Sugar Blues

I've been really depressed the last couple of afternoons. Yesterday, I chalked this up as just overall blues, though I remember thinking it was incredibly strange that my sugar number after working out for over an hour was at 219. Where had that number come from? It meant I'd been riding a lot higher than that before exercise, but my pre-lunch number had been normal.

I'd been having some trouble with my insulin pen. I'd dial in a test unit and depress the plunger in the open air to make sure the syringe was clear (I usually do this before each dose now to make sure there's no blockage. I've had too many underdosage issues because of this), and not having any insulin come out after one, two, five dials. Once I had to dial in ten units of insulin and spray it out just to get it clear. I changed out my needles a couple of times, thinking somehow the insulin had gotten gummed up or something (anything's possible).

Today, growling through my "I want to poke out my eyes with spoons" and "maybe I should just kill myself" depression-induced litany, I went to Chipotle to use my birthday gift certificate and tested, once again, at 219.

Even without working out (depression has a habit of stealing motivation, which is why diabetics probably have to have their sugar under control before starting any kind of new routine or mental enterprise, which is sort of a catch 22, cause working out also helps your sugar, but depression caused by ass-unhappy sugar saps your energy in a big way), I should have only been at about 150, 170 tops.

So I dialed in my 6 unit bolus and plugged it in, and when I depressed the end of the pen, it just felt... weird. I wasn't getting any resistance, the way you'd get when you're injecting, you know, fluid into fat.

Then I went to dial in the 10 units of basal for the 219 number... and that's when I took a good look at the clear tubing of the pen plunger mechanism.

There's a screw-like piece of plastic that should be flush against the plunger that depresses it evenly when you dial it in. But in this pen, the plastic plunger had somehow gotten skewed at a nearly 90 degree angle, so when I depressed the plunger, I was getting a very low pressure "squirt" response from the insulin in the pen.



Meaning I wasn't getting even close to my full dose of insulin.

Dammit, man.

I came home and threw out the old pen and started up a new one. Easy fix, you know, but... I hate, hate HATE sugar-induced depression (granted, it wouldn't have been as bad if I wasn't low already, but I can do a better job fighting it off when I can think clearly).

Spending my afternoons wanted to tear people's heads off and claw out my eyes and weeping into my cornflakes just fucking kills me. It took a lot of effort to bleed through that last night, and now I get to set my 1am sugar-testing alarm, because I have no idea how much of that dinner insulin actually got injected into my system (I just tested at 298. I should be closer to 180 2 hours after dinner. Took a four unit correction, will test again at 1am).

It's shit like this that makes diabetes annoying. I'm really fucking thankful that I have some degree of control over my moods and of how hard this thing hits me, but leveling out, staying there, living the best you can with this fucking disorder, is a lot of hard fucking work.

Too many spoons. Too much mental energy, some days. Not just to keep it in my head, but to keep my head actually processing things optimally.

Keep on truckin'.

More Reasons to Hate Math

Because when you follow the rules, it actually works.

Sat down with what I had in the bank, what I'm getting paid Friday, and wrote out the next round of bills.

I had exactly $210 leftover for groceries for the next two weeks. About $30 more than is in the budget for said groceries. Until I realized I could take the Feb. rent payment out of my Feb 1st check, I thought I had completely hosed up my budget completely, and here I was, already in the hole again! I wouldn't be able to make the $900 a month in credit card payments that I need in order to be solvent in two years!

I was already failing!

Oh, wait.

Ah, yes, math. Hrm.

Math.

Never my strong suit.

But then, I'm not good at plot either, and it doesn't mean I just gave up and went, "Well, I can't write plot!"

I started working my ass off to learn how to plot.

Money is no different.

That's the idea, anyway.

Today's Fitness Regimen

Morning: 15 min free weights and 10 pushups

Afternoon (with health & wellness group & trainer at work): 30 min cardo & upper body weights work (machines and dumbbells)

Evening: 20 minutes cardio (I was depressed when I came home - it's a good way to lift mood) and 10 pushups.

For tonight: French, copywriting work, UT2K4

Tra-la

The StumbleUpon KISS OF DEATH

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

One of Those Days...

...when you feel like you're absolutely worth nothing, and what little worth you have must be measured in the width of your ass.

