musings Archive for October 2007

Why Does Snot Never End?

posted by snarko on Wednesday, October 3 2007

and other ragweed-induced musings

No, I really do wanna know how my nose just keeps running and my eyes just keeps watering? You'd think at some point, you'd dehydrate and run out of these fluids but NAY they just keep producing more and more of it.

I mean, if I hafta pee, at some point I quit peeing, and no amount of trying to pee more will make more pee come. Why can't I just blow my nose and be done with it?

I'm trying to look up the answer, the most interesting of which thusfar was, "SNOT, acronym for 'Studs Not on Top', a Lego 'philosophy' of construction", but of course, this is not the answer I was looking for. And I used to follow this 'philosophy' before receiving Zolos.

My favorite EVER side fact learned was while trying to find out why women's clothing buttons one way, and men's in the other?

I did find that answer. But on the way, I found out Leonardo DaVinci is responsible for the scissors. Pretty cool, huh?

Oh, these are two great "break the rules" that really strengthen the right brain and help art, I swear.

ZOLOS: I hope they still make these. There is absolutely NO WAY to construct anything with symmetry or that stands up well on it's own. But you can build really, really cool things out of them. They rock.

NEIL GAYMAN'S QUOTE: I read an interview he starts every painting--and I love his style and couldn't achieve it--with a single paint flicker across the page. "There is my mistake; I can make no other."

Truly empowering.

But perhaps I'm asking the wrong question. Let's try "runny nose"...

Interesting. "Runny nose" comes from rhinorrhea (it's real term), in which "rhino" means "flowing". But the article only lists causes, not why it never ends. I mean, given this edimology, even diarrhea runs out at a point. Else you dehydrate.

But you don't dehydrate from rhino. You just keep blowing your nose.

Blowing and blowing and blowing.

Pinching between the eyes helps. I'm considering piercing it to put permanent pressure there, it helps so well. Little else does.

Interesting. I "asked Jeeves" and it came up mainly with food stuff.

I don't eat wheat when I feel like this; I can tell it makes it worse, even though it normally doesn't give me trouble. So I'm reading several case studies on food allergies that cause this, and the most common:

Meat. All kinds. Followed by eggs and dairy.

The dairy no surprise. I read "common food allergies" as wheat and dairy. I'm vegetarian/vegan (I eat a small amount of cheese which has alleviated my constant prior blood-sugar fight; shoot me), and didn't know meat had such a high ALLERGY rate. I just knew you shouldn't really eat it, as we're not omnivores.

No, we're not. There is a good reason this is the last food introduced to a baby, and a good reason they puke it for so much longer than the others. Until you build tolerance to the poison, you can't ingest it. And if you quit (as I have), you lose the enzymes that fought against it, and it makes you SICK.

I don't think it at all funny if someone "sneaks" it into my food, as I get violently ill. But I wouldn't call that "allergy". It's poison. I'm not "allergic" to bleach; there's another reason I just can't drink it.

But this still doesn't answer why I don't dehydrate when my nose never stops running?

Aaaaah... the cigarette. Relief, if only temporary. Except I know why it works.

Oh, but the button-direction answer? I was trying to find out while working on my wedding outfits, which I wanted authentic as possible Medieval gowns. Both button-directions are right-handed, from a time when men dressed themselves, but women had a helper button theirs.