Phlegm problems.

I don't know why - dryness in my apartment causing nasal irritation? hay fever, though it'd be very early in the year for that? - but for like 2-3 weeks in a row last month, I'd wake up in the morning with this heaviness towards the top of the back of my throat, and as I'd gradually wake up and go about my morning routine and put on the coffee, I'd realize that that small heavy feeling at the top of the back of my throat was built up phlegm, and then I'd go snort and hock up dime size pieces of the phlegm into my bathroom sink.

And, often, they were a dulled bright green, though sometimes they were more on the white side, especially if for some reason I got some later in the day.

Anyhow, one morning I was doing this, and they were really dry and thick, and as I began to snort to hock them up to spit them out, one gob must have half come off the back of my throat and it just sat there, and it hung forward onto my soft palate or something and began gagging me, but no matter how much I hocked, I kept gagging and my breath kept being brought short and drawn back in against my will from some shortcircuited physiological reaction no matter how much I tried to undo what was happening, with the result that I was caught in this short rapid breathing and gagging state for what seemed like endlessly.

And then, after what seemed like a full minute of breathless erratic gagging, the small piece of phlegm finally dislodged and came up and went out into the sink, and everything was back to normal.

Overall, it was a really, really horrible experience, almost like drowning, much like that time I almost started drowning back as a kid.

Picking up Trash again, in spring: Bills, bunnies, and forgers.

The other Sunday late afternoon on a very warm day, I went to go pick up some trash from the quarry park, using a black plastic bag in which I'd had bed buggy beddings and then froze on high to get rid of anything in them post-use.

As I was on the far edge of the park, I discovered $5, and then by the area where the druggie gang kids burn something in the ripped-off bottoms of soda cans, there was a shoe box tipped on its side and spilling out wood shavings, and a very white and black bunny with its eyes closed dead right there beside it.

Later, I was at the local bar, and told the bartender to test the $5 bill to see if it was real, since I found it just sitting out in the park.

"That's the excuse that all the forgers use," said the bartender, joking.

Supermarket weirdness.

The other day I was at the supermarket selecting some stew beef, and all of a sudden I was struck by the realization that I was standing amidst rows and rows and rows of hacked up animals, made all neat and cubed and stuck on trays and cellophaned.

It really bothered me, and even almost got me to the edge of queasiness.

Freaking out admin.

I think that I've been really freaking out the admin at the art school.

After I discovered that they weren't following policy in relation to my retaliation complaint, I've been sending in appeals and kicking up everything to higher and higher levels through the process.

Once, when I was even writing an email to kick it up to another level, I received an email from someone at a lower level, responding to some unanswered email from weeks earlier (if my memory serves correctly).

I guess we'll see what happens with this one...

Innovative bread habits.

Usually, I get a big round loaf of Italian bread at the store for my toast in the morning, and I make sure to get out the bread knife and cut down the larger slices into 2s and even 3s so I can freeze the loaf and easily pull out a right-sized piece for when I go to go make toast in the morning.

The other week when I went to go get bread in the morning I discovered that I had forgotten to cut the slices, though; I must have just fired the loaf in the freezer without thinking when I got home from the store, I'm thinking now...

Anyhow, at first I avoided thinking about the situation and used the very small pieces from the very end of the loaf, but then when those were used up, I ended up taking out a big slice and just folding it at around where the size of my piece would have been and tearing a piece off.

Unexpectedly, that worked very well, and I think I'm just going to do that from now on.

Parents' reaction to political phonecalls.

In the weeks leading up to their state's (Democratic) primary, my parents have been getting inundated with phone calls.

My mom even told me one day that they even got a phone call like 9pm the previous night, and it was some Bernie Sanders supporter, my dad found out when he answered the phone.

"Go Bernie!", my mom yelled out in the background, after picking up on who the caller was from hearing my dad speak.

My mom said the guy who was making the call got a chuckle out of that and was pretty amused.

Library Tidbits: Barcode Numbers.

The other week, I was working at the library and in a row of periodicals that I was pulling I found like 3 books shelved relatively closer together where the last 3 digits of their barcodes were units of exactly ten apart (e.g. ...412, ...422, ...432).

Seeing that, I looked closer, and the other digits in their barcodes were exactly the same.

I can't figure out why this would be the case; you think there would have been closer-together numbers in there (e.g. ...413, ...417), if the barcodes had all been applied at once.