I'm still catching up from my unscheduled downtime Monday, and a little overwhelmed by the pressure. There are days and then there are days. Some of my worst days are when the Boss gets his weekly envelope in the mail from me. For a while today he was calling me every couple of minutes, with a what's-this and a what's-that. Why did we do things that way? Well, because I asked you how and you said "that way." Remember? No, I didn't think you would.

It's not so much the actual work that's hard. In fact, it's not hard at all. But the distractions! The interruptions! The absolute need to keep going on one task until its done, opposed by the absolute need to take a break once in awhile. Sometimes it's like I'm part of a split-screen movie, flashing from one frantic scene to another, when what I really need is for the projector to break and the theater to go dark for twenty minutes.

I really think that part of the reason I'm having such trouble getting through the day lately is allergies. It can't all be lack of sleep. I'm getting five or six hours a night, most nights, and that should be enough. If it's not I should be able to make it up on the weekend. But the effort it takes to breathe when the wind and the grasses and the pollen and the dust block up my head — now that's enough to wear me down by the middle of the day.

After I stopped dosing myself regularly with over-the-counter decongestants, I felt better all over, almost immediately. I was much less nervous, tense and edgy. All three, plus anxious and uptight. Plus, it wasn't working. I couldn't breathe, and I was jittery and jumpy. I can get that combination from coffee and Mountain Dew and get a lot more pleasure out of the whole situation as well.

For a long time I was addicted to nasal spray. This wasn't like a chemical addiction. This was like actually not believing I could breathe unless I squirted Vicks Sinex up into my head several times a day. The only way I could stop was by convincing myself that it was doing membrane damage and quitting cold turkey. Now all I use is a simple saline solution, and while it's almost totally ineffective, it's also almost totally harmless.

The result of all the changes in the way I treat my allergies is that I'm doing less artificial damage to myself. Any harm that comes my way now is natural, from the grasses and pollen and dust. Somehow that seems less like digging my own grave, and I feel better about myself even if I can't breathe half the time. All in all, I prefer it this way. Wheeze.

The best thing I have going for me right now is that the yard waste container goes out to the curb tomorrow night. It's been full since Sunday, and the high weeds are driving me nuts. This is the opposite of my job, where I have a long list of things to be done, but I skate by doing as little as possible. With the yard work, I want to keep going but I have to stop because of circumstances I can't control. It almost makes me think I'm in the wrong line of work.