Death to Pollen

Back when I lived in the semi-arid desert climate of San Diego, where they don't really have seasons, I used to think that spring must be a wonderful time of year. I thought the season was all about beautiful flowers springing into bloom and young men and women getting frisky and bears coming out of hibernation. I must admit that, since coming to New York, my experience of spring as a phenomenon has not invalidated any of these stereotypes: the flowers are certainly blooming, and all of my friends seem to be getting nicely laid, and the bears are definitely out in full force on Sundays.

Sadly, my appreciation of all of these wonderful things has been sharply curtailed by my mortal and sworn enemy, the scourge of everyone with allergies, ironically derived from the blooms that work to make this season so appealing from afar: pollen.

I can barely breathe. My head is so congested that I'm seriously considering putting a hole in it for drainage purposes. I can understand why people got so excited when Claritin came on the market, and I can see how the bland utopianism of its marketing campaign ("Blue skies smiling on me/Nothing but blue skies can I see." Sigh.) was so appealing.

Only one more hour before my next dose of Dayquil, sweet!