tag:dreamwidth.org,2017-04-04:2843422 hearing the cuckoo's cry / I long for Kyoto (Basho) rebeccmeister 2023-10-27T20:57:06Z tag:dreamwidth.org,2017-04-04:2843422:1657556 2023-10-27T20:57:06Z 2023-10-27T20:57:06Z public 1 It's hard to think creative thoughts when one has a headache.<br /><br />After the first day or so of this sinus headache, it finally occurred to me that it would probably be better to just go straight for the iota-Carageenan nasal spray rather than starting with a sinus rinse. So I did, last night and this morning.<br /><br />The current sinus headache hypotheses are: (1) barometric pressure changes related to odd weather patterns, (2) leaf mold allergies, and (3) fighting off some sort of head cold.<br /><br />In the case of (2) or (3) it makes equal sense to apply antiviral substances to the nasal passages. Regarding (1), I haven't been tracking air pressure systematically enough to know whether a 9-millibar swing is big or small.<br /><br />Also regarding the barometric pressure and leaf mold: it has been kind of an odd fall. Early this week the night/morning temperatures got down to the 30's, but today the daytime high temperature got all the way up to 80 degrees F. I have a set of trees that I kind of casually leaf-peep along my bike commute. For example, there's a stand on campus that has some brilliant reds, as photographed last year:<br /><br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/90295829@N00/52428536858/in/datetaken/" title="Fall 2022"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52428536858_8457ee337d_c.jpg" width="800" height="600" alt="Fall 2022" /></a><br /><br />All those leaves are down already this year, and I didn't pause to re-photograph the stand this year because that just seemed silly. But meanwhile, it looks like a number of other trees are only just reaching their peak, and I'm only just starting to see giant raked-up leaf piles in yards. So the collective outcome seems like more of a patchwork and later fall this year than my hazy recollections of prior years. I can't say I am obsessive enough to track tree phenology for any specific trees, though, so I could be totally wrong.<br /><br />In any case, it was a relief to discover that this morning's rowing practice did not make the sinus headache any worse. I would greatly prefer if it would just go away already, though. I don't like headaches that slowly creep back and persist for multiple days.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rebeccmeister&ditemid=1657556" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments