I suppose breathing in dust and dirt is a bad thing...

It wasn't as noticeable on Saturday (or maybe I was distracted by the intense heat and slight humidity), but walking up to the gate to enter the music festival, I noticed a slight haze in the air. It seemed the sun was partially to blame. I can't fault the grass for dying in that 100+ degree heat. I'd probably do the same under similar conditions. Add to that the hundreds of thousands of feet beating the once green and moist earth-hair, all to the tempo of whatever folksy band or rock group was closest and/or loudest.

Perhaps it was karma at work. Mother Nature's revenge, if you will.

I meant her no harm, however. I walked the minimum amount on her babies, only traveling on foot to get much-needed water, or, once, to go take a slash in the "port-a-johns". The smell of the day old, boiling urine and the sight of pounds of toilet paper marinating in piss would seem like enough punishment, in my opinion. It was, at least, some shelter.

Before the headlining act started playing, there was a mass migration of concert-goers to the main stage. And with them came this cloud of dust. I'd never seen anything quite like it before. With each footstep, small amounts of dirt and deceased grass were kicked up into the air, and multiply this by roughly 352,000 and you get the end result.

To put it into a proper perspective, if the dirt in the air was locusts, we' would have been in the Biblical end-times.

Folks were walking around with bandanas over their nose and mouth, some also sporting surgeon's masks, ripped t-shirts, napkins from concession stands...
I had to make due with the latter.
The truth escapes me, but I hope I didn't mock those wearing the makeshift masks when I entered (unlike those I mocked for wearing those stupid "camel back" backpacks). If I did, I got what was coming, I guess.

As the sun vanished and darkness spilled out onto the park, so did, similarly, snot from my nose.
I was sneezin', coughin', and weezin'. If the sun had gone down any later, I would have been exposed as the allergy-prone wuss that I am, forever ruining my hardcore, festival-goer image that I had built up in front of these strangers the day before.
I went through a half dozen napkins, filling each one with equal combination of snot and dirt, knowing fully well that at that moment, I was bested. Although if I had a white flag, I wouldn't have been waving it. A far more practical use would have been to use it as a filter to breathe through, or as a tissue.

The last band of the night was pretty spectacular, and almost made me forget about the horrible damage I had done to my nose, throat, and lungs. But surely this was just some minor irritation. I mean, my respiratory system was used to taking in garbage. I smoked for nearly a half dozen years...

I arrived home with the C. at my side. We retired after washing ourselves of the night's experiences, dirt included. All our lungs aching...

The next day, I found myself in some level of hell. Not the level occupied by the liars, or the thieves, or even the dark room filled with lustful naked people, but some milder, yet still painful, place.

Coughing. Sneezing. Hacking up mucus. Skin burning. Sweating, but cold.

The immune system was working, seemingly. My body shut down after taking a shot or two of cold medicine. I felt high, yet jittery, and uncertain as to how this episode would end in the t.v. dramedy that is my life. I passed out...

Several hours later, I rose from the bed. My energy was gone. Maybe it never really came back after that first full day at the music festival, but I believe my lack of umph had to do with this cold/fever born of hours of inhaling dirt crystals.

Sleep that night was horrible. I dreamt of sweat. My nightmares coughed.

Gradually, the hold of the sickness began to grow softer. I felt much like Frank Costanza ie like a phoenix rising out of Arizona.

Thankfully, on this third afternoon after the "Day of the Dirt", I am at, approximately, 75%. I'm still not feeling too certain of myself, but then again, my throat isn't aflame with goo and itches. Still hacking up globs of fluid-remnants my body has deemed unnecessary.

Wonder if anyone else got sick? The C. didn't really. But then again, her excuse is the ol' "I'm from a third-world country where there's dirt everywhere, all the time, even in milk and candy, therefore my body is used to it aka Darwinism will not take me into the fires of Hades, unlike you, weakling". But surely being from a fairly rural area where there's always a dust storm or two whipped up from farming vehicles (tractors, combines, etc.) would have given me some sort of immunity...

Unrelated, I dreamt about the shark from JAWS last night. I think my mind spawned another sequel to the shark-based franchise. And, like most of the other sequels, this one too sucked and lacked imagination. Unlike the dream the night before where I was a vigilante "suiting up" with a couple knives, some camouflage clothing, and a baseball bat, on the cusp of a journey into the mysterious forest in search of a plane that had crashed while on a mission transporting serial killers. I never got around to sticking nails out of the baseball bat, although I had thought about it while in the dream.

Can't wait to get "Lost" tonight. Plus we'll get to see the encore second-season premiere since, for some reason or another, we missed it last week.

Word.