Two weeks after the two weeks.

Oh, the two weeks were glorious. The things I dined upon! Pizza, breadsticks, ice cream, frozen yogurt, a bagel, a biscuit, a slice of sour cherry pie a la mode. Potatoes - french fried, mashed, and fingerlings a-roasted. The kati roll from Bollywood Theater, a polenta soufflé, a chocolate brioche and lemon tart from Maurice. (Bill, if you're reading, the polenta soufflé was worth writing home about.) Bread, bread and more bread. With butter, and jam. A slice of so-chocolatey-it-was-almost-black cake.

And then there were the things I forgot to eat. Pasta. I didn't think of it, not once! And no Frank's noodles, and no sweet potatoes. No oatmeal!? Indeed, no oatmeal. I didn't bake because I didn't want to restock any flour, sugar, or chocolate for just one recipe.

And then there were the things I ate that were not good. No surprises here: a Chips Ahoy cookie, a granola bar, a Fig Newton (that was ok, but not great). Anything processed tasted like nothing; like cardboard and sugar. If my eyes were closed, I'd never have known it was a Chips Ahoy. It could have been shortbread.

But alas, even two glorious weeks come to an end. There were exactly three things I think about still. One, the biscuit and two, the cherry pie from Lauretta Jean's. I mean, if this Captain of Team Cake is thinking about a slice of pie, you know it's out of this world. And the biscuits. Oh, the biscuits. They are worth every calorie of butter, worth every bit of gluten. And Three, ice cream.

Look, there's nothing like ice cream when you've not had sugar in 9 weeks, and neither dairy beyond hard cheese, butter or kefir. Ice cream is amazing. Ice cream is everything Anne of Green Gables thought it would be at her first picnic, it's everything you waited for at the beach as a kid. Ice cream is the miracle at your grandmother's World's Fair and I take back any time I didn't appreciate ice cream for the glory that it is. I work with a group of folks who have ice cream every day at 3 PM - it's one of the engineering groups' rituals - and I'm not precisely accusing them of not appreciating ice cream, but I am saying that generic Safeway brand creamsicles can't, just can't, hold a candle to real Rocky Road. Or a premium vanilla-bean-flecked vanilla. Or Salt and Straw honey strawberry balsamic with cracked black pepper. Or a Ruby Jewel sammie.

But I digress. I had a bit of ice cream, it's true.

Then the two weeks ended. And I had to strictly go back on the SIBO-approved diet. Which I've been on for two more weeks. And in about two MORE weeks, I'll get to take the bacteria test again.

Much like last time, where I thought it would show I made progress but was not healed, this time, I feel it's going to show that I beat it. The bacteria will be gone. And what comes after that? I haven't asked yet. This whole process only works if you stay in the day you're in, and not think too far ahead - I mean, I never could have said I'd eat meat, eggs, fat, veggies and some fruit for months. So I can't say what will happen and how I'll do, but I'll tough it out another couple weeks and then test, and then tough it out a week while the results get analyzed, and in the meantime, I'll share some of my infinite variations on meat-and-sauerkraut with you!

(I actually won't because that would be terrifically boring. But I will post some regular updates on life and health, and to the four people who still read along - thanks for sticking with me and my microbiome!)

Good, Better, Best.

Oh yeah, I'm going to tell you another Anne of Green Gables tidbit.

In book 3 (my personal favorite) the incorrigible Philippa Gordon says somberly to her new beau, whom she is head over heels for and is a pastor, "You couldn't be anything but a minister," after she hears him deliver a wonderful sermon.

He replies that no, he couldn't be. He tried for a long time but it didn't work.

So sometimes I get pretty down on acting, and film, and television, and the mass-produced woman-hating bullshit that comes out of Hollywood.

But then sometimes I watch something so good, so fucking good, that I want to meet Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams not because they are celebrities and probably fascinating and probably glamorous and definitely interesting and likely wonderful dinner party guests... but to purely, simply and tenderly thank them for not trying to be anything other than actors - and for bringing the world Blue Valentine.

One: run out and see it. Two: don't expect to be uplifted after you see it. Three: do expect to be amazed at their talent. Four: comfort yourself with the knowledge that Michelle Williams is like 32 years old, and we have decades of great art coming from her - she is the next Meryl Streep.

And five: feel in your bones that you have a calling as intense and true as the one these fine actors have been listening to... and start listening, too.

Just ignore that part.

Some people take a hot bath to relax. Some go for a long walk, take a nap, bake a cake or meditate. My escape, in times of stress, as you may already know, loyal reader, is to re-read the Anne of Green Gables series. 8 books, 8 great phases of a person's life, a romantic setting from the 1890s through the end of WWI.

The books are still a total escape for me - while also being completely memorized and comfortingly predictable. The world falls away and I'm simultaneously 10 years old, reading the story for the first time, and also 15, 17, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28, and 29 - putting the stresses of those times on the back burner for the few minutes I have picked up the story that day, at whatever point I find myself.

Some of the religious overtones are neither for me, nor offend me - I read past calmly. But in the first, most famous book, one part gets me every time... Anne's best friend Diana has told her that Moody Spurgeon MacPherson told his mom she (Anne) is the smartest girl in school, and, Diana proclaims, "It's better to be clever than pretty." Anne retorts that is it not!, "feminine to her core."

Ten times? Twenty?... that I've read this book... and every time that line jolts the hell out of me!

