What do you want?

I sat up tonight watching the last half of The Notebook. This is one of my favorite romance movies (and not just because I have crushes on both of the leads). I generally hate smarmy, gendered romance movies where some dashing, moneyed guy saves some poor but pretty abused Cinderella from her dead-end life. Excuse me, but I'd like to think that there was more drawing two people together than her desperation to escape a life of abuse and poverty. That's not romance. Call me not old fashioned.

And The Notebook does something else that I also found interesting in Sweet Home Alabama, a trend I wouldn't mind seeing more of.

It's not that the girl needs saving in either of these movies. In fact, she's quite successful and well-off all on her own. And it's not that her current boyfriend is an asshole. In fact, her current boyfriend is pretty perfect. Her life is great. It's just that... it's that... something's missing. And she needs to figure out what it is, or just learn how to live without it.

Most of us make the choice to live without it. It's often easier that way.

There's this big myth that women like assholes and bad boys, people who treat them like crap. This is a a misreading of something else, I think (though there are, certainly, people who are drawn into or just plain stuck in abusive relationships). In fact, what I think some people are looking for - what I realized I was looking for - is somebody who challenges them. Somebody who doesn't put up with their bullshit.

There's a reason I was more broken up about the not-Boyfriend than I have been about any other breakup I've had. And that's because he challenged me. He stood up to me. I can be a scary bitch sometimes, I get that. I've dated people who don't like conflict, and especially don't like to argue with me. So then you just don't talk, or you avoid certain subjects, or stuff breaks down, and then one day one of you wakes up and you realize you've spent all of your time never talking about anything that matters, and you don't actually know each other at all.

Go too far one way and you end up dating an asshole (which I did in highschool). Go too far the other way and you get the NY boyfriend, who refused to get into an argument with me about anything. He found conflict of any kind terrifying, which made that whole jokey sarcasm thing that I do when I really like people kind of... well, it didn't work.

We all need that special someone in our lives who calls us on all our bullshit.

Noah: It's not about following your heart and it's not about keeping your promises. It's about security.
Allie: What's that supposed to mean?
Noah: [yelling] Money. He's got a lot of money!
Allie: You smug bastard. I hate you for saying that.
Noah: You're bored Allie. You're bored and you know it. You wouldn't be here if there wasn't something missing.
Allie: You arrogant son of a bitch.
Noah: Would you just stay with me?
Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fighting.
Noah: Well that's what we do, we fight... You tell me when I am being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you are a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Allie: So what?
Noah: So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? 30 years from now, 40 years from now? What's it look like? If it's with him, go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again. If I thought that's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out.
Allie: What easy way? There is no easy way, no matter what I do, somebody gets hurt.
Noah: Would you stop thinking about what everyone wants? Stop thinking about what I want, what he wants, what your parents want. What do YOU want? What do you WANT?
Allie: It's not that simple.
Noah: What... do... you... want? Whaddaya want?

Yeah, it's not gonna be easy, it's gonna be really hard. But there was a time I believed it was worth it, and there will be a time when I believe it's worth it again.

Until then, the beat goes on.

Magic Numbers

It appears that my magic basal number during the day is somewhere between .45 and .55 units per hour. After a shitty morning, my numbers after noon evened out really well.

I've set myself at .55 for the morning and .45 at night, with adjustments for exercise (.25 for evening cardio, .35 for morning exercise, with an option to just suspend insulin for a workout if I need to. I can go as low as .10 per hour).

I knew that the pump process was going to be two weeks of calibration and bitchiness, and I got all of that today. Starting my morning with rolling lows always fucks me up, and I was weepy and bitchy all day, which is rough to do when you have to be cool and professional and on top of shit at work. I got very little done today. I considered it an accomplishment that I finished our spinning workout without passing out (tested at a very respectable 111 after the workout), and attended all meetings and spoke coherently (I only had to test during one meeting, fearing I was spiking low. Turned out I was just really queasy and jumpy; I fear I wasn't as coherent in that meeting as I should have been either).

I should only have to do this crazy testing-every-two-hours thing for another day. After tomorrow, I should have established a reasonable baseline.

I felt so fucking horrible today, though, you know? It's funny what fucked-up sugar does. I wore a loose shirt today to help mask the pod, which I have to wear on my stomach the first couple of days just until the calibration is done, then I can wear it on my leg or upper arm, but here I am, wearing this frumpy shirt, and my skin looks horrible, and has my bottom half always been so big? Why do I look like I mushroom? Why can't I be skinny and cute and unintimidating? Why does my hair look like shit? I look horrible and frumpy and unlovable. I hate the whole world! I just want to die! No one will ever love me! I look like a frumpy Ohio housewife! I am worthless!

And then I look again and just sigh because hey, yo, I'm just crazy. Because I don't look any different than I did the day before, and I love being able to bash things really hard. It's a relief now, you know, that when I feel that way I can just be like, "Hey, I'm crazy!" and move on.

I think I'll wear something a little less frumpy tomorrow, though, which might just help how I feel. As will a less fucking crazy sugar morning.

For now, I'm absolutely fucking exhausted, and not worth much of anything about now.

This is one of those "I hate being sick!" days, but there's that other part of me, the conscious-of-the-crazy part, that thinks it's pretty cool to be alive, and pretty neat that we have such crazy gadgets to help us stay that way.

Rumor has it there's a new pod coming out next year that's 40% smaller than this one (and this one ain't huge at all), and a smaller PDM (remote control) with a cooler screen coming out next year.

Better yet? They're working on the continuous glucose monitor + omnipod thingie that will automatically take your blood sugar all day long (no more finger pricking 10 times a day!); then you can remote in the correction via the PDM. It's already pretty sweet that my meter is integrated with the remote, but to bring the whole thing together will be really great.

That's a couple years away yet, tho. In the meantime, it's manual testing and calibration.

But, you know, let's put this in perspective:

This was the first time in two years that I didn't have to jab myself with a needle at least four times.

That's gotta be a big leap forward.

Things that Annoy Me

Diabetes.

Started the new insulin pump today. You know, I don't really use a lot of insulin. I've been reading these forums where there are people using something like 80 units of insulin a day. 80 units? Srsly?

I've been adjusting my basal rate all day for lows. I'm going to suspend it altogether for my workout at 10:30. And I already had a pretty low set point (.65 units an hour to start. Have changed to .45 already based on the morning's trending. I'm reading that there are people set at 2 and 3 units an hour who are in the 200s). Of course, this could be because I spent 3 hours moving furniture yesterday, so I'm trending lower than I should.

Watching my numbers this morning was fascinating:

Target is 80

5:30 am: 180 +5 .65 basal
7:08 am: 110
7:33 am: 91
7:56 am: 79
8:13 am: 65
(took 2 lifesavers, adjusted basal to .45)
8:40 am: 92
9:09 am: 70
9:20 am: 61
(OK, srsly, I'm having a fucking bagel)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!