You know what the tragedy is? I like the way I look. I really do. I think I'm strong and attractive and have moments of incredible sexiness. I think I'm smart and funny and fun and I love making people laugh. During the health and wellness session at work today, I thought about how bizarre it was that I can lift more weight and have better endurance than a lot of other women of any age. I like being fit and strong and powerful; I like being big and intimidating. I like being able to hit things and have them fall over. I like being tough.

And it's frustrating, you know, to realize that that freaks some people out. It's not even that it doesn't do it for them, it's just that they feel like it shouldn't, so they freak out, and I go on being tough and kicking ass and they run off looking for salvation and companionship in a more socially acceptable package. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind. It's just sort of dumb. It doesn't make sense unless you're looking to live the life you think other people think you want. And I turned off that road ten years ago. That was a miserable fucking road.

The issue now is that I've gotten used to a bed partner and an extra toothbrush, and it was a silly, silly thing for me to get used to. I need to be smarter than that. Silly pirate.

Getting my own place next year will help a little more with that. Being smart in other areas of my life will help me be smarter in my personal life.

I need to remember that the only person who decides my worth is me.

I threw out the toothbrush.

It was a sorry waste of a toothbrush.

Writing for SEO

Mmmmmm copywriting to improve SEO. Tasty tasty skills building.

Challenging and annoying all at once!

Stuff that Creeps Me Out

Does it really bug anybody else when men refer to women as "females"?

Why do guys do this? I'd like to think it's because they're including "women and girls" in their description, so "females" is supposed to mean "all female-gendered persons in particular," but I don't go around saying, "I haven't been with many males," or "Some males really like back rubs" or "Males enjoy gardening."

It makes it sound like the men - "males" - in question are just dogs.

Recommended Reading

The Copywriter's Handbook, by Robert Bly.

As noted, I write just about everything at my job, from intranet news to forum Q&A to magazine blurbs to policy documents to press releases. And this book shows you how to write, well, just about everything.

So it's a good fit.

I love the versatility of this little book. What it's helped me with a lot, in particular, is writing marketing and ad copy. I took a crash-course in script writing when I wrote up copy for some training videos (and realized there's a reason you keep your sentences so short in script writing). The marketing and ad work has been largely crash-course, too.

This book at least lets me understand what all the gauges me. And mayb softens the landing.

I'd been writing brochures and proposals at work already, but there's some great advice in here. I think a lot of my writing is intuitive - I can fake average writing because I have a decent ear for it, so you throw something at me and I produce something workable. But if I want to be any *good* at all the stuff I'm doing, that takes some more work on my part. Give me tens years of a job like this one, and I'll be able to write this stuff like breathing. As it is, I sit and think a lot about what I'm doing, what I'm trying to say, who I'm saying it to, and looking at how other people are saying it. I've done research on our competitors and watched how they sell themselves and their brand(s).

I don't know why it didn't occur to me before to do industry research (come on, Good Job 101). I think I've been so hopped up with worry about whether or not I'll have a job after season that I'm not sure how comfortable I should get. It's a lot of work to do for a job that's fly-by-night.

But then, everything is a risk. You put time into things you believe in. If they don't pan out, it's easy to say all that time was wasted. I sure as hell know it FEELS wasted when you get shitcanned... but I guess everything I learn now is stuff I can put toward the next thing and the next.

Because of the health insurance issue, it's not like I still harbor this realistic fantasy that I'll make it as a freelance writer in the future. To some extent, having a chronic illness sort of forced me to pay more attention to having an actual career instead of gambling it all on being the next JK Rowling.

Not that I wouldn't mind making some ridiculous amount of book money, mind (and not that that isn't my ultimate goal. Mmmm money!). I just realize that I'll need to be working for the vast majority of my life even if I do make vast amounts of book money.

I suppose that's good for me.

Builds character.

Makes me a more well-rounded individual.

Um.

Ah well.

Some Thoughts on Internet Dating

Really, if I want to meet anybody worth my while, I need to get a car. The great thing about being smack right between Cincinnati and Columbus is that civilization is, indeed, just there over the horizon. The drawback is, you don't live there.

All the good ones are an hour away, dammit.

Well, there's a spring project for me.

Until then: way behind on Black Desert.

