Good Things

Narrowing in on a house rental within the right price range. Didn't get the one we wanted, so we're looking at a bigger house at the top of our rent range. Also negotiated with my current apartment complex, and they're bringing the price down on a renovated 3 bedroom. Honestly, tho, I'd rather have a house. Another two or three showings next week and we'll hopefully be signing for something.

In other news, a liberal application of NewSkin prior to affixing my Omnipod seems to have done the trick. 24 hours and counting and no burning red itchiness around and under the adhesive. You don't realize how much stress minor discomfort puts you under until it goes away.

As noted previously, line edits for GW are here! I've made a little progress this week, but decided to take this Friday off to really dig into them. I've been preoccupied with peak season at work (this week is the last week of peak season), and with some of my job stress easing off a bit, I feel comfortable getting these in the bag. I want them back out the door by the 23rd.

Another reason for the Friday off is just general exhaustion and burnout. I'm trying to do too many things at once, and monitoring how we were doing this tax season in order to provide myself with a guestimate of whether or not I'd have my job come March was a lot more stressful than I thought it would be. Coordinating house hunting when you don't have a car is also a lot more stressful than you might think. Pair that with the adhesive allergy, and it's just been a wearing couple of weeks.

Looking forward to the day when I can actually take off more than a day or two at a time again. May end up taking unpaid time in August. My grandmother is renting a beach house, and my folks are keen on seeing me. I'd rather be going somewhere exotic, but I'll take whatever I can get at this point. Cancelled Wiscon this year already in favor of getting a car come April.

Bring on the book checks, yo.

Who's Being Served?

Can you spot the difference?

Insurance PTSD

Everytime somebody calls me and says the word, "Insurance," over the phone, my heart races, I get sick to my stomach, and I pull out a pad and paper. I also get that hardline note to my voice, the one that everybody always thinks is me being "angry." In fact, it's not me being angry, it's me going stone cold because I know that if I don't, I'm going to burst into tears. My "angry" voice helps me get through a potentially brutal emotionally frought conversation with cold logic and reason.

When I hang up the phone, then I'm allowed to feel something other than cold.

I've also developed a nasty allergy to medical adhesive. Yes, the kind that affixes an insulin pump to the skin. Apparently, this is a pretty common occurence, to show no allergy and then just develop it after a few months of affixing medical hardware to your skin. Thing is, you know, why the fuck haven't they made hypoallergenic medical adhesive if this is so fucking common? WTF?

My skin burns, itches, and eventually flakes and peels and turns a violent crimson color around the site of the Omnipod. I had to pull one off a day early because my arm burned like it was on fire. I still have red welts from two weeks ago on my stomach, and I have an actual peeling burn on my arm where I put two pods near the same site for 5 days.

First things first, I did some research in the t1 forums and found some possible solutions to the allergy problem (skin prep treatments first, barriers next if those don't work), ordered them (this is why I budget $30 a month in meds), and *then* went home and felt sorry for myself. I try very hard not to think too hard or feel too much about anything in the middle of a problem. I leave all that stuff for when the crisis has passed.

I'm getting weird about medical stuff and insurance the same way I was weird after I got out of the hospital. You just get a little extra jumpy. You have these massively over-the-top reactions to "little" things like allergies to medical adhesive and inquiries from your medical supplies company.

The thing is, after going through some kind of massive trauma experience - like I did in the hospital, or the terrible three days thinking I was going to go without care - well, your fight-or-flight response gets broken. So you overreact to everything. It reminds me of the stuff I'll hear about war veterans, or survivors of abuse. Little things like getting on the bus or somebody touching your arm can just totally set you off.

Now every time somebody associated with the medical industry calls me, I'm afraid they're going to tell me there's something wrong with me or they're going to take something away from me. I get this hair-trigger fighting response. I buckle down, dig in my heels, and get ready for the worst.

Mmmmmmm healthcare in America.

How to Write Novel

Your milage may vary.

But this is pretty much what it is (I consume fewer pastries, myself).

Urban Fantasy Vs. Brutal Women

Though often annoyed, I've been trying to resolve myself to getting a sex kitten urban fantasy cover for God's War (complete with moon, over the shoulder glance, and back tattoo). I wasn't sure how to sell "Brutal ass kicking woman" on the cover who isn't all sex-kittened up. They all want to draw a sex kitten.

Then, this morning, I saw this:



And I went, "Oh hells yes!"

I like what this cover does. It's gritty and dark and the main character isn't looking off to the side or over her shoulder in that stupidly flirty, useless way you see on the urban fantasy covers. You're not being invited to oogle her. She's not being presented as an object. She's staring straight at you, just the way somebody who can fuck some shit up would. Add in the blood with that full on stance and oh yeah... this isn't a half bad portrayal of a brutal woman.

Granted, I'd prefer my heroine a little more physically imposing, and less pretty (she's got the face and body of a runway model, not a warrior).

This is how I prefer my book heroines. I don't want her in skin tight clothes (they did go with leather here - you can't win em all), I don't want her to flirt with me. I have no interest in seeing her half-clothed and "vulnerable" to "make up" for her supposed toughness. I'm sorry, but showing a half-clothed woman on your cover doesn't convince me you've got a strong, complex heroine. I want her to be SCARY. I want to believe she's going to fuck shit up. Those are the heroines I'm interested in (and interested in writing).

If I see one more vampire fucking novel cover, I might die. I really have no interest in reading another novel about the protagonist's deep personal angst about whether she should go to bed with the vampire, the werewolf, or both.

