Anytime a product is billed as an exfoliant and promises to remove an itching rash by “bonding with the poison oil and washing away with vigorous rubbing”, DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE. This crap I paid $25 for yesterday did nothing but piss off the poison ivy I already had until it reached meltdown stage last night: this point was when my wife turned to me and said, “We have to…you know.”

Because my loving wife knows just how squeamish I am around needles, “We have to…you know” is code for Go get me a needle so I can heat it over a candle flame and pop the humongous boil that’s hanging off your forearm like a conjoined twin.

You see, this product contains little balls of plastic that are supposed to be there for scrubbing, like that soap with the sand in it that’s supposed to help with getting all the engine grease out from between your fingernails. The difference is that engine grease doesn’t get mad and expand like a Satan-posessed party balloon. There I am in the shower yesterday, praying that this crap will take the itching away, and I’m rubbing it into the blisters, and I felt like a dog when you hit The Spot—where the dog goes into uncontrolled fits of scratching and gets the faraway look in its eye. it felt SO GOOD to itch this stuff. I rubbed the crap in for the prescribed 30 seconds, and then washed it off carefully so as to not splash any of the poison oil on any sensitive areas, and then applied Step 2, which is a clear cortisone cream with the consistency of snot. Here was Clue Number Two. The $40 competing product claimed that relief would be immediate, while this shit had me immediately pouring some kerosene onto the brushfire.

So after “We have to…you know,” we both stood in the kitchen and mopped up the liquid that leaked out of my arm until it was normal-sized again, and again after it blew right back up to full angry size and we drained it again, and then a third time. (It was at this point I knew that I was destined to have children with this woman; I flashed back to the day I came down off the roof, having been stung by a wasp, and pointed my swelling hand at her, hopping on both feet like a kid who needs to go potty. She quickly made a potion of baking soda and water and put it on the sting, and it felt better in seconds. Our roles became clear: I will teach them how to shingle roofs, and she will teach them how to reattach their own limbs.) After the third draining it looked a little tired—all that anger wears a conjoined twin out, I guess—so we returned to the couch and our regularly scheduled coughing and hacking. Every once in a while I’d mop it with a tissue to make sure it wasn’t leaking into the couch, but it remained relatively quiet for the rest of the evening.

This morning I woke up and did the inventory: Cough? Check. Sore throat? Check. Mucus puddle in lungs? Check. Angry, freakish blisters covering forearms? Check. Except it’s even nastier, if you can believe this: it’s crusted over where it leaked out last night (I had it wrapped up in a sock) and still leaking.

I think that maybe discretion should be the better part of valor here, so today I’m going to spare my co-workers the sight of my conjoined twin attempting separation and the Black Lung. This shit is gross.

The poison ivy which was tickling my forearm the other day has grown to huge proportions; it’s sprouted on my neck, on my other forearm, and now there’s a little patch behind my right knee. After consulting the Internet yesterday, I hit the drugstore in search of this stuff called Zanfel, which promises to wash the urishiol off the skin and reduce the swelling. I was all ready to buy that little tube until I looked at the price: $40. I wound up going with a competing product, and followed the instructions, and nothing has changed. So I’m out $25 and still itching.

We are still a sickhouse, as well—this flu is not letting up yet. I feel a smidgen better today, but I’m not going to kid myself into thinking that I’m better. I still produced plenty of lung butter this morning, and my head is still draining. Jen is still slightly better than walking dead, so we make quite an attractive zombie couple when we’re out in public.

There were two good bits of sunshine this morning, however; I opened our tax return info and found that we’re not paying the gub’mint $400 like we thought, but actually getting a little over $1,700 back due to our mortgage interest. So I think we’re going to put that in the kitty for the kitchen and sit on it a while.

The second good omen appeared when I went back into the kitchen to refill my coffee. Happily pecking at the thistle feeder ouside our window were a pair of finches, one yellow and one a bright reddish pink. I called for Jen to come in and peek over my shoulder, and we watched them eat and chirp at each other quietly for a few minutes. These are the first we’ve seen, and it made us very happy to have them. Eventually the yellow one flew off and was replaced by the female mate of the red male. I hope they bring back some friends.

