*sneeze*

*sneezesneeze*

*snoooooorrrfle-GOGOGHHH! Sneeeeze!*

Allergy season has struck. I am uncertain if it is the mold in the rotted drywall, if the sprunging of spring has set loose the demons of Ragweed and Pollen upon the earth, or if my mild aversion to cat dander/dust mites/whatever has simply joined forces with the previous two and brought me to my metaphorical knees, but regardless, I am adrift on an ocean of sinus gunk. I have purchased Claritin. Tomorrow, when the other antihistamines have worked their way from my system, I will try some. (I have learned not to combine allergy medicines, what with the heart palpitations and the sleeplessness. It’s one thing to have mild insomnia–I find a lot of creative people do–but it’s quite another to be dog tired, more than ready to crash, and have your body going “C’mon! C’mon! Let’s go! Fight or flight! Adrenaaaaaalinnnnne!” This is annoying.)

I have this vague, nebulous hope, which I dare not dwell on for fear of crushing disappointment, that when I move to Arizona, the lack of familiar allergens and generally less mold will free me from my bondage to the Great God Sudafed, who’s sacrement I must imbibe several times a day or suffer a thousand snorfling torments. The notion of waking up in the morning with both nostils functional is so alien that I can’t even get my mind around it.

Other than that, mostly I just did neccessary tasks today. Laundry. Called apartment complexes in AZ and set up appointments to view. Got a haircut. This led me to think about hair.

Now, I know nothing of hair. When small girls are somehow learning the skills of styling hair, I was reading Star Trek novels. (Seriously. I also never learned to curl my eyelashes, but quite frankly, if I am ever in a situation where the fate of the universe hinges on my having curly eyelashes, things have already gone really wrong.) I do not own hairspray, and if I bought a hairdryer, it would be for making my paints dry faster. I ascribe to the wash-and-ignore school of hairstyling. My hair is fine and thick and seperates into layers, the underlayer of which is curly in a fashion usually reserved for small, objectionable dogs and the top layer of which is straight as an arrow to about my chin, and then curls. If allowed to grow to waist length, as in my misspent youth, sheer weight turns the curls into waves. Now, the point of all of this is not to bore you with descriptions of my noggin, but to raise a question that has always driven me nuts–how does my hair know where to curl?

Don’t get me wrong. I know you inherit curly hair and it’s genetic, and that’s fine. If it was curly straight out of the skull, I’d never raise an eyebrow. I would assume I had curly follicles or something. (As opposed to the Larry and Moe follicles…) But somehow, a large chunk of my hair, which is dead tissue and can’t possibly plan anything, will run straight as an arrow to point X (about an inch about chin level) and then will then decide to rotate ninety degrees and begin corkscrewing, forcing me to get a haircut to hack it off before the annoying curl. But how does it know? How? I know that arm hair, for example, grows in shifts, hits a certain age and then falls out (which is why arm hair does not grow to your knees) but this is still firmly attached. Does one side of the hairshaft just break down at a certain age, so that it goes “Twangggg!” and starts to curl? And if so, how do ALL the follicles so miraculously synchronize the time and side to break down on? It boggles the mind. Am I performing some kind of crude styling action by the way I sleep on it? Seems a little haphazard, and I’d have to execute some amazing contortions–and so symmetrically, too. They used to refer to tangles acquired while sleeping as “elf locks” but unless our hypothetical elves are also busy with a comb and a curling iron, I don’t see it working.

If anyone can answer this to my satisfaction, I’ll…err….be very grateful. It’s gnawing at me.