The Nasal Enema

Last week I visited an alternative health practitioner who did all sorts of interesting things to my head and the inside of my mouth in an effort to adjust my apparently scarred and malfunctioning melon. In a very "the thigh bone's connected to the knee bone" way, this may be partially the cause of chronic infections that make my eardrums go ppht.

That's just the back story though. What I want to talk about today is my new practice of nasal lavage, or basically pouring a bunch of salt water up ones nose in an effort to flush allergens and unwanted gunk from the cilia, the little wavy hairlike things inside your shnozz. Yoga types do this with a neti pot, low-tech people snurfle water up from their cupped hands, and the Professional Critic squirts it up there with a bulb syringe, the kind that moms use to suction snot out of their babies' clogged nostrils.

Based on some responses out there on the interweb (the evacuation of "evil chunks"), I was expecting something a bit more dramatic to come out of my nose--a long-lost sock, some beef jerky or the Commodore 64 computer I had in 1980something, but it was all just very thin clear, you know, snot. Too soon to tell whether my nasal enema is making a difference, but how very cool that this could accomplish what piles of Claritin and steroid nasal spray could not.

In a more shallow matter, Angelina is starting to develop the bobble-headed quality of the emaciated female, formerly rocked by Calista and Nicole. Not too long ago this girl had some enviable curves, now she appears ready for an NG tube. Scary.