The South Is Killing Me

You think this is an exaggeration, but it's not.  It's particularly bad in the spring, summer, and fall.  So three quarters of the year I'm on death's doorstep.  Or death is on my doorstep.  I'm not sure who's more aggressive here--death or me.  Probably me.  I've been told I'm intimidating.  A lot.  I don't even have any tattoos or crazy piercings and yet I'm still intimidating.  

Death doesn't know my secret--that the brusque exterior is a facade meant to protect the gooey inside.  I'm softer than a Cadbury Creme Egg beneath the fragile shell.  All it takes is one tiny crack and the rest explodes (that's the worst part about the Cadbury Creme Eggs).  But three quarters of the year I guess I find myself knocking on deaths' door.  Because I'm aggressive.

You know how you think you're one way, but everyone else tells you a different story?  I know you know what I'm talking about.  How you go your entire life thinking things like, "People scare me.  I don't think I'm EVER going to make any friends.  Starting the school year at a NEW school bites.  I'll be an outcast.  Moving is hard.  I look fat in this shirt.  Do I look fat?  Don't call on me, don't call on me I don't know the answer."

But somehow everyone thinks this about you, "She's going to punch me.  Nothing scares her.  Holy crap that was a close one, I thought she was going to punch me.  She just bit my head off, why'd she do that? All I said was 'you look nice today.'  I'm never complimenting her again. She just accused me of not knowing what I'm talking about . . . she's obviously done her research.  Whoa I thought she was going to punch me . . . again."

I'm not making that up.  I have seen into the minds of people around me.  

Joke.  I haven't.  However, over the years, a picture emerges.  Themes crop up and after enough people tell you certain things about their initial impressions of you, it dawns on you:  you portray a completely different image of yourself than you realize.

I could go into a few personal examples, but they would start to sound like accusations.  Also, it starts to sound like I'm bragging about how I amazing I am.  Because we all know that a bullying demeanor is highly desirable in today's corporate dog-eat-dog world. 

Plus the real point of this meandering post is that the south has a personal vendetta against me.  It would be no big deal if I could just get a doctor to put tubes in my ears or something like that, like a baby (because I'm such a baby, with malfunctioning eustachian tubes).  No idea if that would help, but the problem is the insane amount of allergens in Nashville. 

Medicine's answer?  "Allergy shots."  I put that ridiculous phrase in quotation marks to illustrate how dubious I am about that program.  It's a racket.  No proof it would help.

During the winter I forget and think, "Ah, Nashville's not so bad.  I kind of like it.  Why did I want to move again?"  I still have allergies during the winter, but it's manageable.  

Then spring strikes with a teasing, big-pawed swipe to my head.  The weird, unstable pressure systems that stir up tornadoes sweep through the area and my head implodes.  Then it explodes. At the same time.  That's not enough.  It gets worse.  My ears don't work properly and I die.  

Yep.  I die.     

Then I remember that I wanted to move back to the desert where there are fewer allergens.  But by then it's too late.  The market has crashed and selling my house would put me upside down on my mortgage.

I don't really know if the ear issues will ever go away, even if I move back to Utah.  I went out there for Christmas, and when I came back, I got some weird altitude sickness thing that lasted for a month.  It consisted of sudden bouts of nausea and vomiting.  It was damn weird.  

Thus far the south is winning.  Who can really fight an entire landmass, when you come right down to it?