belly full of pizza

it has come to our attention here at the sundae sanitarium that young maktaaq will no longer be joining us each day at our place of employ. she's moving on to better and more artistically fulfilling things. so while we are torn by our joy for her, (congratulations!) we are also sad to see her go. so farewell sweet maktaaq; you are always welcome for saturday brunch.

i'm sitting here lulled into complacency by a bubble bath and a belly full of pizza. those of you who are aware of my difficulty with food allergies will understand what a double edged sword pizza is for me. for those who don't know me, let it just be said that if you melted cheese on a styrofoam cup, chances are i'd eat it with gusto. however, i have also been faced, in the last week or so, with my underlying difficulties (allergy wise) with food.

the way it was explained to me is that when you are allergic to certain kinds of food, they are more or less toxic to you. the more you continue to consume these types of foods, the more the toxins build up in your system, making you more and more sensitive to all types of food. about a year and a half ago, i was at the point where pretty much *everything* made me sick. i think i could eat miso soup and bagels, but that was pretty much it. the day that a toasted buttered bagel made me throw up was the day that my best friend (the lovely and charming stacylicious - who has been mentioned in these pages before) dragged me to the doctor, who referred me to an allergist, who poked me with stuff and made me blotchy and itchy and figured out what, indeed, i *am* allergic to.

anyhoo, the gist of all of this is that food is starting to make me sick again. the scary part of this fact is that i have a certain amount of, um, shall we say, anxiety about food. this stems from, in part, my allergies, but that's not all of it. it's kind of a weird cycle - when my allergies are acting up and certain foods start to make me sick, i start having anxiety attacks when i eat lots of different kinds of foods - even ones that shouldn't bother me. when i have anxiety attacks, i throw up. so the lines of where the allergies are making me sick and where the anxiety is making me sick kind of become blurred. so how do i deal with this? hmm i think that perhaps i just have to take it in hand - give myself a variation of the allergist prescribed 'elimination diet' (but one not so severe - i was losing over a pound a day on that one) and stick to it for a week. i'll clean out my system and get this food fear under control again.