Anastasia Friscia

So I have celiac disease. Here are some thoughts I have about it:

• As diseases go, it lacks panache. I am not in mortal danger. Even if I want to be a daredevil and, say, eat a slice of pizza on my birthday, the most that will happen is a stomachache. Sure, if I ate the pizza every day, I’d slowly become malnourished and lose feeling in my extremities, but that’s just kind of gross.
• If I could swap celiac for another inexplicable-and-not-life-threatening illness, I’d choose migraines for their not-grossness and their apparent ability to be cured with gin, at least according to Joan Didion.
• It’s forcing me to be annoying and picky at restaurants (and parties, and dinner parties, and work functions with food..) which I hate. I went to a Mexican restaurant the other day and had to be that person who was like, “Can I get this burrito, but, like, without the burrito?” And then the waitress said, “It’s very busy and we don’t do substitutions.” And I said “But I have a wheat allergy. Are you sure they can’t do it?” And she asked the kitchen and I could not get my burrito-without-the-burrito and I almost cried, in the most pathetic burrito-related emotional breakdown since Ally Hilfiger on Rich Girls.