So, I had ordered the Allergic Girl book a while ago, and did finally finish reading it, but a lot has been going on in life lately so I didn’t have any time to sit down & give it the thoughtful review that I felt it deserved. Now, I have the time to do that.
Allergic Girl: Adventures In Living Well With Food Allergies
The author Sloane Miller has a popular blog, and is so very easily contacted via Twitter… which as I’ve remarked before, is easily now my go-to resource for any food allergy related news or information. Twitter is how I discovered Sloane, her food allergy advocacy empire, and this wonderful book. I’ll warn you now, this may read more like an advertisement than a review… but this is the first book of its kind that I’ve ever picked up… if there are even any more like this out there, and it really spoke to me.
The first thing that hit me about the book is that it’s an excellent balance of “hey, you’re not alone” and “we’ll work through this”. It’s a comfort & a guide all at once. Of course, the writing style pulled me in right away. In the prologue, you’re dropped into a situation that could easily be a sitcom plot (or your weekend), but the seriousness is not lost in the humor… it’s underscored by it.
The book then moves into accounts of discovering and dealing with food allergies, one passage in particular that I’m going to highlight before I give it to friends & family to read… it describes the anxiety that builds after just an inkling in your mind that a certain food is unsafe (or could be unsafe) for whatever reason. I felt like Sloane had read my mind & put down my thoughts. From the order of thoughts jumping to other thoughts, to the hidden (or hopefully hidden) panic, down to the actions in dealing with such a situation… it’s uncanny. It’s a hard thing to convey to people, even if they are supportive & understanding.
The book covers dating, which can be harrowing… but luckily I have my incredibly supportive wife, and I don’t have to worry about that any more. This is a great guide to anyone in a dating situation, or for younger people with food allergies about to get into dating… or any social situation.
Allergic Girl is thankfully chock-full of resources for everything from websites to support groups to products to help you deal with your food allergies. There are also bullet-points at the end of each chapter, not unlike a textbook… they can work as a personal checklist for you.
This book will help you get organized… build support, learn to pick your food allergy battles, and maybe even to expand your comfort zones. This is what I personally need to work on. Dining out can be a paralyzing fear for me, and I need to learn to find people and restaurants that will work with me to feed me & keep me safe. Whether it’s starting the dialog the right way, using chef cards, or making calls ahead… they are all viable options of acquiring a safe meal.
If you have food allergies, have a friend, relative, or other loved-one with food allergies and want to understand their situation a little more… you need this book. No joke.
Ernie and the Berts did some crazy Turbonegro covers last night… “Suffragette City”(a cover of a cover), “I Got Erection”, and “Sell Your Body (To the Night)”. It was captured in photo and video. It’s a good thing we have no shame.
One lucky Ernie and the Berts friend & fan who goes by the YouTube handle johnnyaUSA captured a very special moment last night. Ernie got to live out 3 rock n’ roll dreams (a.k.a. “steps to becoming a man”) at the 31st Street Pub and it’s all captured here on video. What are they? Well, you’ll just have to watch and see! … Read More
I saw this video thanks to Twitter this morning… I’m pretty sure it’s the one I’ve heard talked about as being a clip on GMA yesterday. It sparked awe in me, and perhaps obviously this point, a rant.
I’m not even sure where to begin. I mean, I’ve been amazed for years about the lack of caution during hazardous road conditions from my fellow southwestern PA motorists… but this is beyond amazement. If I were in charge of public service announcements, my #1 topic/message would be that “AWD/4WD may help you go, but it doesn’t help you stop“… and to leave space between you & the vehicle in front of (or beside) you. Too many people just drive like nothing’s going on out of the norm as far as road conditions during inclement weather. Then again, you have the other end of the extreme… people driving like they’re afraid, and being so ‘cautious’ that they’re a danger to others. But that’s all general. I’d love to just point out the insanity in this video.
The White SUV – Okay. I live not too far from here. It’s obviously quite a hilly area like most of southwestern Pennsylvania. I would avoid hills like this if at all possible when I knew there were icy or even snowy road conditions… To a certain extent in these neighborhoods all routes out involve some sort of hill, but there are less “extreme” grades around. I wonder what sparked the camera man to start taping at this point? What auto-acrobatics led up to a “wow, I should get this on video” moment? Think all 3 cars there were damaged, or just the 1st 2?
