NETI AND THE BUBBLIES*

(warning -- not for prudes)



It's dry and cold -- duh, it's winter -- and more than ever before my nose has become a de facto booger factory. Today I woke up and as usual ‘twas full of hard, crusty snot, with a little bit of the slippery stuff mixed in to keep it interesting. The color was a cloudy greenish yellow (don’t tell me you don’t look at yours) and like some fine marble 'twas laced with colorful red veins.... for blood, of course. Digging out the gob was complicated by the tre-fashionable nose-pin, which acts as a magnet for the stuff. The chore required digit, tissue and ear bud**, and caused pain to the membrane (poor, poor cilia!) while eliciting yet more blood ‘n’ boogers....to be collected later of course.

(The way to remedy this Winter Snot Problem is to hydrate properly and humidify the bedroom and coat the nostrils with sesame oil... the last of which is an old ayurvedic trick. But it hasn’t really been working lately and I’m thinking about becoming a true orange-wearing weirdo and investing in a Neti Pot***).

Later I rode my bike**** to Sixtysomething Man #2’s house today for a private lesson and on the way I made like a farmer and cleared out my nostrils, One, Two. Very satisfying.

I locked my bike, went in, said hello, and started our lesson... during which I touched my face and noticed a supersticky dark green bubbly* hovering above my lip. It immediately affixed itself to my middle finger. I rolled it into a ball as I talked SSM2 through Surya Namaskar A and frantically tried to find a place to stash it.

Finally I decided on the cover of the little notebook in which I record what happens in each of my classes.***** “I’ll stick it in a Kleenex after class,” I thought. During Parsvakonasana my hand went back to my face and I found a couple more bubblies! Dark ones. “What must SSM2 think of me, what with a face full of boogers?”****** I wondered, as I carefully transferred the lot of them to the notebook.

During Savasana I wrote down what we did and headed to the head for a much-needed leak.....While there I remembered the boogers, and fear gripped my heart. I grabbed a scrap of TP and flew out to investigate the notebook... and found not a single bit of snot. Not on the notebook, not anywhere. Not even on me.

It’s in his house somewhere.*******

Poor man.


Bad lady, more like it.




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*"Bubblies" was my mother's word for boogers, which she loathed. She wasn't afraid of much, but the bubblies really got to her. Which reminds me. Before I could speak I created an installation on the pink wall next to my bed. My medium? Nasal mucous. Each and every morning and evening and even during naptime I would harvest the stuff and affix it to the wall, until it was partially covered in my special homemade stucco. When Cam discovered it she was utterly horrified. If only she'd saved it .... Take that, Karen Finley!********

**Brit-speak for Q-Tip

***The Neti Pot looks like a cross between a bong and well-endowed gravy boat and is used by True Believers to irrigate the sinuses:
http://www.healthandyoga.com/html/clean/nasal.html

****The Saltbox (car) was hit by a truck the other day and is in the shop.... which is a whole ‘nother story.

*****The notebook is a huge help in keeping track of things like What type of class I taught last time, How many students came, Who went into headstand for the first time and How sad (or nonexistent) my own practice was that day.

******Last week the unflappable Jack calmly pointed out a fat juicy one lounging right smack in the middle of my face.....which I ashamedly removed posthaste.

*******Does anybody know what it's like when boogers dry? www.lyricsfreak.com/p/prince/111221.html

********Think “Yam Slam” and NEA Four: http://www.yale.edu/opa/v28.n17/story18.html

*********Has anyone done their dissertation yet on the many similarities betwen “boogers” and “bloggers?”