Week 196: decongestant

Sunday 18 December 2022

• It’s been icy out. Today the thaw began and I never thought I’d be so happy about something melting. In the countryside, the frost only turns things pretty and stops the mud being squelchy, but in town slippery pavements are a menace.

  So walking gingerly, sometimes in the sort of way you’d walk (I imagine) if you’d pooed your pants and were trying to make sure the turd didn’t fall down the trouser-leg chute. I may have improvised some little dances, arms flailing to keep my balance, but I’m pleased to say I didn’t fall over once.

• Caught another lurgy. Congested orifices (nose, ears) gave way to coughing. The worst thing is worrying the hacking cough cough cough is disturbing the neighbours, because who can tell if I’ve never heard them cough because the soundproofing is good or they’re really healthy.

  I’m dubious of the branded medications that are just paracetamol + caffeine + a marketing budget, although if the “Nurofen” branding has a placebo effect that’s still a useful effect. Perhaps I should consider a Beechams or a Night Nurse, maybe there’s something to them. I had some phenylephrine, which I now learn is an pretty useless decongestant – I might go as far as calling it a so-called decongestant – offered only because you can’t make crystal meth out of it.

• Just noticed that a prominent bit of the Mastodon website, the “Insert emoji” button, is a picture of the awful Face with Tears of Joy (“crying laughing”) glyph. It’s next to the text “What’s on your mind?”, which takes on an obnoxious undertone. Of course it’s federated so I’m free to fork the software and host my own instance, but who can be arsed with that.

  I don’t think I’ll ever have have a thought important enough to toot – I’ll keep writing here instead – but scrolling is a fun way of filling time until we all die so it’ll be a shame if the car salesman who tortures apes bans me from his website (not that I think he’ll dare).

• Moved the weeping fig into three spacious separate pots – soaking the roots in water makes disentangling easier. So now I’ve three pathetic spindly looking things, it’s easy to see why they needed to huddle together to appear bushier, but this time next year, just wait.

• 🎦 Aftersun.