Post # 8, The Heat is On

Hey, I can't believe I made it to 8 posts. I don't know why I've kept up so long with this; there must be somethin good about it. Maybe something I can take from my blog is that: we're always looking for true passion and always afraid that we won't be able to maintain it once we find it, but passion finds you and it keeps pulling you in. Unfortunately, this point has nothing to do with my post tonight, which may be an indication of my publishing quality. My last post on dog sex is further evidence that my standards may be slipping right off a cliff. But! Onwards and upwards to number 9!

The heat is on in Khon Kaen, city of the motorcycles and air that is cleaner than Bangkok but dense enough to trap heat. It topped a hundred today and I was sweating bullets. But that's ok, the real problem is that my face continues to swell. I'm pretty sure I had an allergic reaction to some food. It started with itchy lips, that crusty stuff growing on the sides of my mouth, then dryness, then bloating- my lips have never been more robust, and now finally swelling around my face with itchiness. This, is studying abroad. My roommate and all his friends are concerned about me. They visit my dorm in hordes like I'm on my deathbed. One is studying pharmacy, so she gave me some anti-histamines. I don't know how this happened but I've got a good guess. First, I'm sticking with the food allergy hypothesis. If we accept that it is a food allergy, what food you might ask? Well, even though I'm a vegetariano, I've always been an omnivore- my palate a welcoming home to any flavor and essence. But, if I learned anything from my last unit of study on agriculture, it's that our food has more chemicals than ever before. Chemicals that aren't meant to play nicely with the food, the earth, and most definitely not our bodies. Chemicals that give vegetables a deceptive golden glow and the body a sweet rash. So, I've begun planting a garden in front of the office to ensure that this won't happen again. If you don't want your face to resemble that of a chipmunk, you should do the same. Don't worry about me mom, I'll be fine, really. Sometimes, no matter how many anti-histamines we throw at life, it becomes increasingly swollen and we have the tendency to become increasingly irritated. What do we do in these moments, I wonder? What is it like to feel an itch but not scratch?