From the Tube

For most of my life, I have been on some form of antihistamine and decongestant. My allergies are epic. Recently, however, I decided to stop taking the decongestant. The reasoning behind this maneuver is a bit muddled and long-winded. The important parts are that I stopped taking it and that I am now able to sleep for several hours a night/day (like I'm a person!) and I have had lots of sinus drainage that is filling my digestive tract. Yummy.

Because of the copious amount of snot, I don't feel hungry, ever. This has been a problem all of my life. Everytime someone says some variation of "I only eat when I'm hungry," with the requisite accompaniment of pretentious snobbery, I secretly hope they get to experience my lack of appetite some day. Several times a week, I become light headed and weak, because I haven't eaten enough. Not that I don't want to eat, but that I just don't feel like it. I often just  forget to eat. And, when I remember, it is hard to find something I can force down. My relationship with food is much like that of someone looking at a dessert menu at a restaurant with giant portions; I want to have something, but I'm just too full.

So, when I do feel like eating, I more than make up for the lean times. (My grandma would be sure to point out that I've never been lean, and that I should probably have used a different word. It's amazing I don't have more issues, really.) Tonight, for example, I had an incredibly strong craving for cookie dough.  A monstrous craving that would not be subsided with cookie dough ice cream or chocolate chips -not that I had either- it was of the specific and unyielding variety. Since I did not have the ingredients to make cookie dough, I decided that I must run to Wal-Mart to acquire them immediately. I had to go to Wal-Mart, because this particular craving hit me at about 2 AM. It is well below freezing, and a 20 minute drive one way, but, I reasoned, I also needed ink for the printer, and I was completely out of vinegar. Mika (see below) had just peed on the closet door, and I needed the vinegar to clean it up.

Human Earworm

I blame part of my inability to be productive on a chronic case of human earworm. Put away the Merck Manual, this isn't another disease I'm convinced is killing me. Also, this isn't Star Trek. I call it human earworm becasuse it's like having a song stuck in my head, except it's a person (not literally, obviously). I become completely consumed, and daydream elaborate yet believable situations and conversations. A soap opera in my mind;  there is usually a main storyline with a dashing star, but occasionally I switch to an alternate storyline featuring a lesser character to keep things interesting. And, just like any earworm, no matter what I do, it will not go away.

It's odd that the subjects are rarely people I know, or at least know well. It follows, I guess, as the songs most likely to play on constant repeat in my brain are usually ones I don't know well either. That unfamiliarity is what provides for the, not at all annoying, endless repetition of the three bars of the song I know, as my brain trudges on in a futile attempt to remember what comes after the hook.

I'm not sure if normal people experience human earworms, or if it's just one of those idiosyncrasies that makes me so creepily weird interesting. For the sake of feeling moderately normal, I like to assume that others experience this. I am willing to acknowledge, however,  that most cases of human earworm are likely due to missing someone who was at one time an important part of the affected person's life. So, I'm still a freak.