How to blow your nose, expensively
Blah. I'm sick. This morning I commented to my editor that I wished I had one of those little suction tubes they use at dentist offices to suck all the snot out of my head. She suggested instead that I get a neti pot, a tool that's been used for nasal cleansing in India for, oh, a million years or something. I hear it's one of the six purification rituals that goes along with some kind of yoga. One of the kinds. Like swallowing cloth or pumping water into your ass. She said it might hurt, but I'd wash all the mucus out of my skull. So being an adventurous bird greatly desirous of a clear nasal passage, I headed over to the Healing Arts Centre this afternoon to purchase said gizmo. Remedy Herbal Pharmacy sold me one for $22, a price that better damn well reflect some Fair Trade or something for a piece of ceramic crap made in China. Greedy hippies!
I totally love this photo. To me, it says, "Hey look! I'm a normal girl like you with my blond hair and polo shirt. I belong to the Country Club! See, nasal washes aren't just for squinty-eyed heathens! Us normal white girls can do it, too! Hey, want to come to the 'Outstretched in Praise' class at my church with me? It's like, yoga stretches, but without all the false gods."
I made Conrad read me the directions as I stuck the saline-filled teapot up my nostril and tipped it. I was never quite able to get all the water to come out of my other nostril; some of it did, but some of it spilled out the corner of my mouth. I looked totally disgusting--snot pouring out of one hole, salty water out of another. Now if only I would start bleeding from my ears. After you rinse, then you have to "exhale vigorously" which pretty much means blow really hard over the sink. As promised, a lot of snot came out and the warm water loosened things up in there, but ten minutes later, I was completely congested again.
Conrad gave me his expensive bottle of Zicam nasal spray ($18), which totally cleared me up, but felt like I'd given my nostrils an acid bath for about ten minutes. Verdict: chopsticks are charming, but when you've really got to get the job done, pick up a fork. Neti pot < Possibly harmful chemicals. Maybe I'll give it to one of my crunchy-granola friends from Canopy. I'll put it in a gift basket with some soy nuts and a recycled-fiber pullover.
April
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