i'm ok, you're allergic

Either I'm coming down with a cold, or...I have allergies.

I really don't want to have allergies. I used to be allergic to things as a child, but it was never really clear to what, and I was lucky enough not to have those life-stopping allergies that make people so miserable.

But in the summers I've spent in the northeast part of the country, I've had more and more frequent and numerous "summer colds," and I'm starting to think it ain't no virus no more. The last year I spent in Cambridge found me running my bedroom air conditioner all the time, and I was miraculously cured.

Up here, though, we don't have the A/C installed. (We could, but we'd have to get management to do it since the windows are wonky, and we just haven't bothered, because seriously, dude? It's Maine.) We keep the windows open a lot, and today I started noticing that I've had a raging headache for, oh, about a week now.

Granted, we've already had one massive pressure change today, and that's usually what causes skull-crushing pain like this. However, I was out running some errands and after two minutes with the car window open (hey, it's sixty degrees! Positively balmy!), my nose was kind of runny. Odd, since I don't often have a runny nose, even with a cold -- it tends to pack my sinuses and then inhabit my chest.

Still -- southern coastal Maine appears to be having a low pollen day, so I'm not sure that a brand-new allergic reaction makes so much sense. When I was driving home, I yawned and my ears shut down with great force. Ever had that? Where your ears close completely and rend you utterly deaf for a split-second? Yeah, it's fun.

Anyway, when the ears cleared, they had this weird itchiness and tetchiness deep in the inner ear tube or sinus cavity (or whatever a good otolaryngologist would call it) that usually signals some kind of cold or sinus thing with me.

Also, I'm slightly nauseated, in the manner I often notice when I have post-nasal drip on an empty stomach.

Frankly, I don't know which I would prefer right now. Another endless cold? Or seasons upon seasons of allergies?

Oh, the paradox of choice!