Urgh, the sequel

New mini-flare occurred this weekend, predictably, I suppose, after a week-to-month's buildup of too many consecutive baked beans, beers, mildly spicy stuff, popcorn, cheese puffs, Indian food, and two glasses of dark cola. I should be grateful it's not a flare-flare, a flare with teeth. But it's still kicking my ass into this week.

One of the hardest parts is eating. In addition to the emergency I'm on a self-imposed bland diet to shut down the crazy intestinal spasming, and what gets me irate about it is how difficult it is to do. And I'm not talking about the delicious food cravings that start after a few days in. It's really hard to cover your daily caloric requirements with applesauce, yogurt, rice, bananas, etc. Two dubious internet resources and a calculator show me I'd have to eat over ten servings of applesauce to make it. And forget about nutritional requirements, because they are not the priority.

In any case. After a couple of meals it feels like you're stuffing pillowfuls of glop down your throat, because bland diets are, by nature, bland bland bland. And you start to feel adverse to eating, and then because you're eating less anyway you start to feel weak and hopeless, and bland bland bland - er, blah blah blah.

Why yes, I am a ball of delight in times like these. Come back any time! Here, have a dog picture:

Puppydog would gladly eat all that applesauce for me. Yep, uh huh.

Luckily I have some good books on hand. After watching the Mark Gatiss BBC Horror thingie, I was reminded by Google that he'd also written some books, so I picked up The Vesuvius Club. So far it's ridiculous, scandalous, silly, exciting, mysterious, and almost exhausting to read -- but in a compelling way. I'm only 70 pages in, but I can recommend it that far wholeheartedly.

Survival of the fastidious

One of the first things I mentally filed in the Ooh, that's different folder upon moving to Texas was the universal presence of hand sanitizer dispensers. I'm not talking about the stuff in bathrooms; I'm talking about the walk-up dispenser I see every morning just inside the front doors of my workplace. Then there are the same dispensers next to the grocery carts (for quick cart handle cleaning) and standing by pharmacy counters. Pharmacy counters are especially attentive - if they don't have a standing dispenser, they have a communal pump bottle by the register.

I see people pump the dispensers with a fierce absentmindedness, similar to the way other people slap the button for the automatic door. ("BITCH," they say when it doesn't work immediately.*)

One of the first things my boss gave me at work? A bottle of pink hand sanitizing goop. Purell Instant Hand Sanitizer, Spring Bloom (Spring Bloom equals pink, I guess. It still smells terrible), Kills 99.99% of Germs, Moisturizers & Vitamin E Leave Hands Feeling Soft & Refreshed. Sometimes I use it to clean my desk. I don't like the stuff; I hate the feel of it, the smell drives me mad, and I don't like the idea of it, although I have no clue whether there's any hard science on that last part to back me up. But even if it does lower your immune system's ability to fight germs** I should probably still use it. Why?

1) I have no immune system anyway. My body needs every line of defense it can get, mostly because:

2) Things don't die here. I'm not referring to our country's retirees, and anyway, everyone knows they all live in Florida. Germs, molds, shit like that - it thrives down here because of the year-round warm temperatures. My part of the state is a haven for allergens and crap because of its particular geological features. But basically? Here's an example: I'd never heard of cellulitis until my mom contracted it during a short hospital stay. Here you can pick it up on the bus (as I did, unfortunately. It was part of my summer's Infection-and-Antibiotic-Injection-a-Month schedule) or at the gym or at work. You can also pick up staph infections at the gym and other public places; one of my coworkers was out a week. Naturally I plugged my nose and broke out the Purell.

Maybe I'm just sheltered and this happens everywhere. Perhaps with the last few years' panicky preparations for a Killer Flu Pandemic, the public hand sanitizer has become more prevalent in the rest of the nation, as opposed to where I'm used to seeing it: campgrounds, some bathrooms, and outdoor concerts. You really can get a staph infection anywhere, probably, and antibiotics are fast losing their potency as bacteria mutate. Look at MRSA. Gah. Don't. My immune system cringes just clicking on that link, and there aren't even any pictures. But now I miss the cold and snow from my home state for more reasons.

