Today, for the first time in 11 days, Beijing's air quality was upgraded to "unhealthy."  Yes, you read that right — UPGRADED!!!  After sliding back and forth between "hazardous" (Warning: your lungs are about to fall out!) and "very unhealthy" (Warning: one of your lungs may fall out!) for over a week, today's "unhealthy" air (Warning: your sinuses may quit working!) seemed like a breath of fresh air.

Someone (the US Embassy perhaps) maintains a Twitter feed called BeijingAir, which posts the air quality readings on an hourly basis.  I signed up to follow it.  That was a mistake.

I miss the former days of my blissful ignorance when I was happy thinking that the persistant nausea and headaches were caused by something I ate rather than what I was breathing.