Buono Come Il Pane

It’s always been one of my favorite Italian phrases. Good like bread. You use it to express when someone or something is solid, kind, wholesome – just good. Because what could be better than simple, nourishing, foundation-for-so-much-yummy-food bread? Turns out: lots of things.

Of late, I’m that girl at the restaurant who turns down the basket of dinner rolls, who asks for her eggs without the side of toast, who skips the pasta in favor of salad. Not because it’s Hollywood and I’m supposed to be a size two. Not because I’m following some higher path to spiritual health that doesn’t include the abuse of innocent wheat. Because after a long, redonculous medical journey, I’ve found out that bread is what makes me feel like crap.

For the last few years I’ve been constantly run down. Not just need-a-nap run down but bags-under-my-eyes, brain-dead by 3pm, narcoleptic by 9pm, running-on-fumes-all-the-time run down. I assumed that was just part of life in LA. All this Tinseltown glamour is draining, right?

Along with this, I started to notice various other problems. I was puffy and bloated in spite of hours of Pilates. Despite many applications of my fabulous Tom’s deodorant (family history of breast cancer = no more aluminum deodorants), I smelled. After Proactive, mud masks, facials, and all kinds of dermatologist-recommended extremes like never sleeping on the same pillowcase twice and never drying my face with the same towel twice, my skin was a constant zit field.

More seriously (yes, it gets more serious than zits in Hollywood), I started having weird pains. Crazy headaches have always been a norm for me but now I was also waking up in the middle of the night every few months with excruciating pain in my abdomen. The best way to describe it is it felt like something was ripping apart.

Now I come from a family of suck-it-up survivors. Once my dad nearly severed his thumb with an axe but did he go to the hospital? Nah, a few Band-aids and it’s fine. So naturally I didn’t seek any professional help for any of this. My boyfriend who comes from a crazy family of go-to-the-doctor-if-something-is-wrong people finally badgered me into going.

I started with an amazing homeopathic herbalist and then went through months of gastro-intestinal docs and OB/GYNs and all manner of poking, prodding, imaging and testing. The good news is I feel much better. The bad news is I have to say goodbye to lots of things to feel that way. Turns out I am gluten-intolerant. I haven’t yet had the blood test for Celiac but I know for sure bread is out.

The homeopath had me do an elimination diet and start on an herb regimen. Within two weeks of no flour products my energy was way up and my belly flattened. My skin cleared up and I haven’t had a zit since. Just to test it, I had a dinner roll and within ten minutes felt like someone had clubbed me over the head. So seriously, no flour.

She also had me off caffeine. I didn’t realize how addicted I was. Only a latte with breakfast, Officer. I went through two weeks of headaches and withdrawals and suddenly a new day dawned. I felt clear-headed, slept better and felt calmer. And suddenly, my natural deodorant works all day. I accidentally drank some caffeinated tea the other day and stank instantly. Wow, guess the body is not having caffeine for real.

What’s really amazing to me is how profound an effect these foods have on the body and how we mostly ignore the cause and effect. One of my best girlfriends reported similar miraculous changes in her life years ago when she went off white flour and sugars and I didn’t register it. I just thought: that’s great for her, I’m so happy I don’t have to give those foods up. Or looked at from this side: I’m so happy I get to keep trashing my body because it hasn’t given me a definitive break-down yet. We all know caffeine isn’t good for us but most people I talk to can’t imagine living without it. Likewise, most people have some degree of wheat or gluten intolerance but we continue to consume mass quantities of flour-based foods.

Turns out when the body is overtaxed with stuff it can’t process (wheat, in my case) or too much acids (coffee, tomatoes, mushrooms (!) all diet staples for me) it dumps into two places: the skin and the reproductive organs. The skin was obvious for me. The ovaries, not so much. Although it’s not definitively detectable without surgery, it’s pretty likely I have endometriosis, charmingly nicknamed the ‘working woman’s disease.’ It’s not clear if my two conditions are causally related but it was explained to me that the something-ripping sensations I woke up with were just that; ovarian cysts that were bursting.

