Expectations

I shop at Whole Foods. At least, I did. It's a rocky relationship. My friends and I affectionately call it Whole Paycheck Foods. It's a little pricy, but unfortunately, I have special food needs. I supposedly have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) which, as far as I can tell, means my digestion is screwed up but medical science doesn't know why and can't do anything about it, except encourage me to not eat things that make it worse (duh). For me, that means not eating gluten (wheat), dairy (including cheese), and beef, among other things. It's hard to totally avoid all bread, anything that contains wheat flour, anything with milk or cheese or anything else derived from milk, but the stomach distress that results is much worse. It means I have a limited diet, and I've developed some unusual ideas about what's tasty. For instance, have you ever had gluten-free, dairy-free baked goods? They're hard to make, hard to find, and they taste totally strange. The texture is not right at all. But I miss cookies. I miss them so much that bizarrely-textured fake cookies taste amazing to me. I buy them from Whole Foods, along with gluten-free crackers and pasta and cereal.

So I was a little disappointed when I heard about the online activity of Whole Foods’ founder and CEO. Apparently, for the last 8 years, Mr. Sustainable Business, do-gooder has been anonymously trashing one of Whole Foods' competitors and gushing like a school girl about their management (i.e. himself). Check out his write-up in The Five Dumbest Things On Wall Street This Week. What a peach.

The thing is, I consider Whole Foods to be a rip-off, but it's big and it's loaded with food I can actually eat, as opposed to the frustration I experience at your average grocery store. I always have to read the labels, and it usually results in me putting whatever I want back on the shelf. Thanks, Whole Foods CEO doofus, for making me feel like even more of a sucker for lining your sanctimonious, monopolizing pockets. I miss my local co-op in Seattle.

Speaking of eating, I'm having some issues. This last week I started conducting Sarbanes-Oxley compliance training. There were 5 sessions, once a day, for 2 hours each. On Monday my boss asked me to take out my tongue ring. (He thought it might be distracting.) I took it out, put it back in after training, and then replaced it with a clear piece of tongue jewelry when I got home. Usually, I don't take out my tongue ring without immediately replacing it, and I don't take it out unless I have antiseptic mouthwash on hand, but I've had this piercing for 16 years, and it's never been infected. Until now.

My tongue was so swollen yesterday that I was talking funny and I could only consume liquids. It was pretty lame. My throat hurt from talking for 2 hours straight every day, my tongue was double its normal size and hurt in a big way, and the pain was radiating into my throat and even my ears. Plus, I was dizzy and exhausted from only having juice all day. I feel a little better today. Of course it's totally hot here, and I'm still feeling lightheaded from the all-juice diet. Curses. Next week is 3 hours of internal controls training each day, and the week after that I'm going to Denver and New York to train our offices there. It's going to be pretty hardcore. I'm flying to Denver on a Sunday, training 5 hours on Monday, flying to New York Monday night, 7 hours of training Tuesday and Wednesday, and flying back to Los Angeles Wednesday night. Thursday night I'm flying to Seattle for my friends' wedding, where I'll be doing a reading. I used to have serious anxiety with public speaking, but I think I've gotten over it.

I'm excited to go back to Seattle, for the wedding, and to see my bff (best friend Michelle, above)! I can't wait. Hopefully my tongue will be healed by then, and I'll still have my voice. Onward!