I do need to keep my priorities straight.

More Sugar-Busting Tips

20 minutes on the elliptical on weekend mornings, after pancakes. Pancakes have been killing my sugar more than usual lately, but 20 easy-going minutes while channel surfing on Sat and Sunday was enough to keep me nice and stable (70-80) from noon to seven.

Yum.

In the Name of the King

OMG THAT WAS THE WORST MOVIE EVER IT WAS EVEN WORSE THAN THE SCORPION KING AND HALF THE PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE HAD NO IDEA WHY ME AND STEPH AND THE OLD MAN WERE LAUGHING AND LAUGHING AND LAUGHING OMG THAT WAS FUCKING HORRIBLE FULL STOP OMG HAHA HAAHHA A AHAHAHA IM SO GLAD WE DIDNT PAY ACTUAL MONEY TO GET IN OMG THAT WAS SO BAD.

The writer seemed to be confused about whether the folks in his world worshipped a "God" or "gods." He was confused about when it was day and when it was night. Also, those were some of the most botoxed, siliconed peasant women I've ever seen. And really, could these actors phone in their dialogue any more unconvincingly?

Come on, people, this isn't BloodRayne. YOU CAN DO IT.

Steph, the Old Man, and I giggled through the entire thing. When that Sorbinski chick suited up in plate armor for no particular plot-specific reason, Steph and I both lost it, and the guy two seats away was like, "WHY ARE THEY LAUGHING????"

OMG

Other folks laughed, sure, like when a botoxed, plasticy-faced Burt Reynolds shows up at King, but nobody appreciated the pure, shitty grotesquerie that was bad dialogue, bad costuming, bad actors, bad direction, bad cinematography, and just plain badness that was this movie.

IT WAS WORSE THAN THE SCORPION KING.

I never thought I'd say that.

I worked very hard not to invite the not-Boyfriend out with us tonight - he dropped me at Red Robin's after we were done shooting - and I suppose it was just as well, cause I bumped into some folks from work. It's my fault. I talk too loud. C and M, the IT "team lead" and our Spanish translator, respectively, were walking out of the same movie, which was ironic, because I was thinking there at the end that I would have to tell C on Monday not to see this show.

"I KNEW I heard your voice," he said, as we approached.

Yes. Yes, that was me.

Loud and laughing. And quite proud of it.

Dinner, however, was fantastic. I decided I would spend insulin points tonight, and ate hamburger con queso and GARLIC PARMESAN FRIES and yes, I took 11 units of insulin at dinner, came home, tested at 244 four hours later, and just took another 6 units and set my alarm for 1am so I can correct again then in case it wasn't enough.

See, this is why I don't eat high-carb food often. It requires me to spend the next ten hours fixing it, and the next two or three days leveling off again as a result of the spike.

But, you know: it's my birthday.

AND THOSE GARLIC FRIES OH THEY WERE GOOD.

Sucked not bringing along the not-Boyfriend. Sucked. Took every ounce of willpower I had not to invite him along, and Steph and the Old Man were shocked I didn't break down and bring him. But if he wants it to be "just friends" then we need to hang out like "just friends." No matter how much it hurts right now.

I need to keep that place in my heart for a real boyfriend, not a "not-Boyfriend."

But it sucks, yo. Really, really sucks. Because I've got that hole in my heart again. It was like I said to him when we started dating, this stupidly cheesy thing, "There was this hole in my heart I didn't realize was there until I met you, because now my heart is full." Isn't that total cheese? But man, so stupidly true.

Blah. The good news is that as time goes on, I'll go back to not noticing that anything's missing again. You get up. You go on. The alternative is to cry all over your shoes and give up, and what's the fun in that?

We all need time. I'm a better person now than I was a year ago.

Still, you know: it's no use loving someone who doesn't love you.

So, yeah: chin up, young person.

Life goes on.

And tonight, there's UT2K4.

Diabetes & Inflammation

I remember being stunned and frustrated when I was diagnosed that not even the medical establishment knew what it was that really caused or triggered type 1 diabetes. I was irritated that nobody could tell me why I'd been sick for nearly a year before finally going under, and why I couldn't get an explanation that made any sense.

Well, you can't get a good explanation - or a good cure - until people figure out what the hell's going on. Which they're still doing.