I want higher stakes, more complex characters, and heroines that don't all read the same. And I want that reflected on book covers. Because let me tell you, there's a half ton of books out there on the SF/F shelves I'm just not picking up... based entirely on the cover. So sad.

For discussions about what led them to finally pick this cover (and oh yeah is this the best of the bunch), go here.

The Arrival

I can haz line edits, baby.

Ohhhhhh yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

More Reasons to be a Good Diabetic

Klein said the findings support a new idea that Alzheimer's is a type of diabetes of the brain.

"In Type 1 diabetes, your pancreas isn't making insulin. In Type 2 diabetes, your tissues are insensitive to insulin because of problems in the insulin receptor. Type 3 is where that insulin receptor problem is localized in the brain," Klein said in a telephone interview.

In some people, this can occur with age, he said.

"As you get older, some individuals start to have less effective insulin signaling, including in the brain," he said, making the brain more vulnerable to toxins that cause Alzheimer's disease.

And:

Several studies have found that diabetics have a higher risk of getting Alzheimer's than the general population.

Oh joy!

THIS is why I want my 5.9 A1C.

No matter how bad it gets...

Quote of the Day

"Strength does not come from winning.Your struggles develop your strength. When you go through hardship and decide not to surrender, that is strength."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger

An Inconvenient Truth

Last night, I watched An Inconvenient Truth.

This morning, I saw this and this, and finally had a place to put all the pieces.

I'm glad I don't have kids.

Don't You Wish You Lived in Ohio?

I Earned a Penny!

My $50 in savings earned a penny! Wow, this is exciting! No, seriously, do you have any idea how long it's been since I had a savings account (that wasn't a 401(k) subject to market madness)? Ten years at least.

A whole penny!

I just put another $50 in there. As life starts to move toward including more than just me, it's time I started actually building a future with the money I've got instead of blowing it on Turkish food.

Mmmmm Turkish food.

Obama Disappointed Cabinet Failed To Understand His Reference To 'Savage Sword Of Conan' #24

Yes, it delights me to no end that Obama's a comic book fan. And yes, I love the Onion.

Writing

Yeah. It's like that.

Check your Interest Rate

I logged into my primary credit card account yesterday to make a payment after cashing an insurance reimbursement check.

While looking at the summary page, I was startled to see an interest rate percentage of 14.99%

Um.

Hold on here, crackerbarrel.

I have a variable interest rate of 6.55%. I've never seen it above 9.99%. I went back through my statements from the three months prior. It ranged from 7.1% to 8.5%.

My interest rate had nearly doubled overnight.

I gave my card company a call. They capitulated pretty quickly (why does it suprise me so much that I can get what I want so easily after that insurance fiasco?).

Apparently, Citibank has rewritten the lending terms. They're not offering my rate anymore (at least not for me), but what I could do was reject the terms and just let my card expire on the expiration date, which is in 2011. This lets me carry the rest of my balance at my old interest rate until that time (yes, I can still use the card, too. I'm just rejecting the new policy). She's going back and adjusting the finance charge for this month to reduce the month's inflated interest.

The idea behind this is that interest rates, hopefully, will have improved by 2011 and I'll be able to sign up for another term with my old interest rate (of course, I plan to have this card paid off by then, but because it has the highest credit limit, this is the one card I did want to keep on hand after both are paid off).

What I find hilarious is that Citibank raised thier interest rates RIGHT AFTER getting their share of the bank bailout money. Go Citibank! That's some awesome customer service, there.

Moral of the story: a very quick, easy phone call can save you 50% in interest payments.

How many people don't actually notice it when their interest rate goes up? How many people just go, "Well, shit, that's the way it is?"

Please check the interest rate on all of your credit cards.

That is all.

OmniPod Improvements

How I got three boxes worth of pods with a 20% failure rate, I'll never know. I actually suspect that until recently, that was the order of the day for Omnipod. Over the last three months, Omnipod has made some improvements.

We're down to a respectable 1% failure rate. I think the last one that failed was over a month ago. The shipment I just got also includes a much better adhesive, which is good news for people like me who are always knocking their arm against doorways. I just smacked myself good while walking through my closet and hot damn but if that thing didn't stay affixed to my arm.

The new adhesive does irritate slightly more. I noticed an urge to scratch around the edges a few times, which I didn't really notice so much with the other ones. But that's well worth getting and keeping those things on.

My blood sugar (barring today's miscalculation of how many carbs are actually in Subway flatbread) has been great. My mood's improved. Life is generally awesome. I can't wait to see what my A1c is on Friday.

Socking it Away

As much as I get on about not saving enough money (I'm trying to find a way to put $50 a month into a savings account), I realized when I did a detailed review of my paycheck this week that I'm actually putting $100 a month into the company 401(k).

You forget how much it is when you just fill out the percentage box on the 401(k) form.

I'm feeling slightly better about approaching 30.

WTF?

The little weather bar underneath my Vista gadgets clock says it's -13 outside. -13, seriously?

SERIOUSLY?

You know, in Alaska, I got this type of weather, sure, but it included perks like northern lights, low population density, and liquor.

In Dayton, not so much.

Also, I'm really not prepared anymore for weather like this. Maybe I'll call in cold.

Chilly Beans

It's supposed to be -25 tonight.

Holy crap, what is this? There's a reason I'm not in Fairbanks anymore.

I think I may be saving the gym for tomorrow. I don't have proper snow boots or gloves for this type of weather.

Look What Arrived Today.... OmniPoddery

Doesn't look like something that should have taken that much effort, does it?