I decided that the asthma attacks I had on Sunday were happening because I was LETTING them happen. Cold air or not, this kind of thing has never plagued me before, and I was not about to let it start being a problem now.

So I went out in cold air, and thought very healthy, positive things about my lungs.

It worked. I tightened up a little bit at one point, but it was nothing like Sunday.

It might not be ALL in my head, but I’d like to think that at least a portion of the cure is.

The biggest problem with this new hobby of mine is that my birthday wish-list can no longer be automated with the help of Amazon.com.

I want metal.

Boxes and boxes of soft, white metal, sculpted into fantastic shapes worthy of dreams and nightmares.

*sigh*

When I was a kid my parents would let us pore over the Sears catalog and circle the toys we most wanted Santa to bring us. We always ended up dog-earing and circling almost every page in that section of the book.

My Privateer Press catalog would look the same way if I let myself write on the pages. And don’t get me started on Vallejo paints or Reaper minis.

I’ve never had an asthma attack before. Mostly I’ve had allergy attacks, where a specific allergen knocks me flat for a couple of days — I’ll get a runny nose, wheezing, hives, and body-aches. I think my last really good bout with allergies was the time I pruned the tree.

But I do have asthma. It’s mild, and because I was on a swim-team three decades ago my lung capacity is something like 120% of normal for my size. Asthma knocks that back to about 90% normal, so I almost never notice.

Almost.

Yesterday in church I suddenly felt a cold draft. It got hard to sing. I started to feel weak.Within 20 minutes I was wheezing good and solid, but I didn’t have the runny nose or itches I associate with “somebody dumped pollen in the ducts.” I went home a little early, and discovered that I was kind of staggering around. I took a breathing treatment (albuterol in an industrial strength nebulizer, like they use in hospitals — we got it for the kids back when they were suffering from croup every winter) and the wheezing went away.

Of course then I had to deal with the albuterol side-effects. I was ravenously hungry and I had a case of the shakes that would have had me worried about my career as a cartoonist if I didn’t know it was temporary. I fell into bed and slept it off.

For most of the rest of the day I was dealing with lingering side-effects. I was almost as wiped out as I would be during a full-on allergy attack, but it only lasted a few hours rather than two days. We had friends over for dinner, and the evening was delightful.

When our friends had to leave I walked out to their car with them. The air temperature was 7 degrees farenheit. It felt nice — invigorating, and even a little refreshing. They started their car to warm it up, and then we all headed back inside to talk for another five minutes in the entryway. Two minutes in I was wheezing again.

Cause and effect seemed pretty clear. Apparently sometime during the last few weeks I’ve developed a sensitivity to “sudden change in air temperature” and it triggers an asthma attack. This time around I opted against the breathing treatment, and waited it out. My breathing improved after about half an hour.

It’s cold again today. And now I have an excuse to not go out in it. This does not make me happy, because I’m pretty sure the moment I start using this as an excuse to avoid cold weather I’ll end up with a psychosomatic asthma trigger. Of course, if that’s true then I ought to be able to walk outside and consciously DECIDE not to let it affect me. Hypochondria works both ways, right?

Before I write this, let me say that yes, I know sandratayler was languishing indoors. The fact that I got to spend all day out of the house has less to do with me being an uncaring or ignorant husband, and more to do with a couple of committments I’d made.

The first of those committments was to finish inking two weeks of strips this week. The last three rows got done today by around 1:00pm.

The second was to help one of the regulars at The Dragon’s Keep with his mini-painting. This is something I do because a) I enjoy it, and b) I want to remain in good standing with those fine folks who provide me what is essentially free office space in the best location my business could ask for.

So… by 1:00pm I’m done inking, and it’s time to start painting. Mike (the regular who wanted painting help) wasn’t around yet, but Drew (one of the regulars who needs no help from me) pulled in and the two of us spent a long and enjoyable afternoon painting, cutting, bending, and otherwise manipulating small pieces of metal.

We also committed what has to be the ultimate, cardinal sin for role-playing gamers… we sat and kibbitzed on the game going on next to us.

Poor Bob, the GM. At one point he told one of the junior gamers “you have to tell me what you’re doing! If you tell me you set down your axe, and then you don’t tell me you pick it up, I’ll remember, and you’ll have to back for it.”

Since we’d been picking on Bob good-naturedly, I couldn’t resist the jab… “Actually, Bob won’t remember it, but you still ought to tell him you’re getting your axe.”

When later one of the party members said “of course I speak druidic… I’m a DRUID,” and Bob followed up with “sorry, I forgot you were a druid,” I had to follow the follow-up with “but he remembers where you put your axe.” I mean… I’m a professional humorist, and I’d just been handed the straight-line for the joke I’d set up twenty minutes earlier. How could I NOT say that?

I’m going to have to remember how truly annoying I was, so I can decide not to do that again, no matter how tempting it may be. To my credit, I did pipe down after a while — mostly because it turned out the Druid was doing just fine ribbing Bob without my help.

In one of those classic moments of miscommunication, Mike showed up right as I was deciding I really ought to get home. “But you were here until like 10:00pm last Saturday — I thought I had all evening!”

Sorry, man. When I said “I’ll be here midday, probably between 1:00 and 3:00,” I guess I should have said “I need for it to be a short Saturday today.”

The good news is that Jonathan, Tim, and Rebecca all showed up to paint and assemble just as I was getting ready to leave. Drew stuck around as well, so Mike had plenty of folks willing to help him out with his painting. When I left he was doing a black ink wash over white primer, which creates what’s called a “guide coat.” You can then lay a single layer of color over the top, and the recesses into which the ink has settled will be darker than the ridges which are still mostly white. It’s fast, I tell you. I ought to try it out, because I spent a good six hours just working on three figures. Mike’s will probably be done in less than one.

I wish I’d brought my camera with me to the Keep, because the two figs I finished look really, really good.