Well, dear readers, I’m sitting here like so much fish, thinking how this week is flying by, like a gazelle smoking a cigarillo (olliragic, spelled backwards). My allergies have been bothering me all week, even though I have never bothered my allergies. Funny how that works. Would you like to know when I had my first allergy attack? Because I remember it as if it were yesterday. In fact, I think I mention it in Benjamin Kritzer, although I can’t swear that I did – I’d have to go look it up and I’m not getting off this chair. I had my first allergy attack whilst eating a turkey sandwich from my father’s restaurant in the auditorium of the Wiltern Theater as a motion picture entitled Lisbon played on the screen. I finished the sandwich and began sneezing. I could not stop sneezing. I’d brought a handkerchief with me, as my nose had been bothering me, although I had never bothered my nose. So, I blew my nose while Ray Milland walked around Lisbon. I continued to blow my nose for thirty minutes until the handkerchief was sopping wet and my nose was raw and red, not necessarily in that order. I still kept sneezing. My eyes were watering and I could not focus on the screen. You must understand that watching a motion picture was a religious experience for me, so to be having these unseemly problems was most annoying. I finally got up, went downstairs to the incredible Wiltern lounge, and I got a bunch of toilet paper and stuffed my pockets with them and hurried back upstairs to continue watching the movie. And still I sneezed and sneezed. I used up the wads of toilet paper and my nose was so sore I could barely touch it. My throat was now scratchy, too, and I’m sure the handful of other patrons in the theater were quite horrified by this sneezing, wheezing young Jew in the tenth row. I once again left the auditorium and went down to the lounge where I used up an entire roll of toilet paper while I sneezed about one hundred times. I went back up, managed to get to the end of Lisbon, but had no idea what was going on. I walked back to my father’s restaurant and he drove me home – a couple of hours later and the allergy attack was over. Just like that. Curiously, I have never seen Lisbon since, but I HAVE had hundreds upon hundreds of allergy attacks. They continued throughout my childhood unabated. By the time I hit the ninth grade they just disappeared and I had no more allergy attacks until the early 1970s, when they suddenly came back stronger than ever. Nothing helped – no over-the-counter pill would do anything to stave off my horrible allergy attacks. I finally went to my then-wife’s family doctor, a crusty, very cold and off-putting man, who gave me a shot of Cortisone and gave me two weeks supply of Prednisone pills. That worked instantly, and my allergies were gone for the rest of the year. So, once a year, when allergies struck, off I went for my shot of Cortisone and my Prednisone pills. I did that for about seven years, and then the allergies disappeared again for several years. And then they came back, but I didn’t want to do the Cortisone/Prednisone thing and I was divorced and didn’t want to go back to that doctor anyway. I tried every over-the-counter pill and finally found the one that worked – Actifed. And that got me through until some screwed up people started extracting some drug from the Actifed and using it for some other purpose to get high or something. Leave it to drug pushers and users to screw up everything nice. So, they made Actifed a behind-the-counter thing so that if I had an attack after nine at night, I was out of luck until the pharmacy department returned in the morning. Actifed finally came up with an alternate version of their pill and, of course, it doesn’t work at all. They discontinued the older version – thanks drug pushers/users and may you all rot in hell. I then discovered Alavert, which works the way Actifed used to – still is behind-the-counter, but up front and not in the pharmacy. You have to let them swipe your drivers license and you have to sign a thing, but at least you can get it easily.
Speaking of addictions, I did have one funny little addiction in the late 1960s for about a year. I always had a stuffed-up nose and someone recommended Vick’s Inhaler to me. I used it and it really cleared my sinuses. Within a week, I was whipping out my Vick’s Inhaler every two minutes. Sometimes I could be seen walking down the theater department hallways with the inhaler just stuck up my nose. I had an inhaler on my back. I loved that thing. Around 1970 I went cold turkey and have been sober, Vick’s Inhaler-wise ever since.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because my eyes are itchy and I must take an Alavert and then I think I’m going out to get a salad and perhaps finish proofing the new novel.
Yesterday was, I suppose, a nice day. I got up early, did the long jog, had a visit from Ted Detweiler, with whom I’ll be working very soon. Then I did a bunch of errands, then had a sandwich and fries whilst proofing forty pages of the new novel. Then I picked up some packages, visited the NoHo Arts Center Theater and had a nice meeting there about the Nudie Musical reading. After that, I came home, packaged up some orders, did some work on the computer, then had to go out and do more errands. After that, I began a motion picture on DVD, but just didn’t feel like watching a motion picture, so instead I listened to CDs and LPs. I haven’t had the patience for a motion picture in quite a few days. I hope that passes soon because I’m getting quite backlogged.
Today, I have only two things to do – I have to go pick up the tapes I just had transferred and then I have to return all those tapes and pick up new ones. That will take what it takes, and then I’ll spend the rest of the day entering the fixes into the new novel. I’m still waiting to hear about doing the sound layback for the Kevin and Sean Show DVD, and I’ll be supping with dear reader Jeanne either today or tomorrow, depending on what I find out.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, pick up tapes, bring back tapes, pick up new tapes, and enter fixes and wait to hear about a layback. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite candies and medicines that you suck on, i.e. cough drops, Allenbury’s Pastilles, hard candies – the ones you’ve loved forever. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I sit and wait for my allergies to stop bothering me and if they don’t I shall start bothering them with no mercy.