I guess I don't have much of a point, apart from the inveterate (I want to move back north) but I do think my disease is a lot more apparent down here. I don't have multitudes of dirty habits, but I touch my face, I pick my nose,*** I rub my eyes, and I cover my mouth when I yawn or snigger at someone. Okay, I wash my hands a lot, but I'm not the poster child for Germ Free Living, and I should be if I don't want a ass-shot of anniebiotics every time I sniffle.

So I'll give in. I'll try not to touch my face so much - and, um, that other stuff. I'll keep Spring Bloom by my desk and use it more often.

But it stinks and I hate it.









<sup>* Multiple occasions! It's a serious insult, apparently.

** Again. No links to hard science here, folks, I'm manifesting an old wives' tale.

*** THAT'S GROSS. And anyway I only did it once, before I knew better and became an adult who is able to cook and drive and think. ONLY ONCE. WOULD I LIE?</sup>

It was not this sharp, ever.

Continued from a previous discussion of Incredibly Awkward Remedies for Crazed Bowel, I bring you one and all, the Rowasa Enema!

If I could play introductory music on here, it'd have to be the Star Trek fight music. You know, the da-da-DA!DA!DA! (etc) tune they trotted out every time Bill Shatner needed to trip somebody, or rip his shirt. (By the way, this is just killing me today.) Ah, Star Trek.
Sadly, I do not have photographic evidence of the RE, so the above montage will have to suffice. The RE has been my companion on a few adventures. I particularly recall some contortions in a bachelor pad bathroom, on a floor wet from showers, my face inches from suspiciously curly hairs...but enough romance, let's get back to basics.

The first time I filled an RE prescription, my CNP made sure I had plenty: I walked out of Walgreens lugging two shopping bags loaded with boxes. I got home and ate some mashed potatoes, sat on the toilet a while and read The Corrections to get myself in the mood for later. I ignored the boxes, which was easy as I'd hidden them in the closet in the bin with scarves and hats. A. would never think to look there in August, I chortled to myself. A. came home, we watched a movie, he ate some pizza, I ate some applesauce, and we went to bed. I waited until I felt him twitch a few times, and then I slipped out to the living room.

"Put a towel on the floor the first time you do this," my CNP had said. "It can stain."
Feeling virginal, I spread a nice red towel on the carpet, dragged out the boxes and slit open the foil packaging. It felt like opening a science project, or maybe some freeze-dried spices.

The bottles were small with little caps. I spread the instructions out and tried to position myself in the least vulnerable way the manufacturers suggested. I gritted my teeth, hiked up my nightgown (oh devious!) and inserted.

"What are you doing?" A. asked.

It may have been obvious.

Pertaining to organic sun-dried colon cleansers

"You look anemic," A. said as we relaxed in the sack.

"I have dark circles?"

"Oh yeah. You know what's good for that?"

"Having a mutant stick a giant syringe in your ass while you're passed out on the toilet?"

"Nope. Raisins."

According the Sun Maiden, a quarter cup of raisins will give you ten percent of your daily iron requirement. A. bought a few bags, filled little bowls with dark pulpy nuggets and put them around the living room. We ate eight ounces each.

"They're crunching," I said. "Are raisins supposed to crunch?" My tongue felt like it was covered with papercuts.
"Oh, that. It's bits of wood, and grapevine," A. explained, munching with apparent ease. (How does he know so much about shrivelled fruit? Clearly there is some serious study going on while I'm at work.)

By the time Barbara Walters came on I was feeling a bit funny.

"What's wrong?" A. asked. "Too much iron in your blood?"
"Har har," I said as I crashed into the bathroom.

Sadly, there is only one remedy that will stop the California Raisins from rocking out in my intestines...

The Last Medication.

(Of Doom and Incredible Awkwardness on Road Trips)