Nobody will stop you if your camera is an iPhone 5

Stepping outside into 12 degree weather after two days indoors feels like hitting the 11am slump after an all-nighter. I stand blinking into the sunlight on the sidewalk in front of Whole Foods. I don't have any money but I had a sudden craving for a selection of free artisanal cheeses. 

Here is a gratuitous photo of a spread.

Here are some things I'm not supposed to eat even when they are free (see July 2016 post, "The Big Potato." Turns out hypoglycemia IS a real thing.)

Here is a beverage made from birch bark*, a free sample of which I heroically swallowed as the Slavic vendor stood watching hopefully. His tee shirt said "Made from forests not formulas" and I wanted to punch him in the throat and scream "FORMULAE" but it occurred to me that that might be kind of my unique peeve and it would look to others like I was overreacting.

*This is actually a generic picture of a tiny paper cup. I did not have the heart to photograph the birch beverage in front of the hopeful vendor.

When I first developed hypoglycemia I worried that it would be impossible to keep food handy all the time. "Where am I going to get a tiny, tiny serving of all natural fruit juice?"

Turns out it’s as easy as taking cruelty-free-candy from an upper-middle-class baby.

I'm also applying products to my skin as I go.

I seriously smell right now like a Berenstain bears scratch and sniff book I had as a child in which the bear children made pizza. I was around five years old when I covertly ate the scratch and sniff pizza sticker right off the final page. After that, every time my mom reached for that book I would demand a different one before she could even open it. 

I still don't know if they ever found out what I did to that last page, because I concealed it in shame until about thirty seconds ago.

 That organic scented oil brought it all to the surface. Now I will walk around for the rest of the day with my wrist smelling of oregano like some sort of trauma therapy exercise.

I'm out of practice at being weird in public, and I realize it's because in any foreign country you can do it in plain sight. No matter what I did in Laos or Portugal or Latvia, I did it for all of America. Walk around a high-end grocery store taking pictures of plum spread and baby food, then leave without buying a damn thing, and they go, "I guess that's just what Americans do."  

That's right, World. That is just what Americans do. 

And our wrists smell of oregano.