The gods must be crazy

A Mr. Pibb bottle, hidden in the woods

I have a cold. I am 95 percent sure it's a cold and not allergies because (1) I have been taking Zyrtec and Singulair for allergies since August 10, in anticipation of the goldenrod and ragweed blooms and (2) my husband has a cold and he is not very good at keeping his germs to himself.

The allergy drugs are expensive, and I want to stop taking them. However, when my allergies flair up, so does my vertigo. I find it hard to function when I can't stand up straight and feel sick from the room spinning.

That makes it hard to stop taking the drugs. So far acupuncture hasn't been able to help this.

With this cold, the vertigo has returned in spite of the drugs. I woke several times in the night because I forgot and turned over. Each turn made the bed feel like I'd fallen into a small rowboat in the midst of a semi-calm sea. It has been worse but it is not a very good experience.

At least now I know the vertigo likely won't stay with me forever. That is a comfort. But it also makes it difficult to function properly for several hours after I get up, which is not very comforting.

I thought I might try Zicam, which is a homeopathic nasal spray. I have used it in the past and thought it helped. I had to venture out to the bank this morning and while I was out I stopped at Kroger and bought a bottle - $8.99 - and used it in the car.

Of course, on a whim after I returned home I tapped into Google just to see what was said about Zicam, and discovered that the prescription company settled with 340 people who lost their sense of smell, allegedly because they used this.

Sigh.

I try to be a healthy person. I have never been one and have no idea what that feels like, but it is a goal. I eat fairly well these days. My one (one!) bad choice generally is chocolate, and I don't eat that in abundance. I haven't been able to give that up because, well, I went for 10 years without it. Then I found this year I could eat it again and not get a migraine and it's been difficult to go back to being without it. Chocolate is akin to heaven, or something like it.

So what I have given up since I turned 40? Potato chips. Caffeine. Colas, all forms of carbonated water. Pastas, bread, oats, wheat, black pepper, tomato-based sauces, milk, cheeses.

I eat soy, meat (generally chicken and fish, I am not much of a red meat eater, meatloaf notwithstanding), eggs, and green vegetables. Brown rice. Nuts, raisins, trail mix. And chocolate. I drink decaffeinated tea, sometimes with a dollop of honey, and water.

Sometimes I get quite bored with my diet and do something rash, but since I almost always pay for it with an allergy or a stomach ache or heartburn, I don't do that often.

I exercise 40 minutes a day, five days a week.

I do Tai Chi with a couple of tapes.

I take a multi vitamin, vitamins B2, B12, C and E in extra supplements. Magnesium malate (which in conjunction with B2 keeps migraines at bay). Probiotic Acidopholus, and flaxseed oil.

I don't smoke or drink. I do swear.

And all around me - us - are cancer-causing foods, medications with horrid side effects, food with e-coli, molds, pollens, and pollution spewing from smokestacks. There are nuclear bits and pieces in everything we inhale, because we are constantly inhaling the past and the present and the stupidity of governments that have gone before and that still exist today. The air moves all over the world and you and I and Tony Blair breathe it in and exhale it so it can flow along and enter someone else's lungs, maybe a hundred years from now.

We've polluted the water, contaminated the fish, given the animals wasting diseases from too much or too little "management," stripped the food of its nutrients and "reintroduced" synthetic vitamins in the hopes of putting back the very things we took out.

We've analyzed, criticized, synthesized, homogeniezed, pasturized and purified until nothing is as it should be and we wouldn't recognize it if it was.

And then I think that if I don't eat chocolate, I will finally feel better?

Somebody hand me a Hershey Bar.