the flight to breathable air

A few days ago, I received my initial immigration application documents for The Great Southern Land of Australia. While I haven't really made up my mind to return, the application will probably take years to go through. An immigration attorney can speed up the process for you, but it's a pretty big chunk of change and I'm usually not in a rush.

The reason I say "usually" is that my asthma has been pretty bad all week. Perhaps Sunday's vacuuming frenzy set it off, but generally that only causes a single attack, not a week of feeling like a goldfish on the floor. Monday was so bad that the kung fu instructor insisted I take a break about 3/4 way through class.

It got better for a day or two, then returned with a vengeance. Last night I ended up sleeping at a 45-degree angle, which is another way of saying that I got very little sleep. Since last night, I've coughed so much that my back literally hurts, and I keep thinking I might spit out a bit of lung tissue during my next coughing binge. Like what you might see during a bad SNL skit.

It's still a mystery to me why it took me almost 40 years to develop asthma. I can only assume it's the poor air quality here in Dallas, as it never bothered me in Australia, and it never bothers me when I get out of Dallas for a day or two. At least I don't live in Houston or Midlothian; I hear they're worse.