Opening my eyes this morning was like peeling gauze off of still-damp red crackle paint. For the first time in years, I looked stoned. I closed them immediately and pressed my fingers deep in the sockets, feeling the relief that only pressure can bring to itchy pain. I rolled my eyes experimentally, feeling my scarred marbles move in painful synchronicity.

I thought: "It would be cool to have a wall-eye that I could control. I would freak people out with it all day."

I released my face and looked at the puffy blue-black that surrounded my crackle-glazed stare. Whoa! I looked like hell. Welcome to hay fever country.

Last night Chris and I made a compress soaked in lavender and I sprawled on the bed, pajamas with the baby chickens on them swaddled around me, washcloth tamped into my eyeholes, listening to an episode of Monk.

It felt good, the compress. As long as it was on my face. The relief ended as soon as I removed it and was hit full force by whatever was in the air; Little Portly's fur and dander, dust, mold, pollen, what-have-you. I am starting to hate air. Every time I breathe or otherwise encounter the stuff, it gives me trouble.