Forgive my lack of enthusiasm the past couple of days. I am running a terrible cold which started last week and instead of resolving, has only gotten steadily worse each day.
By yesterday it was much too late to abort the cold, but I did remember the trusty old Yin Chiao I’ve had lying about for over a year, and this inspiring commercial:
Would have been interesting to have started it last Friday. But what the hell. I’m combining it with GanMaoLing, Theraflu at night, plus sage tea. And of course, the usual acetaminophen, and Vitamin C. I dread having to step up to Sudafed as it has unpleasant psychoactive properties.
I hate the inconvenience, but I should consider myself lucky that I have not had a full-blown cold in a over a year.
Also on the bright side, this is a blog, so I don’t have to worry about spreading my rhinoviruses online. No amount of coughing, sputtering, or nose-blowing will harm a single reader!
There’s plenty of serious news out there, but I am not in the mood right now. However, Glenn linked an article that reminded me of something I would like to take medication to forget. I attended a party of strangers more than thirty-five years younger than I was, and the moment I walked in they all looked up in fear. Seriously, they seemed genuinely afraid of an older person being at their party, which I found frustrating, as I am unaccustomed to being regarded with fear simply because of my age.
My guess is that they asssociate age with authority, and I might have been perceived as some sort of professor authority figure (which sucks as I am anything but an authority figure). Either that or they were raised by paranoid parents to fear and run from older strangers, and I certainly was that.
Things weren’t quite the same when I was in college. People in the early 70s were more daring. (If we wanted to go somewhere and didn’t have a car, we would hitch-hike.) Had someone 35 years older shown up at a party in those days, it would have added interest, not fear. An older person would have been greeted with perhaps curiosity, and maybe a little natural suspicion, but certainly not fear. He would have been engaged in discussion. Funny thing is, I’m a Baby Boomer but I really loved the Generation Xers, and worked with them for years. The Xers were also fearless and outgoing, as is supposed to be normal for young people — but that just doesn’t the same as the current crop of kids who are coming of age. I’m damned if these kids don’t look as if they’d run away if you so much as said Boo! Perhaps that reflects the fact that they’ve been sheltered from actual reality, distracted by innumerable artificial realities, and then forced to take medication to cope with their inability to pay attention to things that aren’t worth paying attention to.
Anyway, I shouldn’t be generalizing based on a single incident, but the kids seem harder to reach, and I’m glad it isn’t my job to reach them.
I don’t mean to be judgmental. Seriously, if I’d been raised on Ritalin, I’d probably be fearful too. That stuff would make anyone paranoid.
UPDATE: As I tend to suffer from chronic cough, when I get a cold, the coughing becomes horrific. I have just tried out a new remedy: African Sea Coconut brand cough syrup. It’s an old fashioned mixture that includes Ipecac and Squill, and while I can’t say how, I can say that it really works. I’m quite surprised.
Comments
4 responses to “In need of meds”
a) kids of boomers (the echo boom, of which my older kid is in the last year, at 19)are THE most authority respecting generation ever. This is because most boomers raised their kids to disrespect all authority EXCEPT theirs, which the kids were supposed to obey slavishly. (NOT all boomers, of course — I doubt Simon has done that. BUT it’s what I see, in general.)
b)You are (sorry) a boomer, and these kids have been taught to revere boomers.
As someone who falls in the unamed generation between boomers and xers, (no, look, seriously? I was entering highschool in seventy five. I don’t have the boomers’ touchstones.) I find the children of boomers somewhat annoying. Not as annoying, though, as the generation after.
I have two kids, one nineteen — he shocks his classmates by not giving a hang what his boomer professors think of his opinions — and one sixteen. We were the younger parents, generally, when meeting with Robert’s class, the older by something like ten years when meeting with (Eric) Marshall’s. Robert’s classmates accross the various schools tended to be almost stodgy in their conformity (even if it was to “non-conformity” — learned non conformity. ARGH.) Marshall’s were FERAL. I don’t know why, but I could hazard guesses having to do with ‘can’t afford to stay home and raise kid’ and ‘I want to be his/her best friend and the state will arrest me if I punish them, even non-physically’ (Ask me sometime about the exploratory meetings they had with kids at the schools, fishing for what the parents might be doing wrong in raising them. I wish I were kidding.) but most of those kids act like they grew up in the jungle. I don’t mean misbehaving. I mean like some essential human element is missing. It would take a post — or two — to explain.
I’m still upset that they took out whatever made Alka Seltzer Cold and Flu work.
Now I just drink gallons of grapefruit juice when I start to feel sick. It works pretty well.
I left a comment here and now it’s gone!
At least I’m pretty sure I did.
So let this be a test.
I feel compelled to point out that highschool in Portugal started with seventh grade. I’m at an age when a couple more putative years on my age bother me. 🙂
Eric, I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find the comment. Is it possible it was “glitch while posting” — they happen. I’m using this as a test, also.