That Time of Year Again!

“April is the cruelest month, breeding….” fodder for my allergies. To further abuse literature and literary allusions: “It [is] the best of times, it [is] the worst of times.” It is gorgeous outside, but I can’t breathe; I am not sure how I feel about this trade-off. This recent allergy attack, coupled with the worst cold and flu season of the last five years and subsequently feeling like I’ve been sick for the last two months led me last week to conclude the worst…

We all have some secret (or not so secret) focused form of hypochondria; some illness out there that is somehow worse than all the others and we somehow, perversely, are so much more likely to contract. For my mother this fixation changes with whatever Newsweek article she has read most recently (our household has equipped itself for every passing epidemic from Mad Cow to Bird Flu). For others, this fixation is, well, fixed. For example, a friend of mine in college felt this way about herpes. Every few months there would be a panic attack precipitated by the fear that a pimple around her mouth indicated infection. A trip to student health would clear this up and bring things back to normal operation. However, I always found it funny how this very specific STD managed to inspire such terror, and a terror that was not shared over other potential diseases. More serious infections such as Hepatitis B, syphilis, Chlamydia etc. didn’t raise a thought, herpes simplex was simply all.

I teased my friend, but I am not much different. For me, this fear is mono. Every time I get a cold a part of me (that unreasonable voice in the back of my mind) attributes it to mono. And its not only the cold symptoms: “Gee, my shoulder really hurts, hope it isn’t mono” or “Gosh, I just can’t pay attention in class, I must have mono”. All this to say that when I woke up this past Thursday dizzy, fatigued and with a drippy nose I came to one diagnosis: mono. I just needed a doctor to corroborate.

So I made and appointment and in the interim attended classes and a conference and enjoyed the feeling of martyrdom as I reconciled myself to the idea of the dreaded disease.

Naturally, during this time I was getting quite accustomed to the prospect of enforced bed rest (ha! Forget the bar!), and enthusiastic that I would have such an excuse for my laziness over the last month, so imagine my disappointment when the Doctor came back with the diagnosis: allergies. So much less dramatic and I don’t think that I can use this as an excuse to the same effect.

Ah, Spring. Much can (and has) been said of the season: “Nothing is so beautiful as spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush” (Gerard Manly Hopkins); when “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love” (Tennyson). This brings me to my next topic: “A little madness in the Spring / Is wholesome even for the King.” (Dickinson). Let me share with you my little madness and why I think it very wholesome.

Having gotten the clean bill of health I went out that night with two of my roommates, Kitty and Elizabeth.
Before I continue further, I would like to stop and advise my Uncle Tim, who I ill-advisedly (considering the direction of this blog) supplied the address to a month ago, to stop here. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. In the name of Thanksgiving, and sweet potato pie and all things holy and familial do not continue to read this entry. Jump to my rant on Eliot Spitzer and other people’s scandalousness…

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Okay, the rest of you, are you still with me? Are you seated comfortably? Good. After all that build up (I invoked Sweet Potato Pie for goodness sakes!) I am afraid that this is going to be a bit anti-climatic.

Anyways, I went out with Kitty and Elizabeth. Topo was full that night. Apparently our rival University was hosting an MBA rugby tournament that weekend. Now, I’ve been kicking myself since last year when up in NYC for my cousin’s graduation, I called an early night (we were going to the Met! I wanted to be rested!) and missed the opportunity to, how does one say, Mack (?) with visiting Irish rugby players with my cousins. Let’s just say that “The Cloisters” with my parents the next day was paltry consolation. Ah, but here, a second opportunity!

Long (or rather, not so long as it really should have been) story short, met an interesting fellow from Stanford. This ex-physicist/current MBA provided the opportunity to experiment with some basic principles of physics. For example, let’s look at Newton’s Laws of Motion, in translation:
1) Bodies in motion are gonna stay in motion.
2) “Acceleration of a body is proportional to, and in the same direction as, the force acting upon it.” (ie: you know where this is headed and you have to be prepared to exert your own force)
3) For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. – I think that speaks for itself.

Yes, simple, basic stuff. And I can see a number of you (most particularly you, Tessa) rolling your eyes at my geekiness in comparing hook-ups to Newton’s law of inertia etc, but I think it applies. It was a valuable experience – nothing like hands on experiments!

Spring indeed.
Never mind “The Waste Land,” Eliot, this Profrock is going to dare to eat a peach!