My body usually takes care of itself when it comes to getting the food I need. Which is why, when I blacked out in the shower today and couldn’t feel my legs, it was slightly disconcerting that I couldn’t remember what I had eaten.
It was more disconcerting that I had to wash my hair in 10 second increments and spent a lot of time sitting on the shower floor.
People assume that I do not eat meat. I think because of all the yoga. The truth is I just forget to eat meat most of the time. You have to think in advance to cook meat at home, and this is not a strong area for me. The planning part, not the cooking part.
When I’m hungry, I am starving, and when I’m not, I won’t remember that this will ever happen again.
“Hi, I’m just eating string cheese in your lobby like a weirdo.” - Me, meeting professional colleagues, yesterday.
In Journalism, you are taught to collect quotes that will support what you already want to say. It’s like proving a hypothesis in science, except you will always be right and you will learn nothing.
It’s what I do when I think I’m sick also; I have already decided what I have when I google the thing I think I have instead of the symptoms. Luckily I am usually sure that nothing is ever really wrong with me, and I only google things that seem sort of likely.
But when I tell you that I almost fainted today due to anemia, just know that I am not anemic and my Scientific Method is maybe a little bit flawed.
This summer I broke out in hives all over my back and no one could tell what was wrong with me. I was teaching a sold-out event and tried to cover up any visible splotches for all the photos I was in, hoping no one regretted hiring the Leper Influencer.
I went to the laundromat to ask them if they had switched detergent. This was the only thing that could be different in my routines.
“No, but next time ask for the special detergent.”
“Special?” I pictured magic detergent, something that would salve me. Or at least something with a steep discount.
“Yes.” She grabbed me by the hives, pulled me to the back room. “We use this one. But if you have—“
She wiped down her arm and squinted.
“—this one is better for you.”
They were both Costco brands, but the promised solution was for sensitive skin. I went home and googled the regular brand and “hives.” No results. Then, with keen investigative skill, and a hint of desperation, I googled the sensitive version and “fucking awful rash.”
Pages.
I stopped wearing my freshly-washed clothes and it immediately got better. Science.
Today, laying flat on my back in my room in a towel, suspecting I was deficient in something massively underrated, I could not remember the last time I had eaten meat. I backtracked through the last day and a half of what I had eaten.
That string cheese I got at Starbucks.
A marshmallow bar, also from Starbucks.
Coffee.
Did you know that dairy and caffeine inhibit your iron absorption? I know this from googling “acute anemic attack,” because this, and not, “forgetting to eat; moron,” seemed more likely.
I ate two bags of spinach for dinner tonight and now I feel fine. I am usually right.