Allergies

    Somewhere in the early '70s, New York banned non-biodegradable detergents, and the earliest replacement versions all gave me a rash. If I wore anything washed in the stuff I would get these patches that itched like fucking hell. For as long as I continued to live there, I used Ivory Snow, which still had Marilyn Chambers as the "mom" on the box, until they finally tossed her for playing the slut in THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES.
— Richard Meltzer

    I first discovered allergies as a child when I ran out into the middle of my grandfathers cornfield in Kentucky. When I got deep into it, I experienced a near systemic shutdown — as I sneezed incessantly & mucous streamed down my face, my eyes swoll shut so that I couldnt see to find my way out of the acres of corn. I followed the rows back to the edge of the field, & eventually my system stabilized. Later when I moved to Oregon, strong seasonal allergies re-emerged. I worked as a delivery driver & I would have allergy attacks on the road, sneezing a dozen or so times in a row (your eyes close, of course, when you sneeze — not an optimum driving condition) then my eyes would again swell nearly shut. I would have to pull over & let the attack subside, then continue on with my job, sometimes several times a day. I love cats, but I am allergic to cats for about two months out of the year. I watch the cat move into a patch of sunlight & I see a little blizzard of dander & other airborne material whorling outwards from the cat. It's beautiful in a way, but causes me misery. A tincture of nettles has been for me the most effective temporary reliever of allergy symptoms, & I drink so much of it during the season I almost get tipsy from the alcohol. Low quality or less concentrated tinctures have no effect at all. Zirtek works for a while, but its effectiveness diminishes the more you use it (isnt that always the case?). In the notoriously allergen saturated Willamette Valley, where I live, allergen levels are listed in the weather report, much like smog level in L.A.. I guess everything has its price.
—Sam Coomes

    I'm alergic to long walks on the beach, strolls through the park and talking about feelings over candelit dinners...other than that, when I was a kid I actually suffered from allergies a lot. I was and remain an asthmatic (Piggy!). Back then, depending on weather, animal dander retained by carpets, etc I could end up in the hospital getting shots of adrenaline. Yum. I never spent an overnight almost dying. However, my favorite memory is of being maybe 8 or 10 yrs old and chowing down on nuts, chocolate and halvah (pressed sesame seed candy bar substance of a particular texture and flavor beloved by many fat little jewish and muslim kids) at my folks' Brooklyn College friends' house. All three treats were major triggers for me (as well as emotional triggers for my parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles - first born male in a family full of handwringers) working in concert with their cat hair laced 70s shag. On the way home, while we were stuck in Sunday night traffic, my lungs basically stopped. That was fun. I have also retained the flavor and visual memory of Quibron, a viscous yellow liquid medicine that did little to ease tighteness or mucous production and was mostly useful as an Ipecac substitute.
— Dave Rick

    We in the Minus 5 believe that allergies are a pathetic clutching for attention, nothing more. As perfectly illustrated in the case of one Sir Jeffrey Pumpernickel, one's own self-loathing can cause said 'hypo-allergetic reactions' to manifest themselves strongly enough to result in death, or in less extreme cases, dismemberment.
— Scott McCaughey, February 2001

    As far as allergies, I just get purple dots from penicillin, and thats about it. i recently had an interaction between ginkgo and a medication I had to take that gave me massive hallucinations. I had no idea what was happening, just that I was seeing triple, and that I was turning into a pig when I talked, and jumping out of my skin... It was absolutely horrifying.
— Mary Timoney