6:51 p.m. | 2003-12-28 Monster Mouth. I neglected to note, in my diary anyway, Winter Solstice occurred last week. Normally, I celebrate it because it means we�re one step closer to the return of the light. And warmth. I mean, come one, the next season is Spring! What could be better than that? Anyway, like I said, I failed to note that in my diary. However, the beginning of Winter didn�t escape my attention in the least. See, every time the weather changes, my skin freaks out. Yes, you read that right� my skin. It�s like the Sahara Desert engages in some odd sort of performance art using me as a canvass. Suddenly, my skin and nasal passages dry out like they�ve been hanging in the sun for fifty years. Seriously. Anyway, I�ve come to anticipate this little phenomenon so, at the beginning of every season, I step up my daily routine of applying lotion, drinking gallons of water, shooting saline solution up my nose and applying medicated lip balm almost obsessively. I keep it all notched up a bit until my body adapts. Then, I return to my normal routine. However, no matter how much I step it up, it still get patches of dry skin, spontaneous nosebleeds and the like for a couple of weeks. Seriously. I could drench myself in baby oil and be hooked up to an IV, and I�d still not be hydrated enough. So, I woke up this morning and the corner of my mouth was crusty. I presumed that I�d drooled at some point during the night. Not an attractive thought, but rational. Then, I looked in the mirror. That wasn�t remnants of drool, it was dried blood. Both my lips were caked with blood. I opened my mouth to take a look, and to my horror, my lips instantly cracked in a thousand places and fresh blood started pooling. Suddenly, I knew what that strange taste in my throat was. No idea how much blood I swallowed during the night. I ran to retrieve my medicated lip balm, and after soaking all the blood up, I caked that stuff on my lips. In fact, I�ve been carrying my lip balm around all day. And, I don�t really understand it because I constantly slather on that stuff. Constantly. But, I guess that�s not quite enough. There has been a significant drop in temperature as of late and it�s fucking cold, and often windy, outside lately. To the point that I�m freezing most of the time. Even with the heater on all the way. I have very large windows though, and that makes it much cooler inside. To help, I went out and bought some slippers this weekend. They even make slippers all chunky and platformy now. They�re quite cushy though, fuzzy and black. For whatever reason, they remind me of old Russian hats. And, because they�re so chunky, my feet look huge. It looks like I�m wearing humungous clown shoes made out of old Russian hats. It makes me laugh until I recall the Cold War and the McCarthy era. My feet aren�t so funny then. That was just some gratuitous random free association. I got more from where that came from, but I�ll spare you for the moment. your thoughts? seed flower