Herbal Humor, Week Two

Herbal Healing, Week Two

1. Braco is coming to Boulder for the gazing event that will change your life. It costs eight dollars to attend his hour-long session, during which he will gaze around the room at the attendees. He doesn't speak, instead letting his gaze speak for itself. Bridget attended one of Braco's gazing events years ago after having a porcelain filling that was causing her discomfort. She knew before she got the filling that she shouldn't get it, but she loves feeling high off nitrous oxide, and decided to get it for that reason. In hindsight, she should have chosen something that didn't involve a tooth filling in order to get high. But she went to Braco's gazing and held her mouth open for an hour while staring at him. By the end of the session some of her swelling went down, she thinks. Some people, she says, see an aura or halo around Braco. Bridget says she saw a blue aura, but she was pretty sure it was just the lighting. Even if you don't believe in Braco, she said, you should go because obviously everyone who lives in Boulder is going to be there and you can hang out with your friends.

2. Bridget's daughter, Rainbow, dropped out of college to move to Hollywood and become a model. Rainbow called Bridget and Tom to tell them that she had decided to do a raw food diet. Bridget freaked out and told Rainbow that she was very worried. "Hollywood starlets drop like flies!" she told Rainbow. "Just look at that Carpenter girl!" So Tom and Bridget flew to California to save Rainbow, but instead they became raw foodists too.

3. Bridget's explanation of free radicals (paraphrased): "So, basically your body is full of molecules, and molecules need partners. So the molecules pair up into happy unions. So imagine your body full of molecules in happy marriages just floating around. Then through either food or the environment, you introduce free radicals into your body. You might think free radicals are a good thing. After all, people say all the time that Boulder is just full of free radicals like you and me, right? But these aren't free radicals like us. Free radicals are basically like young, sexy vixens who want nothing more than to break up happy marriages. So they come into our bodies and hook up with one of the happily married molecules, leaving the other one wandering around your body in complete distress, saying, "Help me! What happened to my marriage? What happened to my spouse? How could this be?" You can see how this would be so distressing to your body to be full of unhappy couples and broken marriages." The analogy actually kind of makes sense. It's just so...Boulder.

4. Bridget has been against circumcision, and has been thinking about starting a campaign called "Save the Foreskins." Her hesitation has been that men can't do anything once they have been circumcised and might feel bad about their missing foreskins. But since all the men in the class thought it was a good campaign, she is reconsidering.