The results are in.

The time has come - my SIBO test results are in!

I picked up the phone with great nervousness, and heard, "Hi Emily! It's Dr. M!" She was excited and smiling, I could hear it.

"Hi! How are you?" I said in a big rush, as I locked myself into a conference room at work.

"I'm great, I have your test results and it is so exciting!"

Ohmygodwhatisit!?

So my bacteria indicators are down 80% or more. I still have it - and I knew I did - but it's going away, and it's going away fast. I'm not at all disappointed. I knew it would still be there, and my only fear was that it would be, like, 10% gone or something. But 80% gone! Miracle of miracles! Every single bite of food I passed up was worth it!

However.

It gets weirder.

The latest drug regimen, which Dr. M. wants to see me undergo, would be a choice of either herbal or pharmaceutical antibiotics. Herbals are $200 out of pocket and take 40 days. Pharmaceuticals are $850 out of pocket and take 14 days. She wasn't strongly advocating either way, but the pharmaceutical route - as evidenced by the cost - is a pretty incredible drug. It does not build up a resistance, so it should be as effective this time as it was last time. And it's non-systemic, so it does not cross into the blood and body; it stays right there in the digestive tract. If it does as well as it did in January, and I do as well with the diet as I did the last 8.5 weeks, I could be free of bacterial overgrowth and back on a path of healthy well-rounded eating. And so, yes, I'm a Western science girl at heart - I'm gulping on paying the bill and going for it. Round two shall be more pharmaceuticals.

But this is where it gets weird.

The second drug regimen comes with a new instruction. If choosing the pharmaceuticals over the herbals, one should, for 14 days - and not sooner, nor later - be eating, at one or two meals a day, something(s) from the list of "NO" foods. 

!!!

The highly fermentable foods list, aka everything delicious, will become my friend for 14 glorious days - and on day 15, it is cold turkey back to the SIBO diet. The theory here is that you want to feed the bugs while killing them… draw them out and knock 'em down; don't let them hide in dormancy while you take the pills.

As the calendar would have it, I am headed to Florida to see my mom and aunt next week, and frankly, this couldn't be better timing. I have not started the regimen yet, for two reasons. One, I am afraid I will get sick, like I did last time. It was the flu; I know it was. But what if - what if - what if it was a die-off reaction from slaying bacteria? And secondly, because I am making a list of Portland things I want to fit into my 14 day schedule. Any other suggestions? So far I have what is below, and it may well be two more months before I can have anything this tasty again.

• a slice of berry pie from Lauretta Jean's
• a kati roll from Bollywood Theater
• something from Maurice (brand new sweet shop near my office)
• half a pizza from Firehouse
• ice cream with hot fudge from Salt and Straw
• chocolate blackout cake from Sugar Cube (I've never had it!) 
• Frank's noodles 
• bread from Fleur de Lys 
• a bagel from Tastebud, now at food carts near my office

20, 19, 18, 17...

I tip 20% without thinking. It is my standard. I may even tell you I think it should be your standard. In fact, I typically round up, so that depending on the size of the bill, I usually end up tipping 21% to 25%.

This is why I am truly sad, and sorry to relate, that as the years away from waiting tables increase, I find myself stopping to consider this tipping practice.

It's lame to bitch about bad service. It's for cheap bastards, it's for old people, it's for judgmental office automatons who have never worked a double shift on cement floors on Mardi Gras in a New Orleans themed restaurant. I don't like the idea of joining the leagues of these types of assholes.

So am I becoming an old curmudgeon who yells at the kids on my lawn? Or is it that I keep running into bad, bad, BAD service?

This past week: brunch in a very un-busy place where 25 minutes passed without a server checking in with me. And I define "checking in" as including a slow walk-by, where I can choose (or not) to seek eye contact. If I don't make it or don't need you, that's OK; you've checked in. You've made yourself available. The 25 minutes of side work you just did about 15 yards away was the 25 minutes in which I decided I needed neither dessert NOR another drink (both of which I would have ordered) and asked for my check instead.

On which I rounded down, to 17.02% as a tip. I felt awful about it.

But I didn't feel awful enough to not do it.

So should I tell servers to watch out? The times they are a-changin'? Or was this a one-time-super-cranky-weekend kind of thing?

78

I'm still pretty tired. Although my face no longer hurts, and my abdominals were not sore this year, by my exhausted-yet-conservative counting, I saw at least 78 sets of comedy at this year's Bridgetown Comedy Festival!

I survived it last April - barely - and had to skip the 4th of 4 days. This year, I planned better. I paced myself better. I made it to shows on all 4 days. (Well... my fellow wine drinkers on Saturday night might disagree about my ability to pace myself and be a fully responsible 30 year old, especially he who drove me home while I chattered the whole way in a voice that could have slurred a feeeeew less words.)

But. 78 sets. Ranging from a few 3-minute opener/host types to Janeane Garofolo, who was supposed do a 15 minute set, but didn't see the red light (she was looking at the wrong part of the theater for it to flash at her) and realized it 25 minutes later. (It was the most hilarious, embarrassed, genuine, huge reaction. She gasped, she threw her hands over her mouth, she ran off stage - apologizing to the crew and staff, mid-joke.)

Next year, I aim to top 80.

And if anyone out there is scouring Google for mentions of the Festival seeking feedback, I'll say this: thank you for bringing more women comics! Also: there were fewer masturbation jokes and I was grateful. But, there were a lot more mentions of pot, the Occupy movement, Portland dudes with beards and parenting/kids. Overall it was a little tamer - though, really, no less drunk on the performers' part - than last year, and if you want to immerse yourself in it with next year, let's! Call me in early April - I'll be plotting out my weekend of shows and picking more of my favorites! This year:

• Gloria Bigelow
• Toby Muresianu
• Ricky Carmona

and Auggie Smith delivered, like always, and Lucas Dick was quite funny well before he told us his dad is Andy Dick! Go Lucas! Bridgetowners like me will enjoy seeing you in years to come.

Must-Read

If you're not reading, and using, the recipes from Smitten Kitchen - and I am sure you are, because you are cooler than me and more experienced in finding all the cool stuff on the internet - then you should be. Her baking recipes are brilliantly good, and she lists ingredients by weight!! Oh, the accuracy. Oh, the obsessive ability to calculate Weight Watchers points. And oh, oh, oh, the snickerdoodles. Start with these and you'll be a committed fan.

News Round-Up, Version N.Y.T.

Good morning! It's news time.

I think my friend Nikola ghost-wrote this.

And they wrote this article solely for my friend Micheal, who already heats his bedroom with his supercomputer during the cold chunks of the year.

This one is for my cousin, for both the insight into GF food and the marketing of an international company.

I already sent this to Meg but it's really good, and Lemon would like it too.

There are two for Meggie - one that's op-ed and national and one that's news and local (47 kids in an algebra class!?!?).

And as this article sadly says, "Sometimes the story that science tells us isn’t the story we want to hear." My husband the pragmatist, my husband the unsentimental, my husband the striving pianist - this article is for him.

So I read a lot of news, but I think about everyone while I do it!