Backassward

I've never been much of a follower.  I cannot stand American Idol.  I lost interest (heh) in Lost somewhere around the third season.  Coffee makes me twitchy.  I don't understand the appeal of Justin Bieber.  I mean, sure, I'm predictably obsessed with Harry Potter, Glee, and Gustavo Dudamel, and there were also a few instances in my teens where "fashion" trumped "better judgment" (one particularly heinous pair of sandals comes to mind), but we all have our crosses to bear.  In general, though, I'm often so obstinately NOT a follower that I nearly miss out on some of the Great Inventions of Our Time, like Facebook, smartphones, and Lady GaGa.   

[Exception: the iPad.  I had one in my hands for approximately four seconds before shouting "I MUST HAVE ONE!" and causing my friends to jump six feet in the air.  I do not yet own one, however, so if you'd like to gift me with an iPad, I would not turn it down, and if it was the 3G-enabled version, I might even kiss you.  Or bake for you.  My chocolate pecan pie is the stuff of legends.]

So anyway, I'm stubborn, and I generally sort of do things my own way, but in recent years, even my body has said, "Well, fine, if you're so intent on being different, HERE."  At the age of 20, after a lifetime of clear skin, I suddenly started breaking out.  I was studying in London at the time, and I assumed that perhaps my skin wasn't used to, I don't know, the weird English air? Or the water? It was too sudden to be a coincidence, but then I returned from abroad and the breakouts continued.  So that was unfortunate.

About three weeks ago, however, I developed this rather entertaining condition wherein I kind of couldn't breathe periodically. I wasn't suffocating or anything.  It was just an occasional tightness in my chest and an inability to take a deep breath.  So I ended up at the urgent care place, as you know, where I was reassured that I wasn't dying and given a super-classy inhaler.  But it didn't go away, so I went to see the nurse practitioner in my neighborhood, and, whadya know: asthma, triggered by seasonal allergies, neither of which I've had before.  At the ripe old age of 26. 

OF COURSE it's asthma.  So now I'm armed with two separate inhalers and Zyrtec, and I can breathe again.  But I'm still without an iPad, so anything you can do to remedy THAT situation would be awesome.