Brooklyn Genes

The original Nathan's in Coney Island, site of my kidnapping at the age of four but I love it anyway.

If only I had been born somewhere else, I'd be so much healthier today. For example, using data culled from the World Bank and the World Health Organization, Qatar has been rated the healthiest nation in the world, sharing the Top Ten Healthiest Nations spotlight with Japan, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Iceland, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Singapore. Alas, I was born in Brooklyn, which while not technically its own country, should be.

Living in Brooklyn contributed early on to my poor health with establishments like fabulous pizza parlors on every corner, Junior's Cheesecake which is unparallelled on any planet and Nathan's French fries and hot dogs, a legend in their own time. While I only lived in that famous borough of New York for the first year of my life, my parents lived there for many years before my birth and surely had dedicated fat cells well established to accommodate these foods. Naturally they passed those on to me. While I'm not fat, I have plenty of other things wrong with me, likely dating back to infancy and the abuse of my otherwise perfect cells starting on Day One.

If I could do it all again I would be a baby vegetarian and have kale smoothies in my bottle. But I can't, so instead I take three kinds of medications daily which haven't really done much in the way of curing what ails me. Frustrated and tired of not feeling better, I recently began seeing an acupuncturist and just returned from my third treatment. Before I went today, my blood pressure reading was 206/95. When I got home it was 104/66.

In case you wondered, acupuncture does not hurt, not even a little. It is very relaxing. The cost is covered by some insurance plans but not all. Besides making you feel better instantly, you get an emotional boost from feeling open-minded and brave and a tad cutting edge. It's only about a thousand times more satisfying than going to see a traditional doctor and leaving with a prescription for something that might make you feel worse even while it makes you better. On the down side, it does not taste as good as a hot dog and fries and pizza and cheesecake. But then, nothing does.