Mom thought perhaps I was just getting tired of visiting every few weeks, given that I'd complain about getting sick everytime I visited.

And I would.

Since moving back to Oklahoma in 2005, I've gotten sick every summer. A cold, if you will, not something like hepatitis or the measles. I'd call it my summer cold, and I get it each June although I periodically get it in the spring, too.

After three years, I realize this is no cold. It's hay fever. I've had mild bouts with it periodically over the past three years, but I have it right now worse than I ever have. Couldn't play a gig if I had to. I will struggle to go to work tomorrow insomuch that I will feel terrible in the morning -- stuffy, swollen and miserable with a dry mouth and sore throat, sore teeth and aching face.

I don't really have the urge to do anything but curl up and die. Well, it's not that bad, but it pretty much saps my will to exist, which I think might just be a nicer way of saying the former.

So, how do I know it's hay fever?

I get sick after mowing the lawn. Instantaneously.

It didn't used to be instantaneous. I'd mow the yard here in Norman or visit Mom across the state and mow hers, and I'd get symptoms the next day. I would get annoyed that somebody deigned to give ME a cold given that my life and to-dos and ambitions and routines are so much more important than everyone else's.

As it's gotten worse, the onset of the hay fever is more dramatic, pronounced and instant. I was sneezing like a fool 10 minutes after wrapping up my edging. I was ill by that night, and I'm likely now stuck with this crap for life. It's getting worse each year.

No, I might not have it chronically (please dear God in heaven, no), but each June in Oklahoma for the rest of my life, I'm going to have to deal with this. My initial strategy is to buy masks for mowing. If these don't work, I will have to give up mowing, and I strangely enough enjoy mowing and yard work generally.

I'm buying local, raw honey in each place where I work and live, particularly where I might do anything outside. The honey is full of allergens that are supposed to help sufferers of allergic rhinitis, such as myself, develop tolerance toward local pollens.

I'm going to avoid working out in the morning until later this summer, I suspect. Pollen gets produced at its highest levels between 5 and 10 a.m.

I'm going to experiment with some antihistamines this weekend if this crap isn't gone. They'll send me to la-la land, I suspect though. I'm already taking a generic version of Alavert, but I'll stop before taking the antihistamines. I'm leery about mixing anything medically.

I might get a neti pot.

I'm not really in the mood to do anything else until this crap is gone. So, the blog is taking a break, and I probably won't post anything relative to So You Think You Can Dance? tomorrow ... Just going to rest and take it easy.

In the interim, if you suffer from hay fever and have any words of wisdom, I'm all ears.