There’s a good way to find out how much cough syrup you have in your medicine cabinet: stagger into the bathroom at 2:30am after you’ve hacked your way through four long dark hours, and then rustle through the contents—making sure you don’t drop everything and wake up your wife. I brought some kind of viral throat ailment home last week and thoughtfully gave it to Jen. Our doctor helpfully told me it wasn’t the strep and sent me home to find some chloraseptic, and the two days following my visit I felt about as fine as a viral infection would let me, so I thought I was better.

Saturday we decided to marshall our strength and focus it out in our yard. I got up early to check out some of the local yard sales in our neighborhood, but in a rare moment of better judgement, I resisted the urge to buy stuff and picked up eight bags of mulch for the bushes instead. Between the two of us, we got the both planters installed in front of the greenhouse, the day lilies replanted from the east flowerbed, the vines on the west side cut back (not without a light dose of posion ivy for your enterprising correspondent), the front hedges mulched, and I replaced the nasty lattice holding up the grape vines with a sturdy frame of square posts.

All this activity was apparently not what I needed, because it was impossible to fall asleep last night. The throat affliction was back, and worse than ever. We both woke up groaning and decided a trip to DC for the cherry blossom festival was not on our dance card. We hit the store and stocked up on vitamin-C based products, medicine, and cookies, and headed home. Jen suggested we detour past a local house which advertises fresh honey for sale, so we drove past and noticed a fellow out back digging post holes among a group of hives. The lady who met us in the driveway offered honey and bee pollen, and we chatted with her about their hobby. Soon her husband joined us, and he offered the five-cent tour around his backyard, as well as offering his help in starting our own hive. While the idea is an exciting one, we decided next year might be better for us. (Natural honey is delicious, by the way.) We took it easy for the rest of today. Two episodes of Ken Burns’ Jazz, some warm tea, and fresh warm air (as well as 500mg of cold remedy) have done good things for me; hopefully some robitussin and a good night’s sleep will help as well.

Postscript: Turns out the Prednisone I had left over from the last case of poison ivy is probably not the best thing to take right now; it reduces swelling but also weakens the body’s immune system.

Last night Jen and I drove to D.C. to visit with my sister Renie, who’s finishing up the first of several business-related training courses and staying in Crystal City. We got some Thai food and caught up on the events of the last couple of months, then retired to the hotel bar for an aptertif. Her job seems to be going really well, and it looks like she’ll be down this way some more in the coming months, which is good news. During the evening, my already sore throat began to hurt more and more, until it swelled up disturbingly on the ride home. This morning, I woke up almost unable to swallow after a long night of terrible sleep. In a decision that’s pretty rare for me (usually I need to be spurting blood from a major artery to seek professional medical treatment), I called the doctor and made an appointment. I’ve always been able to shrug off most illnesses, and injury is something that just gets in the way of finishing what I’m doing, but this was different-a friend of ours is just getting over a case of strep, and I didn’t want to nurse along a dose of that for two weeks without checking it out.

So I went and filled out the same damned form, got weighed and measured and prodded, and had a test run, and it came back negative. Most likely this is some viral thing. While I was there, I asked about the pain that runs up my forearm after a long day at the mouse, and she told me that it’s not carpal tunnel, but most likely a tendon strain, and she gave me a referral to a physical therapist to get a brace for it. So, good news on that front.

So I apologize for my ‘B’ game last night, Ren- I was feeling more under the weather than I thought I was. We’re looking forward to seeing you again in two weeks.

This afternoon Jen and I had the pleasure of attending a baby shower for Todd and Heather, who are expeting triplets, for those folks who haven’t been keeping score. Because of some on-again, off-again scares where she visited the hospital, the whole thing was up in the air until Friday, so we put off going to pick up our gifts until yesterday afternoon. There’s a chain baby superstore right down the street from here where they were registered, so Jen and I grabbed a cart, printed out a list, and dove in.

As we drove through the aisles, picking out items and checking them off the list, I realized just how much I don’t know about having children. There are breast pumps which look like devices out of a Dr. Seuss nightmare, and retail for $300. There are child seats with more straps, restraints, safety devices, and knobs than the ejection seat of a modern fighter jet. (And the selection of child seats seems to parallel that of luxury automobiles: there are Eddie Bauer, Jeep, and John Lennon strollers, each with its own coordinating accessories. Yoko, you whore.) There is a special “line” of nursery linens that coordinate and match named after some woman WASPier than Martha Stewart, and which cost more than the sheets on my bed.