The Speedy Sedan – Seriously? Did you just miss the twirling SUV… and the minivan that apparently decided to join the chaos only to make a futile attempt to clear a path for your louge-run? It almost looked like someone stepped on the gas trying to go down that hill, Speed Racer. I’d love to see the look on your insurance agent’s face when they see this pinball-machine like run, assuming you have insurance. I hope you had a change of underwear in the car with you. I feel bad for the poor guy who probably thought his car was safely parked in the front yard away from road hazards flanked by other vehicles… unless he ended up there just like this guy. What flew to the left there that started out behind the parked black SUV? A tree?
The Concerned Citizen – Yeah, I get that you’re trying to help, but that may not be the best place to walk… in case, you know… someone else were dumb enough to slide down that hill. He’ll re-appear later with a construction cone.
Sedan #2 – Adds injury to insult while you’re distracted by Brian Boitano trying to cross the road.
SUV #2 – Won’t be outdone… it’s a almost a sedanwich, but it turns into a nice little road block. Maybe this will serve as a warning to other would-be travelers to turn around and go home?
Sedan #3 – This driver likes a challenge, and decides to plow through the blockade just like in all those movies on Spike. Another bright idea is to get small children out of the car and on to the icy road.
I always felt like I was saying “younz” more than “yinz”, but then again, I grew up in the ‘burbs, not the city proper.
I know I’ve heard that it was a contraction of Scottish/Irish origin… a merging of “You ones” (…or “you’uns” neither of which is exactly proper). I think when I was little “Younz” just seemed like a better differentiation between “You” plural, and “You” singular. With “you’unz” there was no confusion!
This was a project by our friends Jason & Terry. Luckily, they needed a band and we were up for making a video. I know I’m pleased with the results!
Ernie and the Berts owes these cats some thanks as well as Jonathan and Naveed for starring along with Jason & the band… and Erin and Lynn for giving up their house for a day.
Almost forgot, Brendan for helping us record this thing & his patience!
Hopefully, you dig the song and the video. We’re (of course) interested in your thoughts/critique/reviews/compliments/criticisms/etc.!
People with allergies are freaks. We’re geeks. We’re undesirable. We’re the weak, and we should have been weeded out with natural selection. The weirder the allergy, the weirder the person.
At least, that’s what I pick up from watching TV. The nerdy kid always has glasses and/or asthma. I guess at least I don’t wear glasses like some of you real freaks out there.
The latest support to this line of thinking that has come to my attention is this lovely commercial:
Of course, I see the humor, and I’m not so offended that it’s ruining my day. It’s just that the general perception of people with allergies kind of sucks.
If the guy had rolled through the door in a wheelchair, or walked in with crutches, missing a limb, blind, deaf, or anything similar causing the date to be undesirable, it wouldn’t be acceptable at all. You could even throw in other stereotypes like a different race or religion. Both would be unacceptable. I bet even if they threw in a guy that was 500 lbs. and turned it into a fat joke it would be considered tasteless… but making fun of a shellfish allergy is apparently acceptable.
They could have done this same joke and just had the guy dressed ridiculously or something… something that’s a choice, not an affliction.
There’s a radio commercial I’ve heard recently too, maybe for a phone or something… the line is “Bob is still allergic to shellfish.” I wish I could remember what it’s for. At any rate, it’s not offensive… it just puts the thought out there.
At least the peanut-allergic and gluten-free people have been getting a lot of good press lately. How about passing it along to the rest of us?
Snuff is probably my favorite band. I know virtually nothing about them, and every time I think I have a pretty damn close-to-complete collection of their stuff, I discover that I’m all kinds of wrong.
They seem to have different titles for the same songs. They have different recorded versions of many songs, which I really dig. They sing in Japanese and I think other languages sometimes. They have incredibly nonsensical album and song titles. I’ve never seen them live. They do a ton of crazy covers, and it’s hard to tell that they’re covers sometimes.
When I look them up on Wikipedia, I realize that there current/former members list is incomplete. I can only seem to find scraps and tidbits of information pieced together from outdated label sites. I don’t really know anything other than that there was an original formation, a revival, and a few changes since then… with Duncan Redmonds seeming to be the only constant. I have n idea why there were lineup changes.
There used to be an awesome site, Snuff.net… but it fell into the stagnant perpetual “updates coming soon” mode before it disappeared completely. I tried to start a Yahoo! Group, but there aren’t many of us on the list.
Maybe I dig them more because they’re still a mystery? I really do enjoy actively earching for information about the seemingly now defunct Snuff & the related bands… especially whatever Duncan Redmonds has going on at any given moment. Maybe I’ll get it all sorted out some day.
World (and Lunar) Domination 