I walk over Bernal Hill to the Farmer's Market and buy vegs, almonds, and eggs. At the egg booth is a gorgeous teenage girl, darkhaired and slender, big-eyed with a smart aura. She doesn't notice me gawking: she's staring, disturbed, at the egg-seller who's holding a rusty bewildered chicken upside down, tying its legs to pop it in a sack.

I feel guilty--eggs and milk/yogurt are two of the very few protein sources I can digest okay--less murderous than meat itself but still part of the system. Sure, the small farms who sell here aren't corporate deathcamps, but they're still prisons. Chickens are stupid so they can't suffer, right?

Yet, as Woody Allen says, I need the eggs--literally. I don't thrive on a vegan diet--I need a lot of protein AND must limit legumes; and that will mean being more flexible about eggs, seafood, dairy, which at least I can digest. My body proves it when I go home and make tofu and vegs and mild curry rice fortified with soy protein powder. I get stomach aches and gas... Of course I'm hypersensitive right now from dust in my house, but I seem to react badly to all legumes beyond a modest amount. This has happened before, though never as severely. Rest of the day is a dead loss--just lie around feeling bloated and sick. Read, work on music. Nothing ground-breaking, just fill-in work.

Feel like a chicken in my cage, producing art instead of eggs. In metabolic prison.

And how many more people are like this? Not quite ill, not quite well--just ill enough so we don't raise hell.

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