke because drinking and getting drunk has lost all appeal.
wait…these are the things that old people do!!!!! Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiit! What the hell am I going to do? I’m almost 34 and I’m acting all 45! “blah blah blah drinking just doesn’t appeal to me…blah blah blah I love oatmeal and fruit….meh meh meh i poop regularly…honk honk honk why don’t i go crochet a doily and make some jam and drive my beige car 5 miles under the speed limit…”
I need to rectify this and fast. I stopped smoking 6 months ago, time to start again! I’ve got a brand new bottle of Jack and I think I can rustle up some porn and doritos. I will not accept that I am an old lady!!!!

My car has some sort of problem. Not the regular problem like a blown head gasket or a leak in the dilithium chamber. It has some sort of weird attitudinal or emotional issue that I can’t quite work out.
Last month my car died a block from the house. Just died and would not start. Luckily Progressive has free road side assistance and free towing and all that so I got her towed up to my mechanic’s. That afternoon got me this little tidbit of conversation:
towtruck dude: (apropo of nothing, jus tout of the blue) hey! now you can feel like a winner!
me: (yelling) I AM a winner!
Anyhow, my mechanics, those lovely eastern european dudes that I love so much, gave it the once over and did the diagnostics and found…not a whole lot. They changed the oil and fixed my headlight and that was that. Also, they may have possibly found that sometimes I might just let my gas tank get a little…low…sometimes a little too low. Sometimes the gas tank gets like way way low, but still, the car started up for them right away!
Last night, driving home from my sister’s I notice the temp gauge getting higher and higher. How curious. Then the onboard computer starts getting all “enging temperature high” and “stop engine now” and all that. I pull over on Minnehaha and sigh. Aw fuck. I call April and she heads out to pick me up and I call Progressive again to get another free tow.
This morning the mechanics call me to tell me that they can’t find anything really wrong with it. They tried and they could not recreate the situation. Hmmmm curious. They said they found some debris in the radiator and MAYBE that clogged something temporarily but they flushed it and it’s all good. Interesting.
I asked a few more questions about what they did to determine that they could not find anything and they said:
Guy: Yeah, we cranked the A/C up as high as possible and got some good RPMs and nothing. Everything stayed normal.
Me: You turned on the A/C?
Guy: Yep, turned it all the way up, fans on and everything
Me: My A/C doesn’t work…It died last summer and it was close enough to fall that I didn’t bother getting it fixed
Guy: It was working…
Me: huh.
My car does not work for me. My car breaks and dies and shudders and overheats and all that, and then miraculously pops back to life in the care of the mechanics. What’s up with that?
This meant I got to ride the bus this morning! It was kind of awesome because it menat I could spend 30 minutes crocheting and not driving but it also meant that I had to spend 30 minutes listening to the weird meth-addled carpet layer. Seems that he needs to finish some job on the north side of town, then he can get the van but don’t worry, he’ll still ride the bus and if he’s lying he’ll stop drinking for ever you can even call his sister patty, but she changed her number so he can’t call her anymore but he just needs to get up Central and finish this job or maybe not even finish it he didn’t know but he could get the van! Holy crap! He also waved at all the other bus drivers and discussed his own personal belief that preparing oneself for getting on the bus (such as getting your money ready) was the ultimate way to show respect to the driver.
Speaking of meth-addled, when the hell is science going to get up off its ass and make a meth like substance without all the side effects?? Caffeine just isn’t cutting it and I want to keep my teeth and I don’t want to be cranky! Come on! I see you lazy scientists living your fat cat lifestyle growing all porky on the teat of the big pharma lobby! Come on! Restless leg syndrome? Seriously, like 8 people on the planet had an actual medical issue with restless leg syndrome and you went and made a couple of commercials and now everyone has it and you’re making big bucks! Same with Viagra! The soft old man weiner was nature’s way of telling a dude that he had crossed the line into old guy territory and as such, would only be creepy if he tried to hump! You fixed a problem that was actually a solution and not a problem! Healthy Meth! That’s all I’m asking for! The ad campaign practically writes itself and you’ll be even richer.
And while I’m ranting, could the neck beard please go out of style now? please? I’m so tired of the neck beard (also flip-flops, totteringly high and skinny high heels, and midriffs).
On the lighter side, a vendor brought me a bottle of Jack and some soda and a hard hat today and I am trying to convince my boss to let me buy a new lime green herman miller chair. I deserve it.