Which, I later learned, I think he took a sip of to figure out what was wrong with me.

The office was in a 405-adjacent strip-mall-type spot.

One of those spacious strip malls they have in LA, with like trees surrounding the parking lot.

A vape store, a CrossFit gym down the road a ways.

Dr. L’s son the receptionist.

Super Zen, gentle vibes all around.

Smelled like herbs in there.

Dr. L just smiled and told me put my forearms on this throw pillow he had at the ready on his desk. So he could take my pulse.

Felt bad that he didn’t have a pillowcase bc I don’t think he expected my arms to be as flakey and gnarly and weepy as they were.

But if he felt a way, he didn’t show it.

Just breathed through his nose and exuded calm.

The mama sitting in an adjacent chair, brow furrowed, holding her purse on her lap.

After feeling my pulse awhile, homie took the pee jar, rubber-banded and wrapped in a Whole Foods produce bag, into a back area. Then came back.

Said “Hot. Too hot. Too much inflamed.”

Hit me with some herbs—deer-poop-looking black pellets I was supposed to chew but ended up not being able to bc I had temporary caps on both root-canalled molars, and so had to blend in the mama’s NutriBullet and dilute and drink—and an anti-inflammatory diet:

No sugar except maple syrup.

No chocolate except raw cacao.

No processed grains, just basmati rice, corn tortillas, quinoa.

No dairy except grass-fed butter.

No caffeine (!) except green tea (1 cup) before noon.

Even some fruit/veggie stuff like no nightshades, no pineapple, no avo.

Animal-wise, nitrite-free turkey bacon, salmon, chicken breast, eggs OK.

And a supplement to add to the leafy green–berry–apple–celery–centric juice I was to hit daily.

The best diet, turned out, didn’t involve narrowing the number of groups you fucked with.

It was best to fuck with all groups.

To take all groups on their own terms, identify what each had to offer, and fuck with each group’s most useful elements.

And never fuck too unanimously with any one group.

Back at the spot, I didn’t know where to go.

What to do.

My life since I read Infinite Jest (1996) freshman year of college and first tried shrooms and quit basketball to go abroad to study writing, only to cultivate a nicotine addiction, a molly habit, contract herpes the second (or third) day I was there (was never sure which girl it was), and end up engaging in a semester-long flex beef with my creative writing prof (a Scottish novelist of moderate renown who will remain nameless but whose first name might start with A—we were both tryna impress the same undergrad girls) before failing said writing class due to a late submission due to a miscalculation of the California-London time difference—