Phlegmin' Trouble? Phlegmin Luck!

Happy lunchtime everyone! Yes, I know that title works much better with Urine, but (un?)fortunately I'm not having any trouble in that department...on this day.

Anyway, do you find yourself hacking and coughing in severe pain in every atom of your sinuses at even the slightest sign of being rhinovirally afflicted? You do? Congratulations, you're me! You handsome devil you.

Well, I've uncovered a sure fire system to help alleviate your suffering. It will also pretty much ensure that you get to sit by yourself on whatever form of mass transportation you ride to your job. I will now explain your day to you, the snot-throated.

You will wake up. It will hurt to swallow. You will know this is because of the chunks of snot in your throat. This thought will disgust you, but you must use the disgust to your advantage. You will try and cough, and you will blow your nose. Repeatedly. This will not work. You will have an enormous headache that seems to start in the center of your nose and rise up and wrap around your eyes, as though some asshole were trying to squeeze the life out of your eyes.

Here's what you must do: You must make yourself throw up. Now. You don't recall how you discovered this, and you don't really want to remember. You do not actually throw up. You merely make yourself gag. this will do one of two things: make a giant hunk of snot come racing out of your mouth; or send the hunk of snot up your sinus passages into the nasal region, in which case you will feel a sudden and serious blockage. You can then blow your nose until you see a gigantic viscous green wad in your tissue. It is going to be enormous, and you are going to want to play with it, because you can't believe this gleaming chunk of goo was in your throat for the past few hours. Resist this urge. Someone will see you. And remember to use Puff plus lotion. Your nose will thank you.

Also, note that this is something you will have to do multiple times during the day. Remember to do anything you can to distract yourself, so that you're not sitting next to someone on the train, coughing and trying your best to discreetly hock up phlegm. It isn't working.

On a semi-related note: If you had "2" as the page number on a google image search for "puffs plus lotion" as being the first page in that search to contain porn, you are the winner. Your prize is in my coat pocket. At first it's going to feel a bit like a soggy tissue, but once you see it you'll realize that it is actually several soggy tissues.

So Will There Be Wine and Cheese at the Gallery Opening?

Anyone up for a trip to New Haven for miscarriage art show?

"Beginning next Tuesday, [Aliza] Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts' project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock . saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion."

Now I... you see... umm...well the thing is that...

This whole thing gives me the shvarts.

Anyway, the article goes on to say the sperm donors were not paid, but were tested periodically for STDs and such. Nowhere does it mention whether or not they were told what would become of their potential babies - though I guess bloody bath tub mess, inside a sock, what difference does it make? Let's press on.

"I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity," Shvarts said. "I think that I'm creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be."

Gross?

At least it will be presented in a like, tasteful way. Right?

The display of Shvarts' project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Shvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Shvarts' self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.

Shvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

Ok good, I was afraid it would be disgusting.

Shvarts emphasized that she is not ashamed of her exhibition, and she has become increasingly comfortable discussing her miscarriage experiences with her peers.

"It was a private and personal endeavor, but also a transparent one for the most part," Shvarts said. "This isn't something I've been hiding."

I.am.so.with.you.

Just name the time and the place...

The official reception for the Undergraduate Senior Art Show will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on April 25. The exhibition will be on public display from April 22 to May 1. The art exhibition is set to premiere alongside the projects of other art seniors this Tuesday, April 22 at the gallery of Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall on Chapel Street.

See you there!

Human Beings Are Gross, Stupid.

So for the past week, I've been sick. It hasn't been as bad this week, but my throat is still a bit raw and I'm still blowing my nose about 100,000 times a day - Puffs with Lotion is God, FYI. So aside from wondering how much blood it's normal to see mixed in your dirty tissue, I've spent a fair amount of time wondering how disgusting I must look to other people on the train every morning.

Without fail, every day, my throat bothers me until at some point I force-cough and hack what can only be described as a pretty solid ball of snot out of my throat. Then I feel fine for a while. It's awesome. But to a person seated directly across from me for forty-five minutes, I would imagine listening to me hack and dry heave is at least a slightly unpleasant way to start one's morning.

So here is the story of how this particular morning went:

I switched jackets this morning, and as such, cleaned all the dirty tissues out of the coat I was to wear. I then made sure I had one of those Kleenex to-go packs in my inside breast pocket. At some point between home and the train, I used one of said tissues (I do not remember if it was in the car, walking at the station, or on the train itself) and placed it in a front hand pocket. The next time I needed a tissue was during the train ride. The tissues were missing from my breast pocket. This led to a frantic search for about 5 minutes. I checked and rechecked every pocket of my jacket at least ten times. I was then sort of resigned to my fate of reusing the same tissue one more time.

This however, would be far from the last time I needed a tissue. After the already very soiled tissue was wet and ripping apart and no longer able to be blown into in any fashion - this includes a two minute period of nonstop coughing, hacking and dry heaving in which I coughed up a slimy green snot worm - I became desperate. I tore through my bag for at leas the third time. Since I could feel the ball of mucus pulsating in my right nostril with every breath, I was in no mood to fuck around. I saw a lens cleaning wipe that I had gotten from a demonstration on HD cameras a while back. This was my last hope.

No longer worrying about who might be judging me, I proceeded to unleash the bloody glop into the makeshift hanky and let me tell you. It. Was. Good.

Relieved, I placed the now balled up and useless lens wipe into my front pocket, wondering to myself at one point I would have to use this non absorbent piece of cloth next... Of course, I then went to reorganize the mess I had made in my mad dash to find a snot receptacle, and there, on my lap, slightly covered by my jacket, sat the packet of tissues I had been searching for the whole time. Such is my life folks.

Also. Isn't being a person weird? I wondered the other day how much weight has been expelled from my body in the past week or so, in terms of mucus. How much of one's body weight at any given point is snot? Or potential snot? Because I feel like over the past week I've lost more mucus than I thought one person should have in their entire body at all.