One of the writers I work with from time to time sent me an email not so long ago to say that she’d been reading my blog and that it occurred to her that I get sick a lot. She’s a qualified aromatherapist, so she suggested a few things I might use to make myself less susceptible to every damn thing that comes around. This was last year, when I got sick constantly. I was new to the City, and I think the combination of an unfamiliar gene pool and staying out all night far too often did me in.
This year, I’ve been much healthier. (Side note: My friends who are native New Yorkers hardly ever get sick, and when they do, they shake it off pretty easily.) However, I still got my Annual New Year’s Cold.
Yesterday, I thought I was dying, but today, I feel much better and sound much worse. I’m still staying in my pajamas, though, which will be entertaining later this afternoon when I go out to meet my former roommate for coffee.
Roommate: “Do your pants say ‘ho ho ho’?”
Me: “Maybe.”
Anyway, it was a really spectacular Christmas, the best ever, maybe. You can read select quotes from SMASHmas over at Legend of the Drunken Mouse. When my head clears its cold medicine fug, I’ll fill in the gaps.
Jennie Smash 
hope you feel better and that you’re well enough to bring in the new year…hope you had a smashtastic Christmas!
So, did you try the aromatherapy/herbal treatment? 🙂
Feel better – sucks to be sick on New Year’s! Try drinking some Astragalas root and Echinacea. You can get the herbs at a health food store or metaphysical shop and steep it like you would regular tea, but steep for like 20 minutes. Add honey for flavor.
Have a good one!!
– Ms. Smash’s personal aromatherapist
I am so lazy! I haven’t tried it yet. But I will! I will! It will be my New Year’s resolution!
My family came here when I was younger, and of all my memories of those times, I don’t particularly remember being sick.
But I left for years and upon my return to Pittsburgh I literally hacked for two months and felt just dreadful for much, much longer.
I think it just takes time to get used to the air. Maybe it’s the pollution. Maybe it’s the ozone. Either way, the aromatherapy might help. For New York air, taking up smoking might help, too, though.