In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body's nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.

Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.....

Dr. Dosch had concluded in a 1999 paper that there were surprising similarities between diabetes and multiple sclerosis, a central nervous system disease. His interest was also piqued by the presence around the insulin-producing islets of an "enormous" number of nerves, pain neurons primarily used to signal the brain that tissue has been damaged.

Suspecting a link between the nerves and diabetes, he and Dr. Salter used an old experimental trick -- injecting capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot chili peppers, to kill the pancreatic sensory nerves in mice that had an equivalent of Type 1 diabetes.

Ways to Spend a Birthday

Woke up this morning and went into the kitchen to kick off the Saturday morning pancakes. To my surprise, I found my birthday present from the roomies on the kitchen table:

$30 Chipotle gift certificate!!!!!

OH MY CHIPOTLE MONEY!!!!

OH YES.

Now I'm heading out to the wilds of Middletown to go shooting with the not-Boyfriend, as his request (happy birthday to me - he also paid for the ammo). I printed off some paper targets last night, so I'll post my best one later.

If we get back at a reasonable hour, the roomies and I will then head off to go to dinner and a show.

Not a bad way to spend an age-related holiday.

Reasons to Get Up in the Morning

Had a dream last night that I got a check in the mail for $32,000.

Made me want to stay in bed a little longer so I could soak up the good from that alternate world.

Until then, I'm out of fun money for the month. Dinner last night was sausages and cabbage. It's a good thing I like sausages and cabbage.

Seriously, though, when I pay off these credit cards - even if I don't get a raise in the next two years - I'll have a thousand dollars a month in "extra" money.

Hello mortgage payment.

This is what I keep reminding myself.

Cheese and junk or mortgage payment?

Must. Be. Strong.

Flawless Victory!

Some nights you need to be useful and read and write and be all self-empowering and stuff.

And some nights you just need to spend a couple hours plyaingUT2K4 blowing the shit out of stuff.

That was deeply satisfying.

Hot Damn

Sometimes I write so well, I impress myself. heh heh

Seriously, I never thought I'd be write advertising and marketing copy to save my life. And now that I'm doing it... well, my learning curve sometimes impresses even me.

Just thought I'd share that.

Results of My Fitness Test

The results of my health & wellness fitness test came in today at work. The numbers each had little "Average, Normal, Excellent" comments next to them. Here are the comments:

Blood Pressure: Normal

Cardiovascular Fitness: Excellent

Muscular Strength & Endurance: Excellent

Abdominal curl-up: Above Average

Push-Ups: Well-Above Average/Excellent

Flexibility: Excellent

Body Composition (weight & body fat percentage): Well Below Average

hahah ahah aa hahh hahahhahhahaha ah ahahhaha ahhaahhaaa

I know how to get fit. I feel better when I'm fit. Getting thin, though... I'm miserable when I'm thin. Or just dying.

I don't eat bread, donuts, pasta, sweets, potato chips, potatoes, pizza, or fries. I've recently given up snacking on my expensive cheeses and pecans. This leaves me frozen raspberries, Greek yogurt, peanuts, and the occasional dark chocolate bar. I already work out an hour a day, five days a week. Pushing it more than that is going to get ridiculous.

I can tell you exactly what I'd need to excise from my diet in order to improve my "body composition."

Avocados, the walnuts on my salad, the crumbled blue cheese on my salad, switch out my 70 calorie salad dressing to 30 calorie dressing, and take the sour cream off everything.

You know what?

Not worth it.

We'll see what happens now that I'm not allowed to eat out and snack anymore because of my budget restrictions. I'm not going to ditch anymore foods from my diet, or I'll just end up undernourished, bitchy, and anemic.

And next time, I'll do 50 push-ups instead of 40. Just for shits and giggles.

I can be 180 lbs. I'm just not sure what it's worth to me, if I can already do 40 push-ups in a minute.

Cheese and avocados make me happy.

It's not like I have a lot left.

Quote of the Evening

Me: Am I really that scary?

Not-Boyfriend: Have you ever seen yourself shoot a gun?

Quote of the Day

"If you’ve made the wrong decision, accept it and change it. Don’t let ego stand in the way of good sense."
- Mridu Khullar

My Life as Tina the Tech Writer