Baking Soda Decoded

I spiked a little fever after "alkalizing" with baking soda, and my throat was quite raw. The alternative medicine explanation of things seemed a bit misleading, to say the least, but of course one never knows what it would have been like without. Medicine, like shaving, is an art. One could also argue that I didn't follow instruction feeling fully salinated after three or four doses on the first day; essentially joining the old Arm & Hammer program on its second day. I took aspirin, being well out of the age where Reye's Syndrome is a risk. If I had scooped a little citric acid from the bucket I have set aside for my plumbing, I could have had homemade Alka-seltzer! But why, I reasoned, would I wish to counteract the base with acid? Might as well eat sea salt or something, as far as alkalizing is concerned. Or, maybe I'm still not getting something. (I'll never live down that "C" in Chemistry.)

But in terms of my own, grand theory -- the one where the carboxyl functional group is responsible for tissue plasticity and structural homeostasis, which I called "lamellar reorganization" -- baking soda makes a WHOLE LOT of sense. For example, why it makes the hair cuticle open like a pinecone. Imagine one layer of tissue contracting, due to its oil being saponified, but remaining adherent to an underlying layer of equal area. It would curve dramatically, like the spring in an old thermostat. Apply fruit acid, though, and the layers would again slide flat against one another, like roof shingles.

Baking soda in vivo is best understood as 1) saponifying of paracellular oil barriers, and 2) pro-carboxylic hydrogen bonding between cadherins. Since this tends to reveal some aspect of underlying tissue, or disease, and also clears signal pathways, I would term it "lamellar patefaction." My throat may have hurt like hell, but I believe it may have been because there wasn't any room in that tissue for the virus anymore. Baking soda showed it the door, so to speak, thwarting local inflammation, but coincidentally making my symptoms worse.

Vs. Witch Hazel

The two kinds of artificial stasis, one against lamellar reorganization, and one against transcellular osmosis, work together in remarkable ways. I got some sun today at the local fair, where it was free, agricultural day for kids. To soothe my red skin afterward, I used boo-boo juice, followed by witch hazel. I had really small flakes then, but the redness was mostly gone.  It was a bit like fracking for oil, BUT only superficially, not letting anything in to explode the through to the dermis, like glycerin soap would have done.

Then I made a steak doing almost the same, using baking soda as a light dry rub (having some sense of its mild flavor, at this point), and a splash of Witch Hazel. Talk about sizzle! Oh, and tender: hardly lost a drop of juice until I oiled and salted it, after the turn. This combo essentially said to the steak: I'm going to thermally expand the water in you, now, but you can't change volume, except by sending oily flavor precursors to your surface. Very close to optimizing the caramel, now.

But I Love Acid

My gosh, lemonade accounts for most of my fluid intake! Onion extract in my scar gel is obviously the part that facilitates stem cell migration. Pumpkin juice is the key to maximal hair hydration and shaving perfection. Meanwhile, to make way for the boo-boo juice experiments, Ruby has been doing very nice work with a dull Personna Platinum Chrome, and juice-less preparations. Nothing I'd call "perfect," or BBS. I'm still really digging the Italian Barber after a cured Witch Hazel oil cleanse, using the extra glycerin to indulge in aftershave whims.

This morning's lazy, but classic (cured) Witch Hazel, Barbasol, (dilute) Skin Bracer. My cold may have been killing me, but I think I saw some of the work horses giving me a nod as they lined up for their pulls. "Nice aftershave, man." Who needs drugs?