Claritin Confession

Hello, my name is Mark and I am addicted to Claritin.

Okay, maybe not addicted, but I do take it every morning along with my cholesterol medication and my anti-crazy pills. It's just one more thing that makes me aware of the fact that I'm aging. As a younger man, I never got headaches, I never gained weight, and I certainly was not allergic to anything. I had that kind of Herculean teenage metabolism well into my late 20s. My, how things change.

I still don't get headaches much at all. (Something for which I am very grateful.) As I've mentioned before, I got over the gaining-weight thing long ago. (I figure I've averaged about a 10 lb gain each year for the past three or four years.) Until recently, I've maintained my lack of allergies. This spring, everything changed.

I don't know if it's my age and the tectonic shift of my body's immune system or if there just happens to be something new blooming here in rural Illinois this year or what. All I know is, I was a snotty, itchy, sneezy, goobery mess for a couple of weeks while I was in denial.



You know those little things on the inside corners of your eyes, the place where your eye boogers collect? For about two weeks, those things felt like there were crawling with microscopic ants. They itched and itched and itched and itched. It drove me nuts. It felt so good to rub them (and rub them hard!) but, as soon as I was done, they'd start itching again PLUS my eyes would turn bright pink and bloodshot. So, not only would my allergies pester me, I'd then also look like I'd been drinking all afternoon. What a bonus.

Waking up in the morning was also a joy because it was as though little construction workers for John's Mucus Installation climbed my face in the night, pulled up their little green cement mixers, and dumped several layers of goo down my nose. I kept having dreams I was suffocating because...lo and behold, I was suffocating! I couldn't breathe because I had so much snot up my nose. (Too much information? Sorry about that.)

Annnnnyway, Suzanne convinced me to start taking Claritin. I did for a couple of days and everything cleared up. It was a miracle! So I went a little Bush-y and said, "Mission accomplished." I stopped taking the pills because - I was done, right? I lasted for a day or so before Suzanne saw me itching the insides of my eyes with a pad of steel wool. She gently explained to me that, in order for the Claritin to work, you have to keep taking it. Sigh.

So, here I am, taking my small handful of pills every morning, feeling like I'm well on my way to getting one of those little daily pill organizers.


Sigh. I guess I shouldn't focus so much on the fact that I have developed an allergy or that I have to take another pill to keep it in check. Instead, I should be grateful that there's medicine that actually works and that I can get some whenever I want. The pioneers didn't have Claritin, did they? No, they did not. They had to walk from here to Utah in wagons and was there ragweed in the air? You bet. Were there pioneers with names like Elias and Orrin and Jabez whose noses seized up tighter than a banker's smile when the wind blew pollen their way? You bet.

I should be grateful for what I've got rather than worry about what I've lost. After all, I'm sitting in my air conditioned living room, Claritin coursing through my veins, as I write this. Things could definitely be worse.

I Wish I Had This Kind of Confidence

Peace in the Middle East

Il Duce

So needless to say, the last couple of weeks of school were brutal. Six classes-worth of students handing in final projects, final papers, last minute revisions, etc. is just a freaking ton of work. So I didn't do much other than grade papers and do the basics of human existence - eat, sleep, play with the baby, etc.

But now, thankfully, it's over. I handed in my final grades a week ago and I've been free ever since. But free to do what? Run errands, do stuff around the stuff around the house, play with the baby, etc. The thing we're doing right now is prepping for a trip out west. We plan to spend the first couple weeks of June traveling out to Idaho, hang with my family for a week, spend a few days in SLC visiting Temple Square and the zoo, and then head back. Sounds fun, right? I'm sure it will be. Maryn and Avery are especially looking forward to playing with their cousins and seeing Grandma and Grandpa Brown.

However, we were having serious second thoughts about the whole thing due to some recent developments with Parker. Apparently, she suffers from a condition that develops in small children between the ages of 6 months and 2 years. She's only recently been diagnosed so we're just dealing with it all now. Her condition is called Mussolini-itis. Yeah, I hadn't really heard of it either but apparently it causes small, super-cute babies to act like Benito Mussolini. They yell a lot, demand stuff, expect the trains to run on time, and generally act like they're going to hang you upside down by your ankles if you don't do exactly what they want when they want.

It's a sad condition and hard on everyone involved. Her condition particularly flares up in the car. As we drive to town for groceries or home from church it only takes a split second and she transforms from cherub to this:



Not cool, right? So far there’s no vaccine or anything. We just hope it’s not terminal.

So, given her condition and its tendency to really act up in the car, we contemplated not even going. In the end, however, we decided that if we didn’t go, the Fascists would win. Can’t have that. So we may try night-driving or possibly large doses of Baby Tylenol to make it.

In other news, Lost had its series finale last night. It was two and a half hours of satisfaction, surprise, and, ultimately, joy. I have more to say about it but I’m going to wait. I still need to ponder and talk about it some before I write anything down. I will say that I really enjoyed it and that, after six years, I felt satisfied. The final scene between Jack and his father with the luminescent stained glass window in the background was perfection, I thought. That’s all for now.

An Open Letter

Dear Professor Who Occupies the Office Next-Door To Mine:

Normally, I would open a letter like this with something like "How are you" or "What's happening in your life?" But asking you those questions is unnecessary and that, my colleague, is the problem. You see, I know exactly how you are and what's going on in your life. I know how your kids are and I know what you have in your freezer at home. I know how things in the biology lab are going and I know about how you're waiting for that new equipment to arrive at the shipping dock downstairs.

Am I a stalker? Am I nosey? Have I been reading your mail? No, no, and nope.

I don't need a spy satellite or wire taps for your phone. I don't need to hire a surreptitious PI to tail you wherever you go. I don't need any of those things in order for me to know what's going on in your life.

So how do I know so much? Let me answer your question with a question:

What the freak is up with you having every single phone conversation in your office using SPEAKER PHONE? Seriously, what are you, Charlie from Charlie's Angels? Are you really so busy that picking up a phone receiver is too much of a distraction? Do you have some kind of rotator cuff injury or deformity that prevents you from cradling a handset?



Or do you just really, really like everyone hearing your honking, Canadian-goose, man-voice blare out the smallest details of your life? Is it your way of bonding with the three other people in our little pod of offices? Is this what you use in lieu of normal human interaction? Should I feel flattered that you trust me enough to let me hear you have a long conversation with your husband about your upcoming water skiing trip? Thanks, Prof, thanks.


Sincerely,

Mark

On another note:



Dear Skull Candy Headphone Makers,

Thank you, thank you , thank you for making ear buds that shut out so much sound. You have no idea what they've meant to me.

Sincerely,

Mark

Update

The end of the semester is coming swiftly and teachers begin to divide into their two types - those who make it harder for students at the end of the semester and those who make it easier. I'm generally the second type. I kind of pile the work on at the beginning of the semester to weed out the students who are less serious, but also to enable me to go a little easier at the end.

I still have plenty to do. I'll be collecting final papers/projects of one kind or another from over a hundred students in the next week or so. But, because it's the end, I don't have to comment on them or really do anything other than slap a grade on them. (Well, and read them too.) So it won't take nearly as long.

Once that's done, I'll have about a month until summer term starts up. We'll spend two weeks of the break on the road going to and from Idaho to visit my family. We plan to spend a few days in SLC going to the zoo, the church visitor's center, the Joseph Smith building, etc. Should be good.