Dizziness

It took over 4 and a half hours since leaving the attorney's office to get on a train home.

I didn't want to go one more day without a supply of slow-roasted coffee beans that aren't burnt like Starbucks or bitter like some other coffees. Whole Foods was on the way toward Brooklyn ... on foot.

It was beautiful outside. There were no rain clouds in sight. On the way, I stopped in a mom and pop Indian clothing store and picked up a couple tunic tops for $10 each; sat on a chair near Madison Square Park to rest and wrote a blog post; and sat on a bench in front of Fish's Eddy, a store that sells fancy secondhand restaurant supplies, and wrote another blog post.

Hunger started to set in, so I stopped at a Goodburger restaurant. While waiting to make my order, I got faint with tennis ball head and the room started looking like TV snow. In spite of backing away from the counter to take a seat, one of the cashiers took my order from 8 feet away. "You better get some food in you," she said.

The burger totally rocked. I ate it without a bun and without ketchup. It was grass-fed deliciousness paired with lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickles, mayo, and mustard. I drank some vitamin C-fortified apple juice (absorbic acid, which comes from corn) since I had read that vitamin C helps with iron absorption.

By the time I left the burger place, it had started raining. I made my way, step by step, toward Whole Foods. When I couldn't take the cold anymore, I went into a Petco store and browsed through dog toys and treats. Penny got a new toy.

The rain stopped and so I ventured out across Union Square toward Whole Foods. I really didn't know another place to get decent coffee beans. Dunkin Donuts is acceptable, but their coffee bags are made with plastic. No thanks. It didn't make sense to take a cab across the square, so I went step by step, occasionally losing balance.

Whole Foods of course was bustling. It was 8 o'clock in the evening and people were having post-work shopping time.

The iron from the burger I ate on the way seemed to begin helping. Iron attaches to blood cells in the form of hemoglobin, which is what gives red blood its color. Hemoglobin's job is to pick up oxygen from the lungs, leave it with cells in the body, and pick up carbon dioxide and other waste molecules brought back to the lungs for the exhale.

Finally checking out with coffee beans and a few other items, I headed toward the subway. Question was, which one? If I had taken the 4 train, I would have had to walk further to get home. I opted for the F train. Unfortunately, I got confused and forgot the F train was just as far away to walk as the 4.

I tried to sit and rest as much as possible.

On the way to the F train, I saw a Foot Locker store called Run. I needed running shoes that fit me properly, and I wanted to make sure I got my heart strong after this anemic madness was over. So I went in and sat down on the bench to stare at the options. It was after 9 p.m. when I chose a pair to take home.

Finally, at 9:40 p.m., I was on the train.

The world started looking much more stable. The spinning stopped after settling back comfortably into a seat. The burger must have kicked in. It was consumed almost 3 hours earlier.

Outside the train station, it was like discovering walking again. Though the dizziness was gone, each step still felt out of sorts. Pins and needles, lactic acid build up, and tender feet. At least tennis ball head was gone.