insides go out, part 2

after yesterday's struggle with my insides trying to get out, i call my doctor. she's out of town and i make an appointment with an office-mate of hers. then this morning i wake up and my body immediately sets to work swirling and snarling and more or less letting me know i will not be leaving the environs of the toilet for any interval longer than fifteen minutes. so i cram in some immodium. and my insides laugh a sinister laugh. and then do some other things we'll not say here. so i cram in some more immodium. and by the time it is 8:20 am i have downed a full day's dose of immodium and my insides are twisted and gnarled and still very, very angry. this is a concern for a person with an appointment at 9:50am at a place about 45 minutes the other side of the nearest train.

i steel myself against the thought of the long train trip. when you take a train you often do not have any idea what's above you at the in between stops. bathrooms? at this hour? not likely. i comfort myself with the idea that i've actually seen people go to the bathroom on the train and so, if things go really badly, i will not be the first. still, not a goal to set. now, those of you who read regularly know i'm not what you'd call at peace with the train travel underground and most folks know that swirling insides + anxiety = no good. but i sit on the train and keep my paranoid face buried in my knitting and the immodium somehow seems to get the upper hand there for a while on the train. and we go slowly slowly slowly (track work today?) from station to station, agonizing trips where the train itself seems to groan in frustration. and still i am knitting away, baby bear pants, brown and cuddly. knit knit knit. we inch under the east river and i don't even notice, crawl through a hole in the ground under a river right where it slams into the ocean. who would put a hole in the ground there? and then shove people in it? but someone did and we go on through and everything is good.

but the warmer weather and the bright bright sun have worked together to create a new sort of subway passenger. i look up at a lower manhattan stop to see mirrored sunglasses and a dark hoodie, hood up, and a blank face. a face i've seen, you've seen, right in the newspaper. the unabomber steps through the doors and onto my train. and stands there over me, glaring eyelessly through those mirrored glasses. and i can feel the immodium slipping a little. losing the battle. my insides grow more and more pointy and unstable. this is unfair. but what is more unfair is that at every stop along the way a new one gets on. unabombers all over the place. i'm not even kidding. today all the white men between 25 and 55 in all of manhattan get a call: dude! wear your dark hoodie- blue or black or something. with the hood up. yeah! and get some cheap mirrored shades to wear. indoors, man! i know! do not take those bad boys off and do not take that hood down. this will be sooooo cool! and it seems that at least forty men on my subway line heed the call and prance out into the world all dressed up like a man who blows things up. this is not funny when you're on the same train car with a guy like this. not funny at all.

i soothe myself with the idea that i will have a target if i accidentally explode on the train, if my insides actually do manage to get out. but the five unabombers still riding in my car when i arrive at my stop survive, clean and ridiculous looking. i make it up to see the substitute doctor and she says "stomach virus". then she says "brat diet". now, i have to strain to hear what she is saying over the laughing of my brain and my stomach. diet, indeed. for those of you who don't know, it's bananas, rice, applesauce, toast. and nothing else. but water. no butter. no salt. no juice. no protien. for a "few" days, until my stomach feels better and is up to digesting. it's like bed rest for the g.i. tract.

there are few things i love as much as food- cheese. chocolate. cheese with chocolate. did i mention this diet doesn't allow for any butter? that means dry toast and plain white rice. i go to the store, trying to convince myself that this will stop the swirling and make the bruised feeling my insides have go away. the truth is, it will not. it is just supposed to make things easier while the stomach wrestles with its viral foe. so i buy bananas. i buy bread (turns out whole grain is the wrong kind). i can find nothing applesaucy in the store and i was warned against the deadliness of juices, especially the dreaded apple juice. i get a carton of fat-free organic, low-sodium chicken broth to go with some rice at home and then i trudge back to the train.