I might as well tell you the truth, Internet.
This blog was created for the purpose of getting a job blogging for Oberlin. Now, I know that this seems like a cop-out, the biggest cop-out in the history of cop-outs. I create a blog -- after so many people have badgered me to make one -- and it is not borne out of the pure, untainted desire to put something new into the world, but to do the unthinkable -- make a couple bucks.
Yikes.
Don't get me wrong, I love blogs. I read them all the time. In fact, this past month I have been spending a lot of time on blogs. But this recent internet-foraging hasn't been because I desire to know what my favorite cartoonist ate for breakfast this morning (sticky rice with sliced peaches). No, these blogs have names like, "Gluten-Free Mommy" and "The Macrobiotic Diet Blog" and "Vegan with a Vengance."
Let me tell you a story. It starts in the eight grade, a time of braces, unfortunately large hair and a certain bushy-haired, brace-faced girl (who I assure you has blossomed into the most beautiful of swans) who spent a disproportionate amount of time thinking about a boy that I'll call Ted. Ted was a boy with the shinest hair I had ever seen and a gap between his two front teeth made him whistle a little bit when he talked. And God, in his unbounding wisdom, had reached His hand down into the crummy middle school hallway where my puke-colored locker sat, and placed Ted's locker right next to mine. I took this as a sign. This year was my year, I vowed.
Now, I must reveal to you a secret that very few people know. This is not my first blog. Back in the Ted days, I had a blog. And through the wonder of the internet, that long-ago blog still exists. Horrifyingly, you can find it through Google. And this is the last entry that I posted:
Thursday, January 27, 2003
| i am nervous. i should not be nervous, because i am ALLIE! Doer of Good! Champion of All Things Awesome! Master of Confidence! Fighter for Justice, Truth, and So On! but I am still nervous. allie out. |
Now, why did I feel so nervous? Why did I long to be Allie exclamation point? Champion, Doer, Master, Fighter? I would like to tell you that I don't know, that I have forgotten because it all happened so long ago. But that would be a big fat lie. The reason was that I was planning to ask Ted, he of gap-toothed, shiny-haired glory to go sledding. I had never done something so terrifying. I'd like to tell you that Ted and I had a lovely time going sledding, that we have been dating since and that we both go to Oberlin, and walk all the time in Tappan Square in the newly fallen snow or swirling colorful leaves or whatever. But it's not that kind of story. I think you know that.
What really happened: I turned to Ted, clutching my En Espanol! textbook as tightly as I could. He was rummaging around in his extremely messy locker. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead, puke did. An entire ocean of puke splashed forth, waterfalling onto the dirty linoleum floor, rivers of puke running spreading towards classrooms, streams and tributaries trickling down the stairs. And Ted looked at me as I wiped my mouth, the Kool-Aid I had drank for lunch staining his perfect white sneakers, shook his head and walked (squished) away.
Everyone has a story like this. And if you don't, maybe it's because you are one of the Teds of the world, gap-toothed and gleaming and perfect. And now you have gleaned the moral from this story, which is that even freaky little projectile-puking pre-teens can grow up to have moderately normal lives. But that isn't the moral, because the story isn't over yet. You have jumped the gun. The story isn't about the boy. This story is about the puke.
Here is the thing: while I soon got over Ted, from that day on I could not stop throwing up. I would throw up every day after lunch, and then right after I got off the school bus, and then once after dinner. My stomach and esophagus burned constantly, and I lost weight, too much weight. I spent the rest of my eighth grade year in and out of hospitals, doctor's offices. I had x-rays and allergy tests and barium scans and endoscopies and even swallowed a pill-sized camera once, which my little brothers thought was extremely cool. For a while, I was a medical mystery. No one could figure out what was wrong with me.
In the end, it was the pediatrician I'd had since I was a baby, and not any of the specialists who diagnosed me with a rare and incurable disease called eosinophilic gastroenteritis. Since then, EG has gotten less rare but is still incurable. I have been dealing with it since with strong medicine, and was even in remission for a couple months. But last winter, in the right before finals week, I experienced so much stomach pain that I ended up at Allen Hospital. The medicine had stopped working, and when I flew home with a couple of academic incompletes, my doctor gave me two choices: one, take powerful steroids with lots of side effects, or go on a specialized diet, starting with a month of nutrition therapy.
So now I spend my free time on the internet, looking for soy-free, wheat-free, dairy-free, peanut-free, egg-free brownies that I can make for my co-op, that taste "just like Mom's!" I don't really mind. I love to cook. During my month of nutrition therapy, I couldn't eat, only consume a special medicinal formula that came in special, foil lined boxes and smelled like hamsters. There were so many things about food that I missed. The feel and taste of a square of chocolate melting on my tongue. The crunch of a carrot, the prickly fizz of soda bubbles on my lips. And the closeness of cooking with friends: of fingers dipped in sauces and lifted to mouths, the stories that are told when food is around, the feeling you get when you create something with people you love. And if those sauces are a little thin because you had to use rice milk and take out the peanut butter, so be it. You do what you have to do to be happy.
So what I am trying to say is that I love blogs. I haven't blogged since that fateful day before that fateful puke, and I'm ready to come back. I still puke sometimes, but now I try to aim into the compost or a nearby toilet. And I'm getting by, thanks to some bloggers who care about people like me. I am a head cook at Harkness for Monday lunch, and here, thanks to the recipe bloggers of Whole Life Nutrition, is my menu:
- Gluten-Free Corn Tortillas
- Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Red Chilis
- Sweet-Spicy Mole Beans
- Peach Salsa
- Lemony Greens
and some shredded cheese on the side, for my dairy-eating friends.
Allie out.
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