So my break-down is here and now is the winter of my discontent as I say goodbye to breads and sweet-rolls and cake and waffles and pasta and cookies and crackers and cereal and flour tortillas and soy sauce (inexplicably contains wheat!) and breaded stuff and on and on and on.

The good news is having to automatically pass by the Krispy Kreme box at work means automatic weight loss. I can still have corn tortillas and Rice Krispies and stuff like that. And there are more and more gluten-free resources and products. My neighbor makes a gluten-free carrot cake that’s the best I’ve ever tasted. I found rice pasta that’s pretty close to the real thing. Great pancake mix that doesn’t leave that flap-jack brick in your tummy. Tasty gingerbread cookies at Whole Foods. I have a whole new world of baking to explore. Just how do you blend rice flour, tapioca flour and guar gum to approximate cookie dough?

More importantly, I have more energy, my late night pains are gone (for now), my headaches have been absent, my face is presentable, and my overall health feels much better. I miss some of those favorite foods but I have to hope improving my chance of someday having kids is worth it.

The moral for me is two fold: sometimes it’s OK to ask for professional help (my dad did eventually require surgery on his thumb since he let the tendons heal wrong), and buono come il pane – good like bread - isn’t.

The Kennedy Effect

On a cerebral level, I’ve always understood the appeal President Kennedy had. I like the whole mythical Camelot thing. I get the celebrity of it, the glamour. I dig Jackie’s fabulous style. I am touched by the pictures of a little JFK jr. saluting his daddy’s coffin. But I’ve never really felt what having a milestone of a president like that was like for those who were there. I’d internally roll my eyes when ever someone got off on a reverence rant. He was just a man, after all.

Never in my memory was there a politician I personally cared for. I would have been sad if something happened to Clinton whom I’d always found good and likeable (in spite of). But I wouldn’t have felt a personal sense of loss. Caring for a politician like you would about a personal friend or family member? That just seemed hysterical to me.

I was walking my dog the day after the election, meandering and thinking out loud as I sometimes do. My heart swelled with hope and excitement. For the first time in a very long time I was proud of my country, proud to be an American. My friends from overseas gushed their support in a series of emails and I felt we were all part of something special. Almost as if we could feel Obama’s promised change in the air.

I thought of all the good things that will come in the next eight (yes, eight) years; social policy change, women’s reproductive rights, gay rights, foreign relations, war ends, financial improvement, health care reform – these are my hopes. I thought of the other good to come, blind spots that I cannot anticipate. I jigged in place and sang to my dog.

And then I got it. If Obama were suddenly taken from us and all that hope and shimmer and sun finally rising from the long, dark night were vanished, I understood on a visceral level the sense of personal loss I would feel. It choked me up for a moment. The crushing disappointment and sadness. I finally understood the impulse to go stand in line to salute a coffin for a man I’d never met. I felt a new understanding of the people who talk of Kennedy in reverent tones.

I sympathize with my relatives in Ireland who still have a portrait of Kennedy in the kitchen. I finally understand that their pride in a new hope was not an empty symbol but a real, tangible heart-swell.

I walked my dog home with a new pride in my heart and a sense of personally caring for a man I’ve never met. Yes, he’s just a man and he’ll make mistakes. But for the first time in my lifetime I feel like we have a real chance to make this country as wonderful as it deserves to be.

There are portraits of Obama going up in kitchens all over the world.

All I Wanna Do Is Rock

“I’m a foot without a sock without you.”

I wake up with the lyric running through my head. It makes me laugh. That’s something. I’m having a crappy month and not laughing much.

I sit down at my computer. It’s around 6:30 in the morning and I need to kill some time until it’s light enough out to hike. The first thing I see is the headline in my newsfeed: Nic Harcourt to leave KCRW.

Nic has been part of my musical life for years now. He’s an amazing taste maker responsible for breaking countless of my favorite bands. He’s part of my day and I will miss him. Now I think how much I would like to tell him that I’ll miss him and thank him for the difference he’s made for me. Without a personal connection to him enabling me to do so, I shut my laptop and go to school.

