From a lack of community property and a feeling she's getting too old--

I'd been really looking forward to a leisurely week back at the old childhood homestead, out in the peace of the forest; retreating from the crime-ridden, pollution-stained city to get some real work done with a clear mind.

It turns out that I've ended up being even more allergic to everything about this place than I remember from my last visit here. It's also amazing how much one's productivity and general will to live plummets when one is trapped in a bottomless pit of watering eyes; clogged up breathing; an itching that makes one want to claw one's lungs, throat and ear canals out of one's body from the inside out; and multiple nights of poor sleep.

So if you haven't heard from me lately, don't worry, I'm just quietly dying a slow death of environmental allergies in beautiful upstate New York.