Ah, 2026, the Summer of TMI...

CW: If you determine "summer" as the months of June, July, and August, we're at the halfway point, and so far 2026 has been the summer of Expelling Things From Between My Legs. If you don't want to read about that, skip to the bold print.

I made a run for the border after my neurology appointment a few weeks back, and got served the Michigan Taco Bell Cyclospora-coated lettuce on our tacos and crunchwraps. My whole family ate it. Looking at my calendar, I'm betting this thing has the lifespan of about a week... our symptoms coincided with a heat wave coming in, so we assumed it was a reaction to the heat, but it hit a week after we ate the contaminated food. And there's a definite upswing/downswing in symptoms since, so I'm guessing we've got the Circle of Life happening in our small intestines as we speak.

Something tells me the "explosiveness" of the diarrhea has to do with the host's diet. We eat a lot of whole foods around here, I've definitely noticed those symptoms get worse the more processed the food is that I eat. There's also a lot of nausea, gas, and I'm waking up in the middle of the night with hiccups almost every night. And if you've ever heard the old wives tale that if your butthole itches, you have parasites... it's your butt crack, actually.

Considering this is coming after a year and a half of GI issues, and I'm going into surgery in exactly three weeks where they'll be pumping me with prophylactic antibiotics and opioids that will both kill the parasite and mess my guts up hardcore, I'm going to give the good old fashioned cult remedies a try. Well. To an extent. Black walnut is obviously off the table, and while I have had plenty of absinthe in my time, I'm not too thrilled about the prospect of making my already plenty vivid dreams any crazier with wormwood. So, my grocery order today included the following:

1. Oil of Oregano with Black Seed Oil capsules. The use there is pretty obvious. As of mid-morning post delivery, I've taken two doses, one before bed and one with my 3 cups of electrolytes when I woke up this morning.

2. Raw, shelled pumpkin seeds, and hemp seed hearts.

3. 2 liters of Mexican vanilla extract, one clear, one brown. I've been making a lot of desserts lately.

With 2 & 3, I've made this version of my No-Bake Fudge Balls:

No Bake Sweet & Spicy Seed Balls

• 1 15 oz can white beans, drained and rinsed

• 8 pitted medjool dates, chopped

• 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds

• 1/4 cup raw hemp seeds

• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds

• 1/3 cup raw honey

• 5 tablespoons raw coconut oil

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 1 tablespoon ground ginger

• 1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric

• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

• 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

• heaping 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Place your pumpkin seeds and hemp hearts in the food processor, and process until they're a fine meal. If your food processor doesn't get the pumpkin seeds fine enough, a clean coffee grinder should do it. Add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor bowl, and process until the mixture is a smooth, stiff batter. Using a small spoon, portion out onto trays lined with wax or parchment paper, cover the balls with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until the spice balls set, 2-3 hours. Store in the refrigerator in a well-sealed container.

I actually tried doing these bar style in an 8x8" pan, turns out they don't set properly when they're not individually balled out, even if you let them chill overnight.

Speaking of my diet and my recipe blog, I may need to figure out how to edit videos... this is how it's been in the YouTube comments lately:

Them: "Only rich people can afford to eat a whole foods diet lately, grocery prices are so high, and no one has the time or energy to cook from scratch."

Me: "I'm the poorest person in this conversation, and I'm physically disabled so I only have so much energy to prepare my food each day, and I eat a whole foods diet out of necessity thanks to having five food allergies. You're describing a skill issue, not a money issue, and a skill issue is a lot easier to remedy than a money issue."

And folks are starting to take notice.

The other thing I learned via YouTube the other day is that Riot Grrl Is Back, just in time for my food content!! I'm absolutely greatly influenced by riot grrl ethos in all of my community work, including insisting on keeping un-monetized blogs that are accessible to use. People see the feminist punk music veneer right off the bat, but riot grrl and punk in general is based on the DIY/DIT (that's "do it together") philosophy, where alternative culture is constructed by peer education, where people in the community who know how to do something useful - everything from sewing clothes, to fermenting food, to your rights as a conscientious objector - share that information through semi-formal workshops (often held in conjunction with punk shows) and handwritten, Xeroxed "zine" booklets that could be passed around the community and mailed around the country.

For the record, I was too young and too Midwestern to truly experience Riot Grrl v.1, but v.2 actually took off around the time of the recession, so I participated in a few Riot Grrl festivals in the early 2010's, and definitely used the connections I made there when I started community organizing in 2016.

Wait long enough, and you go from the baby sister of the movement, to the Auntie writing the zines and leading the workshops 😅😅

Heh, speaking of, I also discovered MenoPunks this week, which seems fortuitous. It makes sense the OG Grrls are hitting peri & past and being like "yup, time to riot again."

Anyway, I've had recipe zines in the works as a fundraiser for the 3 Witches Clothing Swaps (yet another riot grrl inspired community project I run) since our last Spring Swap, so this is perfect timing for a movement revival, thank you zeitgeist 🫶🏼