After wandering through this array of capitalism for about half an hour, I was beginning to lose focus. I happened to see a little girl following her mommy wearing a shiny green frog raincoat—the one with the eyeballs sewed into the hood—and matching froggy boots. And I found myself wanting a little kid for myself. Jen and I continued through the store, and I think we were both doing the same thing: shopping for the triplets but making a mental list for ourselves. More than once, I found myself looking at something and thinking, “I want that for our kid. I’m gonna buy us one of those.” One of the good things about not having any kids of our own yet is that we get all soft and mushy over our friends’ kids. We kind of went a little crazy, but as we left, we knew it was worth it.

As we walked in the door this afternoon, one thing suddenly became clear: we were the only couple present without children. I have to extend apologies to anybody I didn’t introduce myself to, as I got into people overload very quickly. We got to visit with the Heazletts and see little Stellan, who is growing bigger (is it really eight months? Jeez) and catch up with some old aquaintances from the MICA scene. All in all, we had a great afternoon with everybody, and I think Todd and Heather had a good day.

Whew. After a productive meeting with our accountant this evening, we learned we are filing jointly and only on the hook for something less than $500 total (which is pretty remarkable given the amount of untaxed freelance income we generated last year. Don’t worry, though, Uncle Sam is definitely taking his pound of flesh.) The irony of meeting to discuss one’s taxes on this auspicious day was not lost un us, but luckily she made it painless and easy. (Email me if you’re looking for a fantastic CPA in the Baltimore area&mdashI’ve been with Laura for going on ten years now, and if she can make sense of my convoluted financial situation, she should be the new head of the World Bank.)

Flush with success (and the knowledge that the money we’d saved in the event of major tax catastrophe could be put to better, and more pressing uses), we walked down the street and treated ourselves to a mediocre dinner at an Irish pub in Bel Air that I won’t recommend.

Now I’m writing this, laying on our plastic-wrapped mattress in the middle of the living room, listening to the roar of the water falling from our roof to the ground below, and wondering if all the pretty flowers that have been peeking out this last week will get pounded to smithereens in the next 24 hours. The mattress is 2 for 3 so far-last night left us both in knots for some reason, so we made some adjustments to the frame and we’re giving it another night. Cross your fingers.

Well, I can’t say this news is a suprise. Going to jail as a child molester in a wheelchair with MS is going to really, really suck. In other news, I bet these people didn’t see this coming. I have all kinds of questions related to the morality of that decision, let alone the right-to-life argument.

In the Could-Be-A-Joke department, the Mobtown Shank reported last night that Atomic Books would be moving to Ellicott City, down the street from us. Which would mean that instead of never making it into Hampden to visit the old location, I’ll be shopping at the new one frequently for stuff I can’t afford.

As my lovely wife wrote yesterday, it looks like things are beginning to bloom for us here in Maryland. The tulip tree is about two or three days away from exploding, the crocuses are blooming in neat lines along our flowerbeds, and the daffodils sprinkled around the house are waking slowly.

Day two with the new mattress is going well; I’m not sure about Jen but my back has felt better, my neck doesn’t hurt anymore, and I slept with three cats stapling me to the bed. Putting the futon frame underneath didn’t make any noticable difference to me, but it might have helped Jen somewhat.

I talked to the project manager for the drainage project this morning, and among other things, he told me this process has taken the better part of twenty years to get going, and that it’s too late to tack an extra 40 feet of piping onto the end of the line. So that means we’re most likely going to suffer more drainage issues in the future; my guess is that the folks out behind us are going to have a swamp for a backyard (as their back lawn comprises the majority of the low land.) Swell.

Meanwhile, Jen got an unsolicited email this morning from some woman who suggests that a personal relationship with Christ will make her life better. While most of the Jesus-thumping letters I’ve seen have been of the ranting, poorly written variety, this one is at least spellchecked. I’m going to weigh in over here on unsolicited religious emails, especially the ones that are six paragraphs long and signed by “Sister Mitzi”:

Sister Mitzi

I don’t really care

I didn’t ask you to proselytize

about J.C.

I’m happy for you

and you’re tight with God

I don’t need you

to get all Fallwell on me today

okay?

You’re born again

what’s your fucking deal

if I want to talk to Christ

I’ll do it myself, alright?