I get to my class and as my students are setting up it pops back in my head; “I’m a foot without a sock without you,” I sing. My girls laugh at me. They didn’t know the song. I often have to educate them in more ways than one. The band Travis, I explain, is an amazingly talented group of Scots. They make lovely, lush tunes and have been one of my favorites ever since I saw them blow Oasis off the stage in 2001 when I’d never heard of them. That’s why the song is in my head; they’re playing tonight and I can’t go because ironically I’m managing a music event at the British Consulate.

Aside from all the shows I've seen, I have a personal history with the band. I’d been on staff at KCRW’s last A Sounds Eclectic Evening and had had the good fortune to be assigned to take care of Travis. I'd gleefully snuck them cakes from the VIP kitchen and typed up their set list for them. I ended up hanging out with them after the show and was impressed by how down to earth they were – how tickled and grateful they seem by the fact they get to be rock stars. I’d struck up a friendship with the band’s manager and we kept in touch. A few months later, they were due at Coachella and the manager couldn’t lay hands on a tour bus. I helped them out through my assistant mafia and then got to hang out with the band again out there in the desert. To my delight they’d all remembered me: the cakes girl.

The music event at the Consulate is in full swing when my boyfriend introduces me to a friend of Travis’ agent. He’s headed over to the Travis show and has a plus one. I look around, am I really basically done with my party duties? I bolt out the door before anyone can change their minds. I feel like Cinderella rushing to the ball.

We walk into the small, packed Troubador and despite the fact that the set is already well underway, we end up with a prime spot in the VIP section. The boys rip into an old song. “I’m a foot without a sock without you,” Fran growls. I can’t help but laugh. Did my subconscious already know about this when I woke up?

The set is wonderful and energetic as always. I look to my right and realize I’m standing in arms’ length from Nic Harcourt. Fran gives him a shout-out for all the great work he’s done for good music, the crowd cheers and chants “Nic! Nic! Nic!” Later, I touch Nic’s shoulder and tell him I’ll miss him and thank him. He smiles. I think he’s genuinely touched by all the sentiment for him.

The show ends and my new friend asks if I want to go say hi to the band. Hmmm, let me think about that… A short while later, we’re in the green room and I’m thrilled. If they don’t actually remember me, the band does a great job of faking it. I reach to shake hands and Dougie says “we’re past that by now!” and grabs me for a hug. He tells me all about his new eight-month old and I tell him about my friend’s two-week old. Fran hugs me and we chat about the possibility of the boys playing Coachella again this year. I wish them luck as we leave and tell them I’ll see them in the desert this spring.

It’s after 1 in the morning as I crawl back into bed. I struggle to calm my thoughts enough to sleep, thankful for the good fortune of my day. Sometimes a song about a sock is all it takes to restore my faith in life and the Universe.

"If this was any other day,

I'd turn and walk the other way,

but today

I'll stay

OK"

Yes We Did

I woke up to an email of congratulations from a dear friend in Ireland. The hope that rides with Obama's presidency (!) stretches across the globe. Our first glimmer of hope that we may have a place at the table of the new world order - that we may in fact not be the pack of raving idiots the last eight years often made us appear to be to the eyes of the world.

I find it very telling that at the McCain party, when he mentioned Obama there were boos and jeers from the hateful, infantile audience. Meanwhile, at the Obama party, when he mentioned McCain there was respectful applause. Here's to the party of classy, educated grown-ups being in the White House. Bring on the arugula.

I know we have an uphill battle. We have angry white supremacists (hello idiots, he's half white) and bible beaters that will be doing everything to bring Obama down. I have a family member who quoted that Obama was a Palestinian Muslim. Who knows what other ridiculousness the hater propaganda machine will churn out over the next four years.

I'm so relieved I don't have to move to Canada to escape a looming Palin. I don't like cold weather.

It's my sincere hope that the new White House puppy be a mutt from the pound.

Happy new America Wednesday, everyone.