Another Hot One

Or, as the elders say, "Today is a good day to die." No? Well, come talk to my cucumbers, then! I actually did my watering before 10 a.m. today, like they say you always should, but I only manage on the hottest day of the year. And, that'll about do it for my efforts today.

A cold shower put me in a good frame of mind to strategize about comfort. Shiver me timbers! Batten down the ventilation! With a nice, big, room-circulating type fan aimed right at my core, I put the pits on notice with a double shot of astringent: Witch Hazel and alum. Go ahead and try to sweat, it will be sterile anyway. My preferred form of menthol: Shave Secret shaving oil. Not as penetrating as jojoba, but I still need something to protect me from this slant, it seems, if not the Italian soap.

I noticed that XTG was about as close as it wanted to get to ATG on second pass, which, in light of its weird traction control, suggests that my Personna Super Chrome has had the radish. I will provisionally call that "Launderville's Rule" -- any objections? ;-) I'm moving the blade back to Ruby for confirmation, and will update here. [UPDATE: I think the rule is good, but I can improve prep in this case. Ruby says there's plenty of good shaves left, but with just Williams and moisturizer, split between a few BBS-spoiling stubs and light, very tolerable abrasion.] You can't really opt to miss the hair with the slant, so it seems the skin sets a hard limit, which is purely expressed as directional control. It should be noted that I skipped pumpkin juice.

To finish, a cleanse with moisturizer, wipe and rinse, followed by a spray of Florida Water (which took over the old Chloraseptic bottle). Armpits finished the same way, but without the wiping and rinsing. Glycerin, it occurred to me, is essentially an antiperspirant, because of how it makes the tissue suck moisture. Putting alum down first should make it last longer at the surface. I've been doing this for a couple days, actually: WH, alum, moisturizer, and it's not difficult to keep stink bacteria from colonizing under those conditions.

Indeed, this hot weather may be the ideal time to go on the offensive against all the little critters that feed on us. I do believe I caught the fungus living in my little toe trying to slime-mold away up my ankle, wiping a layer of dead skin off in the shower this morning. I've been using Witch Hazel as a penetration enhancer with Dollar Tree cream. I had to attack the calluses on the other side of each foot with a razor, but that was only because they were shrinking in size, becoming sort of sharp-feeling.

I think these things have a normal place in the biofilm, but cause trouble when they get organized and try to make an empire out of you. I notice that my hand calluses and earwax have the same yellow tinge. If you have yellow, sticky earwax, you are more likely to need antiperspirant, according to a (real) study. But don't take that to mean, the problem is internal and you can't change it. Because it seems like I'm right on the cusp of that split, and if I do some oil cleansing in my ear (Witch Hazel), I can suppress that, too.

Getting to know Oxalis

If there is an internal reservoir of microbes that are also out of whack, however, I think a tisane of wood sorrel might be Witch Hazel's counterpart for endothelium. I brewed some up the other day and let it chill. It does not taste like lemonade, rather greener than even green tea lemonade, and it has such body that you can't slug it like Gatorade. But the salt it contains, potassium oxalate, is extra refreshing that way, and I get the sense that yeasty things don't care for this substance one bit. I tried it in my hair, and though it was horrible as a conditioner -- difficult to comb, hair actually falling out at an accelerated rate -- all itching ceased immediately. (Maybe that's what I ought to be putting on my little toe.)

Then, watering down some grape juice, it occurred to me that the best juices -- orange, grape, apple -- just make you thirstier. Make your throat feel drier, in other words... Vitamin C is converted into oxalate by our metabolism. Vitamin C is the internal equivalent of glycerin!