Pasty White Man with Pasties

The air in Hong Kong the last few days has been horrendous. You need a fork to breathe. A stainless steel fork, because whatever is in this air could eat the paint off of a bulldozer. 

Thanks to this Pollution Festival, I have been essentially housebound for two days. Still working, just not breathing.

I suffer from what I like to call Location-Specific Asthma. I never had asthma before I moved to Hong Kong. I leave it here when I go away; I have no asthma in Japan, or Korea, or Taiwan (though I bet I could), or Singapore.

Most everyone I know from 'up above' (Mainland China) tells me that it would be silly of me to set foot (set lung?) in the place, as I would not be able to breathe.

Obviously they mean the cities, but for some unfathomable reason, that's where all the airports are. So it would still get me.**** Digression: I always capitalize Mainland. It just seems like the right thing to do. Just like Hawaiians ought to say Mainland America.**** But this asthma is a problem for lots of reasons. One is the obvious challenge it poses for my life. Put a wet washcloth over your mouth and nose. Now breathe. Nice, huh?

F@#$ me, I've been water-boarded byGod.

The other problem (or part thereof) is that the medications I take for it are in and of themselves a challenge.

Even with a reprehensible background in freelance pharmacology(that sounds nice, though it figuratively still rhymes with felony), I find myself forced to make the Devil's Choice: environmentally inflicted suffering or (essentially) self-inflicted?**** Digression: It would be so much easier if he were a handsome devil, and bought me a few drinks and...

Sorry. One of my (very) infrequent bouts of swishful thinking.**** Where was I? Oh yes. Drugs and the Devil.

Sounds like a chapter fromThe Truth About Walt Disney.

[To self] Focus, you twit...

Well, if I take what I am supposed to take, I turn into even more of a froth-mouthed lunatic than I already am. Any good dope fiend, recovered or otherwise, will tell you that cocaine and alcohol go together precisely becauseof their antagonistic effects; use one to alleviate the effect of the other.

That way you can stay up for three days being an unbearable slobbering drunk the whole time. Or so I have read...

Well, a very scaled back version of that is what I go through. My inhalers make me jumpy(er) and look like I have Parkinson's disease, and the pills and cough syrup make me drowsy, complacent, and even dumber than when I see a woman's navel. 

At least with that, I haveone thought.**** Digression: The question therefore becomes "What happens if I see a navel while medicated?" Our lines are open, tell us your thoughts.**** [To self] If you don't start focusing, I'm going to change vowels...

Okay. So yesterday, in a vain attempt to breathe, I 'hit the pipe' (used my inhalers) more than usual. So I was... tweaked. Gacked. My knee looked like an oil derrick.

Why not go to the gym? Sure, it sounds stupid, because it is. But what choice did I have? It was either that or clean every inch of my flat with a toothbrush. I had a lot of excess energy (I obviously have a lot of spare time, too...).

But there was something I had to consider...

It's another problem, though thankfully not related to asthma. Having previously blogged about this condition, I resolved to try and remedy it before it occurred. 

Sweaty t-shirt + 60 minutes on treadmill = blood in embarrassing places. Two places. On my chest. Don't make me say it.

So what to do? When in doubt, fall back on the old stand-by: The Band-Aid.

Caution: The following image may be considered repugnant.I left my face out of the photo so I can't be recognized.The international hand signal is a good indicator of how I feel about the whole tawdry affair; the operative pronoun here is this, not you.

Note the poor focus as well; that's from the Katherine Hepburn imitation.

So off I went to the gym, sure that I would suffer a massive cardiac arrest on the KCR platform (because of the inhalers, no doubt) and the paramedics would cut my shirt open and the gawking onlookers would all get a big laugh and take pictures and video with their phones and I'd be on YouTube as Breast Bandage Man within fifteen minutes.

Luckily, that didn't happen.

But I will say I changed from my street shirt to my exercise shirt in record time in the locker room...

Speaking of which, I went to pay the water bill before I exercised. It wasn't just my asthma that made me say out loud, and I mean loud, "What kind of f@#$ing moron smokes in a bathroom in the gym?!?"

These are the sort of people who would push their girlfriend's head into their lap while sitting in church.

Never mind that.

I got on the treadmill and commenced to exercise. The cure seemed to be working, at least until about 40 minutes into it; I began to notice some discomfort.

He means his nipples hurt...

Shut up, you!

So I stuck a hand inside my tank-top to see if there was a problem. I had faith in Band-Aid adhesive.

If nothing else, my life such as it is dictates that I would have to go through tearing the things off with a goodly amount of my own hair. I go through things a lot of people go around, you could say.

My faith was ill-placed. They weren't there. It wasn't until 20 minutes later, when I got off the treadmill, that I found them on the floor behind the treadmill, where it had deposited them after they fell off.

But they apparently stayed on long enough to at least prevent bleeding, for which I was grateful.

[note to self] From now on, my cardio apparel color is 'none more black' 

I felt good; I had exercised, I hadn't bled, and I managed to salvage a day in which I could have met John Woo but for being incapacitated by my affliction.

I had 'piped up' in the hope of making the gig, but as expected found myself too much of a tweak freak to risk utter shame and embarrassment.

I refused to finallymeet John Woo while babbling incoherently and sweating profusely; it just wouldn't be right.That's growth for me. Really.

Besides, I'll do it evenwithoutthe asthma.