Allergies

"Maladies
Melodies
Allergies to dust and grain
Maladies
Remedies
Still these allergies remain"
--Paul Simon**

About five years ago I found out that I am allergic to cats, dust mites, and ragweed (whatever that is). Now, if you spend any time at all on this blog, or talking to me at all, you may realize what a tragedy the cat allergy is (and frankly dusting is a pointless exercise in futility, so I have quite a lot of dust mites in my house as well, and I imagine that ragweed, whatever it is, will survive nuclear war and is unavoidable). Luckily, salvation was found in a pill. Claritin-D 24. It can be hard to find, especially now that everyone is afraid of the key ingredient (pseudoephederine), it can be expensive, but it made my dusty life with felines possible.

Until lately. In the last few weeks I have been headachy, had a slight sore throat, painful sinuses, something gross, and I've been *exhausted*. It has slowly dawned on me: The Claritin-D 24 no longer works. At. All. Ever.

I have an appointment with an allergist on Tuesday. Let's all hope for a fast resolution because I can't live like this (and neither can Len).

** The above quote is from "Allergies" on 1983's "Hearts and Bones", about which a friend of mine once called "the standard by which I measure all songwriting". Maybe a bit of an overstatement, but "Trains in the Distance" might one of the greatest songs ever written about love and loss. And what else is there to write about? Besides allergies. "Two disappointed believers/Two people playing the game/Negotiations and love songs/are often mistaken for one and the same" and "The thought that life could be better/is woven indelibly/into our hearts and our brains". Which is why, after all of the heartbreaks, the disappointments, the bad dates, the sorrow of it all, we keep falling in love. We keep coming back for more.

Could be masochism, too.