To sleep, perchance to breathe....

At 3 a.m. I woke with an urgent need to figure out when my passport expires. This is actually a good sign: for the past couple of days my brain has been unable to tackle any question more challenging than where are the tissues?, so my ability to get up in the middle of the night, locate my passport, and confirm that it doesn't expire for another 18 months suggests that I'm emerging from the current Attack of the Killer Phlegm. The really good news, though, is that I don't teach on Tuesday mornings so I was able to go right back to sleep for a few more hours.

I blame trees. Don't get me wrong: I love trees, but trees don't love me. In the spring my sinus passages react strongly to tree pollen, and in the fall it's leaf mold, resulting in massive attempts to expel the invading allergens: watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, coughing, and the feeling that I'm walking around under water, at a distance from the waking world. It's not an ideal condition for teaching but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. And so I make my way through campus, my glowing red nose lighting my path.

So many things I'd like to write about--my students' ability to surprise me with their support for one another, my ongoing quest to adopt a new dog, my crippled dragon tree's continuing progress toward recovery--but, frankly, it's hard to put words together when I'm constantly interrupted by sneezes and the need to blow my nose. I have one student appointment this morning and a doctor's appointment at 1, after which I intend to go right home to rest and drink lots of herbal tea. One of these days I'll be able to breathe easily again, but meanwhile, I'm just grateful to be breathing at all.

The unkillable dragon tree, growing stronger every day.