You see I am Catholic and Buddhist, but I have not been able to go to church regularly for the past two years.  Why?  Because every time I go I realize I can’t partake in the breaking of the bread.  I am allergic to bread.  It makes me ponder what the meaning of my allergy is in the eye of the church.  It also means I can only get a blessing and then I feel guilty as though I should go to confession, or I should say I feel that because I can’t take communion that is what appears to be the truth.  Frankly though my version of confession always gets a weird response from priests.  I once told a priest I am here to confess  I did not sin, but I keep being treated like I did and I am really tired of it and just want to go back to being on sets Father.  I can’t get along with a father who abuses me, somehow I think that would be a sin to allow his abuse to be acceptable.  I love acting and it is not a sin to love that.  Where in the bible does it say, “thou can not use the talents I have given you to change your voice and manners to the betterment of society by helping to tell good stories.”  I am also not striving to be a celebrity, but a good working actor. 

I don’t know what to do?  I think that is one of the reasons I really like Buddhism.  The tea ceremony of the Chinese is very ritualistic like communion and its intent is to achieve inner peace and a sense of being right with the UNIVERSE.  I wake up on Sunday’s and contemplate my plight.  Forever banned from breaking bread and wonder if I will be lucky enough to know what day is to be my last day on this earth, so I can go to church and take communion knowing it does not matter if it makes me sick because today will be my last and I can rest in peace.  At the same time, the whole planning for death thing, seems a waste.  Another reason I think I go less to church is I know how fragile my life is.  I eat food that others consume to maintain their existence and it could kill me.  And if we believe there is a GOD why do we fear meeting him so much.  Why do we try to stop people from living to their full potential.  I know that people who used to know me back east would not want me riding a scooter because I might hurt myself.  they would hold me back to being the weak girl I was as a kid who took forever to learn to ride a bike.  And yet if God intends for me to die via Scooter I’d be dead by now.  I had one and drove it for over 500 miles in 6 months.  Death Is not scary.  Not being free to make our own choices, be who we want to be, be all we can be (as our military puts it) sometime is not learning to fight to take down bad people, but be at peace with who we are and well, create what we want.  For me that means feeling and expressing.  I don’t want to make art with my hands, but with my soul and mind and heart.  that is what acting is to me.  OK leave it to me to start with a blog about my gluten church problem and wondering can you request gluten free bread at a church, and going right back to acting.  If I were obsessed with conquering the world, running the country, being in a position of power in a law firm, or making money, I’d probably be viewed as being more NORMAL.  But normal is kind of boring.  though when it comes to bread, I wish I were.  I not only can’t eat gluten, but non-vegan gluten free bread tastes funny to me to.  It is as if my taste buds don’t want any kind of animal protein in my body. 

When I had cancer, I wanted kale, squash, and all kinds of vegetables that before I would not touch.  I discovered all the foods my body wanted were foods that were listed as good if you had cancer.  Now I wonder why my body will not let me eat gluten or meat.  I crave also the vegan Thai curries from Trader Joes with rice all the time.  I wonder if we have diet problems in the US because we have lost touch with our bodies inner voice that tells it what it really needs.  We let the taste of what is sugary or sweet take over and flood our systems with foods that are easy to make because they are processed, but in the end we are really poisoning ourselves.  I am type A+ in blood, the oldest blood type, and am supposed to limit my meat according to the blood diet, if you believe that sort of thing.  I wonder what the creator of that book would think in finding out I not only have limited meat, I can’t even eat eggs because they make my body react badly.  Of course according to one genealogist, my last name comes from Tullius Cicero, ROME, so go figure.  Did they eat wheat back in ROME? 

My mother who is related to June Carter Cash, and probably part Indian, has celiac disease.  I however was tested for that and seem to have an allergy instead.  I can’t even wear make-up with Gluten in it, which explains why unfortunately I can’t wear MAC foundations.   

This is the description of celiac disease from Wiki: 

Several screening studies in Europe, South America, Australasia, and the USA suggest that approximately 0.5–1% of these populations may have undetected coeliac disease.^[41] Coeliac (also written as celiac) disease is a condition that is caused by an adverse immune system reaction to gliadin, a gluten protein found in wheat (and similar proteins of the tribe Triticeae which includes other species such as barley and rye). Upon exposure to gliadin, the enzyme tissue transglutaminase modifies the protein, and the immune system cross-reacts with the bowel tissue, causing aninflammatory reaction. That leads to flattening of the lining of the small intestine, which interferes with the absorption of nutrients. The only effective treatment is a lifelong gluten-free diet.

The estimate for people in the United States is between 0.5 and 1.0 percent of the population.^[42][43][44]

While the disease is caused by a reaction to wheat proteins, it is not the same as wheat allergy.

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I  sometimes throw up if I get gluten or from food as though my body is rejecting what I consumed.  I will get an incredible headache to that will not go away until I throw up.  I hate it.  At the same time it keeps me from eating foods that well, I just can’t eat.  Read this.  This woman on set kept telling me about her allergy and acting like I needed to be careful too.  It was odd, because at the time I did not now anyone in my family had an issue, though I was having problems.  Now I can’t eat wheat, dairy, eggs, and salt water fish makes me smell like a fish.  It seems that certain proteins my body rejects. 

CLOSING NOTE:  How often to we see actors really eating on TV or in a film.  I mean REALLY EATING. 

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