It’s the beginning of Endometriosis Awareness Month, and today, I want to talk about cheese. I may be influenced by Jenny Lawson. I finished Furiously Happy on audiobook in January and I’ve been thinking humor and chronic illness since then. As I change my daily habits, I will never forget all that cheese has done for my gastrointestinal system and my poetry career.
This post will begin with a confession: I watch The Today Show almost every day. I’ve had this morning ritual since moving to Baltimore in 2010. Despite changes in career and habits (early bird to night owl, then back to early bird), Al Roker has stayed with me. He’s the only staff member that hasn’t changed in the eight year period, right? But I was betrayed on January 31, 2019. The segment was on CHEESE.
Per nutritionist advice, I have mostly eliminated dairy (anything with casein, the main protein in dairy) from my diet since February 2018. Endometriosis is exacerbated by inflammation. Dairy is an inflammatory food. I grumbled my way through it, and continue to grumble to this day. Are we at Harris Teeter? Let’s walk by the cheese area to check on my favorites. Look, Satori Balsamic Bellavinto Cheese is on sale and in a sample pod! I’m going to smell it. Ordering food? Homeslyce still has my favorite four-cheese garlic. Let me linger my mouse over the item, remembering the surprise of tart blue cheese with sweeter mozzarella, then build-my-own-pizza with dairy-free cheese, pineapple, and basil.
If a poet can have a brand (debatable), I built the early part of my career on sad poems about loneliness and cheese. Spreadable cheese, block cheese, string cheese (which I bite into, by the way)—cheese was comfort. The soft taste on the tongue, the salty sting, was a hug from the inside. There was even a Baltimore flurry of #cheesememe posts after an MFA classmate made a book out of Kraft Singles (3-4 years ago, I think). How is that book doing, anyway? I saw it about a year ago and it still hadn’t started decomposing. Giving up cheese was probably a good idea.
Anyway, it’s day two of Endometriosis Awareness Month. Click here for facts—the disease affects an estimated 176 million people worldwide. The disease isn’t limited to gender. Or cheese preferences. I’ll be posting more on my Instagram and on the blog throughout the month.
Stay sweaty and glittery.
#poetsthatsweat 