Pollen Nation

Every year when the pollen comes out I get sick. All that flower spunk throws my system for a loop. Being sick has had a few notable effects on me this time around:

1. I've switched from coffee to tea. As Frank Thompson says, tea has certain restorative properties, while coffee abuses you awake. Irish Breakfast is my new drug of choice. I feel much mellower on a tea high than I do when coffee's got me reeling.

2. I'm more aware of how much activity I've got going on. All the performances, recitals, auditions really stand out when you're going to them despite feeling like lying down instead.

3. Everything I do feels awfully noble and even heroic. The mere fact that I show up for something makes me feel like a pretty swell guy, what with my doing it in the teeth of illness and all. By illness I mean sore throat and runny nose, so it's not really a big deal, but let me enjoy what I have.

4. I don't talk to myself anymore. I don't talk to people much, but in the privacy of my home I yammer to myself like a crazy person. Not now that I feel like I've been gargling shattered Pepsi bottles, though. To keep monastic silence makes me feel pretty levelheaded and stable; I'm not expending energy in pointless verbiage.