The Potato Blight

Actually I am being very facetious with my title. As my last post made clear, it cannot be certain what is causing my current malaise. What is clear is that I can’t concentrate, and that I am having a lot of reveries sat in front of a piece of paper trying to write a continuation of Nat’s story. My legs are restless too and I’m very antsy. 

As far as reveries go, I have been having discussions with students about being sexist, telling them (within earshot of certain people, as usual), that they will miss out on a hell of a lot in life if they exclude women, that yes (launching into one of my semi-manic comic monologues) women can take an utterly ordinary, insignificant event and turn it into a three or four hour conversation topic and do our heads in, but that on the flip side they can have far wider-ranging conversation; I have been cooking, filling in for the kitchen staff at work; I have been describing in one of the morning meetings a student’s problems with a subscription to an erotic website, jokily describing the website in such a way as makes clear my own familiarity with porn sites, but also arguing strongly that there should be no moral qualms about encouraging such a student to buy erotic magazines… And much more. 

Nothing remotely out of the ordinary, except that I could not simply shake my head and be rid of them. They were persistent and intrusive, which they have not been for a long while. 

There was not, as I wrote earlier, much potato in the curry I made. It was just hot. As far as testing goes it was really not ideal. Far too ambiguous. Perhaps I will have to stretch this one out beyond the few days I’ll be eating this curry. 

It is good though, after putting so much into the diet to see such a positive result, which presumeably will continue into tomorrow. I will have to watch too that it does, since it could be that today’s gym session was the problem. I shall have to watch out for the impact of demanding cardiovascular exercise on my symptoms. There may be some effect, and possibly a negative effect arising from the demand on the system made by toxins and the like. Mainly, though, I think there must be a problem with either starch or hot foods. (I did not in the end serve much rice at all with the curry either at lunch or dinner.) Nor did I eat more fruit than I have been on the diet. Indeed, less than most days with an apple after my millet porridge in the morning, and another after my dinner. 

Yes, these positive results will be a positive thing for me, I’m sure, after all the impatience with the constant demands of my time of my cooking and food shopping, even if I have to stick it all out a little longer. 

*** 

I should describe the reintroduction stage Here is the schedule: 

Tap Water       -  1-2 pints a day.Potatoes          -  Have 2 x 4oz portionsMilk                   -  1 pint a dayYeast                -  3 brewers yeast tablets or 2 teaspoons of fresh bakers yeast in water or fresh yeast spread on rice cakes. 

[Reverie of looking tired in a morning meeting and being told that I should go to bed earlier. Me responding that I did go to bed early, but that doesn’t much help when you don’t fall asleep until seven hours later. Describing my exclusion diet and how I had reintroduced yeast the night before, smashed up a cupboard, gone out for a walk and come upon some guys kicking a hedgehog around, and that I kicked hell out of them; then describing my condition and a similar situation to the girls in the kitchen; then, again, in a morning meeting.] 

Tea                    -  Drink at least 6 cups.Rye                    -  Test 5 Ryvita or 2 slices of Rye bread (check the bread is not a mixture of wheat and rye). Only test rye as bread if the yeast was negative.Beef                  -   2 x 3oz portions. 

[Popped to the toilet and to make some fruit tea. Reverie first of doing my usual rant against homeopathy, talking about water having not only to have a memory, but also be a discerning memory, to be essentially sentient [reverie about flow forms, something the people at work go mad about, and dismissing them, saying I can appreciate the beauty of water but rarely feel the need to verbalise it, etc etc., a whole other rant here] saying how is water supposed to diagnose the person it commes into contact with, and remember the specific molecules it was adjacent to at one point in its history, and discard all others, such as, for example, fish piss and, say, even homeopathic remedies for other individuals which have subsequently been passed out as urine and diluted several times in the water treatment works, something which should, if homeopathy’s logic is to be pursued, make it stronger… talking to the mother of one student I believe could be helped by a G/F C/F diet having shared my lunch with him for a couple of months (this because another student expressed an interest in my lunch today), describing to her the improvement in his condition. Oh, and the first, telling the managers at work that one of their light switches was arcing, being put down by one of them “yes, thank you, when we need you’re electrical advice we’ll ask for it” before challenging them…] 

Butter         -  Test at least 2oz during the day.Onions      -  Have 2 x 1oz portions.Eggs          -  Have 2 during the day.Oats           -  Test as porridge oats, have two servings.Coffee       -   Test coffee beans and instant coffee - have at least 6 cups.Chocolate -  Plain or cocoa.Barley        -  Can be tested as pearl barley, 2 x 2oz portions (cooked weight) or barley flakes.Citrus Fruit  - Have at least 2 fruits or 2 glasses of fruit juice.White Wine - Have two glasses.Corn             - Test cornflour or corn on the cob.Yoghurt        - Ordinary yoghurt made with cow’s milk, test 2 small cartons.Wheat          -  Test as 5 slices of bread if yeast is okay, or wheat breakfast cereals or pasta.Saccharin   -  Test as saccharin tablets.Shellfish     -  Have 2 x 2oz portions.Nuts            -   Any kind, have 2 x 1oz portions.Preservatives  - Try fruit squashes, tinned foods, sausages, smoked fish etc. 

I have a couple of reservations, including that white wine is a strange choice being as it contains both yeast and alcohol, and would like to reintroduce a few extra things, including, as of today, also spicy foods on their own, mushrooms, sugar and vodka. On the whole though, I am glad I can see the end of this thing in sight, and that I soon might come to a time when just excluding gluten and dairy, say, may seem like a doddle, and it will be much easier mentally because of the consistency that should come from having conducted an exclusion diet and narrowed things down. We’ll see.

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