So yeah… I’ve been out of touch lately.

Oil of turpentine. Plus paradichlorobenzene—which, if my 40-year-old memories of Chem 105 serve me—is actually mothballs. Mothballs!

In the last few months, I’ve had antibiotics, steroids, decongestants, and a particularly scary form of Indian ear-drops prescribed in Glasgow, Brooklyn, Bangalore, London, and back in Glasgow. Hopefully not related to those turpentine/mothball ear drops, I am now completely deaf in my right ear, but the doctor says that’s temporary.

[Note: This was the same doc who told me now that the weather is “warming up” —to above freezing—in Glasgow, I should start to feel better. I told him I was just returning from 35C/100F weather in India and it hadn’t helped a bit. For perhaps the first time in the recorded history of Scottish conversations that don’t involve a dog or a pub, he changed the subject AWAY from the weather.] 

Is that a deluxe tape dispenser…