I Have An Ingrown Hair In My Nose

I know it's gross and kind of an old-person thing to say, but it's true and it hurts like a <insert appropriate swear word/phrase here>.  It feels like I have a pulsating land mine shoved up my nostril and it makes me want to claw my nose off of my face and go back to bed.  At the very least, it makes me not want to 'blog.

Normally I wouldn't talk about this kind of thing, but it hurts a lot and I don't have the wherewithal to ignore it.  If the trend for my 'blog is to write about what's going on in my life, that's about all I'm able to focus on right now, so we'll go with that, I suppose.  Besides, I have kind of an embarrassing body, anyway, and I don't think that ingrown nasal hair does much to lower the property value for everything else.  It would be similar to complaining about the poorly manicured flowerbeds on a condemned building.

When did I get so old?  Everybody I know who's at least five years older than me will look at that statement and laugh, but I'm serious... I don't remember having to deal with this kinda crap when I was 17.  It seems like every day, something else happens to remind me that I have a birthday coming up in a few weeks and the numbers aren't going backward.  I woke up a week or so ago and thought my shoulder had been torn out of its socket in my sleep.  I mean, I know I was laying on it kinda funny, but there's a difference between being a little stiff for an hour or so when you first wake up and being in pain three days later from a high-speed boating accident that never happened.

It's weird, man... this whole business of "aging."  I remember being a kid and feeling like 8 meant something, like everybody else should be happy that I'm 8, because 8 years-and-one-day ago, I didn't exist.  I guess maybe that's why little kids like birthdays so much: it's a celebration of a recent phenomenon; of moving from non-being into being.  But then it stops being such a remarkable thing.  "Getting" your life becomes less of a miracle than what you happen to be doing with it.  You go through a graduation ceremony or two and suddenly, nobody really cares what you learned over the last year and everybody wants to know what you did.

And I guess I'd be okay with that if I didn't feel like my body was fighting back so hard.  I mean, I've had some big accomplishments in the last year that I'm really proud of.  Quitting drinking and finishing my degree are huge.  If I did nothing else with 27 (and I'm honestly struggling to figure out whether or not I did) those would still set the bar really high for 28.  But to have to do all this and start figuring out whether Aleve or Ibuprofen is better for all my aches and pains kinda feels like I'm being rewarded for my troubles with a swift kick in the teeth.  Or shoulder, as it were.

I'm gonna stop before I start complaining about kids these days and their hippity-hoppity raps.  I'm really not mad about getting older or anything, I think I'm just starting to understand my dad better and see why he's never that excited about his birthday.  Then again, he also has to deal with the Birchristhmasday Eve contingency, where one gift is obviously inferior to the other, assuming he gets two presents for it at all.  Personally, I would have been more demanding from the outset if I were him and made my parents put up a Mikemas Tree, too, but whatever.  I was lucky enough to be born in a month with nothing more than a bank holiday in it, so my celebration tends to be a bit more pure and give everyone a chance to focus on what's important.

I'll probably be posting a list soon.  If you don't know what to do with it when you see it, then I don't know if I can help you.

Also, if you haven't subscribed to my 'blog yet, please do.  It doesn't take long and if you already have a Gmail account, then that takes care of like, 90% of the registration process.  Plus, it's nice to know who I'm talking to.

See you Monday.