i have a little neti pot, short and stout

My sinuses have always been my Achilles heel. Stress, exhaustion, a cold, dogsitting... it all ends in sinusitis. I had been battling a low-grade case for weeks before the three-dog weekend, and in the ensuing allergic aftermath I guess it got the best of me. For the past three days I have been slammed by migraine-grade sinus headaches that I cannot cope with except by going to bed.

In desperation, I broke down and got a neti pot. J has been trying to sell me on the idea for years (not that he has ever used one. He would not know a sinus if it bit him), but, like any sane person, I am afraid of drowning, and I figured that's what it would feel like to pour salt water through my nasal passages.

So? I won't go so far as to say it's "pleasant and soothing" as the package literature attests, but I could breathe through my mouth while I was doing it, so I didn't get too panicky. Too soon to say if it's helping. "Persistence," counseled my neighbor, a veteran neti potter. My other neighbor, who grew up in LA, said he never had sinus problems until he stopped swimming in the ocean every day, so there must be something to it. Or maybe, like a 19th century woman of delicate constitution, the answer is to move to a seaside town for its "restorative atmosphere." You never saw a Henry James character hanging over the sink with with a neti pot, am I right?

It's probably my overall mood more than anything – the pain and the wasted days are getting me down – but I was looking in the mirror the other day and thinking, I have no business having a baby. I am anything but the picture of a radiant young mother-to-be, me with my gray hair and tired face and a neti pot up my nose.

Iris, doubtfully observing my neti ritual: "Mama, are little kids allowed to watch this?"