Informative, sleepy, exciting. And a little bit disgusting.

Trust me, this is as close as you want to get to
images of tonsiloliths.

Those gross little white things that you spit up from the back of your throat from time to time, the squishy stinky ones you hide and forget? Those are called tonsiloliths. If you google them, do not look at the images.They are accretions of bacteria and “material” that gather in the crevices of your tonsils, aka “tonsil crypts”, and do indeed give you bad breath.

A tonsilolith the size of Gibraltar was there to greet me this morning, when I woke while my alarm still slept, not yet snoozing. The sun was still waiting for its macchiato on Mercury, but the freeway a block from my bed was its usual constant current of cars crammed into commuter constipation. Only in the dryest of the unpopulated hours, 3:47 AM or so, does the engine population dwindle to the point that you can distinguish the approaches from the departures.

Should I get up? My bladder said yes, but skin hiding under the blanket said no. It’s getting cold already. Upper 50s, even. Yes, I’m aware that’s ridiculous to complain about, and no, I’m not bragging. I just don’t want to wear pajamas.

A compromise? Lay here and organize the day? Then I will feign surprise when I realize that my droopy eyes have let sleep rematerialize…

To Do Today: Laundry (droop). Work (some sparkle?). Reschedule Wednesday’s appointment (droop). Sneak my accumulated compost shrapnel into the neighbor’s greenwaste bin tonight, for collection tomorrow, since my building’s managers won’t spring for our own (droop).

Then it happened. Like a tonsilolith accreted from sheer joy exploding from a tonsillar crypt: buy a plane ticket today?

My lady and I fully intend to spend New Year’s overseas at this turning of the calendar, and it’s past time to choose a destination. Uruguay, cutting across the NE corner of Argentina to explore Paraguay came right to mind. Oooooh.

And the Philippines have been ringing their bells for attention for quite some time. Oooooh.

And if those airfares are prohibitive, I have somehow not yet explored Oaxaca, closer at hand in Mexico. Oooooh.

But when the word Cambodia surfaced in conversation, she grabbed it with the urgency with which you eject a tonsilolith in the morning. Oooooh-wee!

Perhaps we’ll let the airlines vote with their prices. Perhaps we’ll let you vote. Where should we distinguish between the departure of the old year and the arrival of the new one?

(Vote in the poll on the wordpress version of the blog: here.)