What are you afraid of?

I am really, really afraid of teenagers. Boys and girls. Packs of them in movie theaters. Lone ones who want to have an awkward conversation. Passing a group, laughing on the street. Watching them in a documentary.

You think I'm kidding - but I am not. Once children reach the age of reason, and really once they start to mature into semi-deep-thought-thinking beings, I want to run away from them.

Tonight, I watched an episode of This American Life (from the Showtime TV series) that focused on teenagers getting their photographs taken as high school sophomores. It was all there: their embarrassing ideas of what is cool, their pimples, their braces, their conviction that they'd remember the hot guy forever, their ability admit they'd make a mistake with no knowledge or ideas about how to fix it... I cringed. I kept saying, "awwww" and "ohhhhh" and my eyes actually got a little teary. My husband, on the other hand, laughed. A good-natured laugh, but he still chuckled at their growing pains. Not me. I shuddered.

So if anger masks fear... what does fear mask? Why am I so afraid of teenagers? Is it... could it... might I be totally in tune with that teenage part of myself still? Might I remember sharply, precisely how they feel? Might I avoid them like the plague... because... what I really want to do is swoop them up in my arms, erase their Facebook profiles and internet tracks, tell them to stop talking for a second and make them know they'll get out the other side of high school. Where they won't remember half the details, but they will remember every single one of the feelings.

*Thank Anne Shirley for the use of italics.*

My Annette Fantasy.

Do you know the story of Annette Funicello? She was 12, and in her school "Swan Lake" production in Burbank, Walt Disney saw her perform and picked her to be a Mouseketeer - and she went on to become one of the most popular TV stars on the show.

Perhaps you are too steady and mature to have ever had an Annette fantasy... where you're performing in a play, or even just walking down the street, and a casting director decides you are PERFECT FOR THE ROLE, and your life changes in the blink of an eye with, ahem, precious little work on your part.

I've had my share of Annette daydreams, and I suppose they fit the usual bill - when I performed in the 6th grade play, when I went to the state Geography Bee, when Kathleen Kennedy came to the theater I worked at in college for a film premiere of hers - of being selected at random, for no reason, to fulfill a great destiny.

Walking this past weekend on a lovely spring afternoon to the grocery store, I slowed down in front of the house I always slow down in front of, which has been for sale for 18 months or more, and is the perfect Craftsman with a big yard, a fireplace, it looks small from the front but is actually quite spacious and large, and sighed. I had an Annette moment. Maybe someone would say to me, "Oh, do you love this house?" And I would be able to answer, "Oh I've loved it since I moved to this neighborhood nearly four years ago. I would make it such a happy house with BBQs and Christmas decorations, gardens and music, gatherings and neighborliness!"* And they would say, "Then you shall have this house! For the enormous down payment of zero, because you are so worthy!"

It's funny - and I know it is - but it's dangerous too. When this type of entitlement attitude, this type of "above the rules" feeling goes too far, then grandiosity and isolation from my fellow man isn't far behind.

But hey, maybe the owners of the house are reading, and I can wish, right? For it is a fine distraction from the bore of plunking away money, week after week, into the savings fund that'll get me to that house, some house, eventually.

(*This house/Annette moment is also a nod for those Anne Shirley-lovers who read the blog, and how she secured the rental at Patty's Place by so loving the home and honestly vowing to not change its name.)

The Race That Knows Joseph.

That is a phrase from the Anne of Green Gables series, and it means the same thing as Anne's phrase "kindred spirits". Either someone knows Joseph, or they don't. And when you meet 'em, it usually takes no more than five minutes to tell if they know Joseph, too.

This past weekend, I had dinner with a new person who does not know Joseph. And I met one new person who definitely does. Welcome, Marc!

The thing I like about the race that knows Joseph is that sometimes family members belong - and sometimes they don't. It's not their fault, it's just is how it is. But how fun is it when someone in your family IS a kindred spirit?

Even if there is a dearth of kindred spirits in the family, that makes the others all the more precious. I always wanted a sister. And one has made her way to me. She definitely is of the race that knows Joseph and just like getting to know any sibling worth their salt, it's a slow and patient process that'll bloom in its own time.

What Makes It Work?

Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I hope and hope and hope Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth will get together, and am delighted when they do.

When Casablanca is on, I always think Rick and Ilsa will find a way.

Throughout the Alanna YA series, I will never stop rooting for the royal Jonathon over the slick, sexy thief George. (Seriously; check it out.)

Logan kissing Veronica? On the balcony of that cheap hotel? GOOD TIMES, every time. (I'm not posting this kiss; put in the time with the DVDs and live the thrill.)

Lame as it might be... no matter the production -- on stage, on film, on paper -- I scream inside my head for Juliet to wake up earlier than she does. (Damn that Balthazar!!! This is why timeliness is important!)

When Gilbert survives his fever, I am deeply relieved and it is the only time I agree that, yes, joy cometh in the morning.

Josh actually survives a shooting; Leo takes a drink!!!!; Ainsley makes me rethink the ERA; CJ laughs in the face of Marion Coatsworth Haye; the President gets high on pain pills. And every time - or time after time, John might say - it is funny, heartwarming, surprising and thought-provoking. Yup.



So, it works. The first time, the next time, and the 50th time. And I am comforted in the enduring legacy of high art, low art, entertainment and flash with or without substance. But those things work for me; what makes it work for you?