..and in this case I'm not talking about the United States. That's an entirely different story for a different time.

I'm up visiting a friend of my mine in Massachusetts. It's a nice break from my normal reality. Every time I come up here, my allergies are miserable though. He has a cat and I'm allergic, so a box of tissues always follows me around. I was up here last month and  I wasn't so bad. I had forgotten my allergy drugs, but I was alright. Not great, but I was alright. This time I was smart and remembered my drugs. They aren't working though and I'm miserable. I was looking up the weather on weather.com and realized another big problem is ragweed levels are "very high". I'm fairly certain that's been a huge contributing factor to my suffering.  I went to Gillette Stadium in Foxboro yesterday to watch the United States National Soccer Team beat El Salvador (firstrowidiots.com will have a recap at some point this week) and I was absolutely fine there. No grass, ragweed or "nature" to bother me there. Maybe my life needs to be confined to cities without nature? Am I destined to live my life in a city? I guess things could be worse, but hopefully stem cell research can at least find a cure for my allergies.