stick it up yer nose

toothpastefordinner.com: mouth breather
from toothpastefordinner.com : original image

If you’d told me even six months ago that I’d be scooting a quarter litre of warm saline up my nose every night, I’d be all like, “yeah, chinny reckon”. But sadly, and this may be heading into TMI territory, it’s true.

For many years, my nose wasn’t much more than decorative. Too blocked to provide a useful means of breathing or sensing smells, it got only occasional use as a sunglasses bracket. It also had unpleasant nocturnal habits, ones best not described here.

A month or so ago, I decided I’d had enough. I went to the pharmacy and got one of those squeezy bottle things that comes with the little sachets of salt+bicarb. I can smell again! I can actually use my nose for breathing!!

Those two benefits are pretty awesome, but the whole process isn’t a bed of roses:

  • yeah, you really need to do the kha-kha-kha thing with your throat, unless you like aspirating saline.
  • every night, it still feels a little like drowning, and hasn’t really got any better.
  • A sinus can still surprise up to an hour later, when an unexpected head tilt can produce a deluge too large for any tissue.
  • if the water’s too cold, it feels like being stabbed in the head. From the inside.
  • I’m much more in touch with my mucus than I want to be, and far, far more than you’d want me to be. I mean seriously, some of the things that I get out … well, let’s just say I’ve measured from nostrils to bronchi, and these luminous sinus puppies would easily stretch that far.
  • The results are nothing like the video. They’re all serene, like they’re getting their Deva Premal on; me, I’m left snotty and spluttering.

So, it works for me. But we’re all glad that I’m not sharing the details, aren’t we?

Mr Dolby — eww!

I’m a big fan of Thomas Dolby, and I don’t even mind admitting that it was one of his songs that initially got me thinking about what to do with my life (“… etch out a future of your own design”, and all that) . I got Thomas’s Live in Chicago DVD, and was a bit shocked by the visuals he used for wind power:

still from Thomas Dolby “Live in Chicago” DVD

Those are some old wind turbines. This would be a bit like going for some modern computer imagery, and plunking for a picture of a VIC-20.

still from Thomas Dolby “Live in Chicago” DVD

I mean, eww – those blades are filthy!

happy easter, with apologies to Irving Berlin

In Your Easter Vomit
by Peter Stampfel & Antonia, circa 1970s

in your easter vomit with all the flies upon it
you’ll be the drunkest wino in the easter parade
you’ll be all hung over and when they roll you over
you’ll be the rankest wino in the easter parade

on the avenue tenth avenue the
photographer will snap us and he’ll say that
you’re like a pile of manure

fifty pounds of comet
could not remove the vomit
and all the flies you’re wearing
to the easter parade

Happy Easter … and remember, don’t eat the little “eggs” the bunny leaves on the lawn.

ack bleah

I picked up a pack of Wrigley’s Doublemint Kona Creme Coffee Flavored (as they say) Gum in Missouri last week. I strongly advise that you don’t.

To use the crude but apt expression coined by Jay Primeau to describe a badly-mixed Kahlua cocktail, it tastes like coffee flavoured ass. While chewing, it causes the gorge to rise (I think it’s the slightly minty edge of the gum base), and has an aftertaste akin to latte barf.

Canada’s own Thrills Gum may still taste like soap (as it says on the package, and they’re not lying), but this is just … eww.