Jesus is just alright with me, and I’m pretty sure he’s OK with my wife too. I’m happy that the carpenter made a difference in your life, but don’t try to bulldoze your beliefs on her or anybody else. If she wants to find God, she’ll do it herself—if there’s one person in this world who has a healthier respect for and understanding of religion than my wife, I’ve yet to meet them.

(special thanks to Night Ranger, for allowing me to bastardize a truly horrendous song.)

Addendum: I suppose I should clarify a little here. I’m not anti-God, or anti-religion. Actually, I’m the opposite: I respect the right of any citizen of this country to practice whatever religion they choose, just like I don’t care if somebody wants to marry a water buffalo—their beliefs are their own. What I resent is the overbearing way some folks push their God on other people. What I mistrust are the motives of large groups of people who believe their way is the only way. On the other side of the coin, we have a good friend who recently asked us to come visit his church and hear him play one Sunday. There was no subtext, no ulterior motive, and no proselytizing. The sermon was down-to-earth, the people were friendly, and the door was left open.

This, in my mind, is the correct (and polite) way to approach someone else’s faith. Especially in these times, when “faith” is such a loaded word. Thanks for giving me some hope, Dave.

When I was a kid, I had a friend in the third grade named Eric. We both liked to draw pictures of Smokey & the Bandit, the trucks from Convoy and the General Lee on tabloid-sized sheets of construction paper. (With the exception of the Dukes of Hazzard, we had never seen these other shows; I knew what they looked like from the 4″x5″ HBO program guides my parents got in the mail.) One weekend Eric invited me over to his house to sleep over, and we spent our evening watching Bo and Luke outwit Roscoe over a huge bowl of popcorn and ice cream. When it came time to sleep, I found that Eric had bunk beds—a novelty for me—and that the mattresses had a peculiar crinkling sound to them. Every time I shifted the slightest bit, the mattress made a sound like somebody strangling a Hefty bag. Later I realized that they were plastic-covered, which was probably a smart idea for a boy of nine, but my mattress at home was soft, firm, and quiet. Eric snored, and his room smelled funny, and between the smell and the snoring and the crinkling, I was ready to go home the next day. We continued our artistic pursuits at school, but I didn’t sleep over there again.

When we were at the IKEA the other day inquiring about a return policy on our mattress, the lady behind the counter informed us that there’s no official try-out policy for mattresses, and lowered her voice to suggest that we leave the plastic on to prevent any “accidents.” My first thought was to tell the woman that we don’t piss the bed, but I realized later that she meant something else. Now that I think about it, I’m kind of offended by that.

Regardless, we tested it out last night. Once I got over the novelty of sleeping on the living room floor again, and settled in, it wasn’t too bad. Besides Sage pacing the perimeter and complaining (he doesn’t like plastic bags) and the crackling as I adjusted my position, I didn’t sleep too badly—my main complaint is that our comforter is very heavy and it made me sweat. It’s still too stiff for Jen, so we’re going to try the futon frame underneath tonight to see if that will help the situation.

The list of things I’d like to have, but have been putting off buying for an indeterminate amount of time:

A new pair of sunglasses. My old pair, which made it through about three years of heavy usage, finally bid farewell in the airport van on our way to the hotel in Rome. Arrivederci, il mio amore!

A new cellphone. You’ve heard me complain about this before, and I think this will be the first thing to get updated. Most likely this weekend…

A usable car radio. The unit in the Jeep has been doing well in the cold weather, but now that it’s getting warmer, the important part of the NPR report I’m listening to fades into staticky oblivion. Crutchfield actually has a Blaupunkt CD deck with a removable face for something like $$130 right now.

A good high-capacity clothes dryer. Our little General Electric dates back to President Ford and uses more electricity than a Vegas storefront.

A new router for the house. The current model seems to be dropping in and out randomly; I’m still not sure if it’s the router or the DSL modem, however.

However, I did finally pony up $40 to buy a replacement power supply for my Powerbook after the old one bit the dust. If I can’t have a new laptop, I’ll make do with Ol’ Reliable, here. And while I’m at it:

NuPower G4 upgrade I’d love to be able to speed her up, and for $280, that ain’t a bad deal.

In other news, the bed was delivered this afternoon, which means we have a few nights of testing ahead of us. Cross your fingers, people.