I am attempting to complete an online training course and I have a headache from hell and it is raining. These three items are conspiring to tempt me to curl up under my desk with Herbert the Stinky and take a nap. I would rock a nap right now rather than learning about OSHA standards for electrical safety. **blink**

There is just not enough diet coke in the universe to keep a girl up for this. **big yawn**

In other news I have a continual problem that I don’t know if anyone else has? Basically whenever I manage to shave my legs I invariably miss a stripe on the back of my legs. I have no answer to why this happens or why I only notice it when I am no-where near a razor (at work; at the beach). I wish I was like this one lady I see at the beach who is all
“screw y’all—I don’t shave” and wear a bikini. She has thighburns (like sideburns…but on your thighs) but they aren’t thick or scary. She is so comfortable in her own skin that she doesn’t look weird—yet I miss one stray hair and it annoys the ever loving crap out of me.

To continue along the path of H’s body and how it is annoying her today please let me discuss pants with you. I find pants…challenging. Additionally, I consider skirts to be basically pants because to prevent thigh burn I wear bicycle shorts underneath. So, to summarize: pants = difficult for me. I invariably buy my pants too big. Why? Here is my pop psychology reasoning: when I moved back to the united states at age 17 and was required to go into high school for a senior year…well, my mom had no money. So as I continued to gain weight and my pants got tighter and tighter I recall having heartburn that hurt me so badly I would cry between classes because I knew we couldn’t afford new pants. I wore loose shirts and unbuttoned my pants whenever I could. It was horrible. So I think some part of my mind (and by mind I mean belly) is all “NEVER AGAIN BITCH!” and I get uber big pants. For a little more than 3 years this entire problem was negated by coveralls…they did not constrain the belly, they were comfy, and overall I am a total fan. Large pants were rarely flattering but invariably comfy for sitting in. Recently I have been losing weight…enough to make a sincere size difference and when buying pants I succumbed to the pressure of buying “pants that fit”. So now I have these pants…they look really nice and all but it appears I have developed (am finally showing) that I have a ‘fat pad’ when I sit down. I don’t hate it…but it is a little weird and when I sit for a long time…well, my tummy gets squished by my pants…and I dislike that.

…and thus ends my random story for today. J

Well, get up, slacker.
Up.
Get. Up.

Okay, I know I am awake, but I am (lamely) sore due to actually walking places rather than drive (shut up! If you say it like it is a concious “healthy choice” rather than  “completely broke and don’t have a car” it sounds better).  So I want to lay here on my comfy comfy bed.

It is truly amazing how much more comfortable my bed becomes when I have to get up. If I think of my bed as a weird passive aggressive entity it makes this process more understandable.  For some reason my imaginary bed entity has a bad french accent a’ la’ peppy la pue, “huh, huh, huh…you want to get up?  Well, try *dis* level of comfy…isn’t it nice. You know you don’t want to leave me.  Oh, you can sleep in this day?  Well, are my spikes comfy now?  I didn’t sink so…”

Alright, maybe I need to get up now.  ^sigh^
Have a good day folks.
^kisses & hugs^

Today I made a turkey. This involved thawing, rinsing, throwing into Dutch oven, and baking.  Really, making a turkey is way easier than I ever thought.  When I cut into it and was eating I dealt with the following watchful, hopeful eyes:

“can’t you tell I’m starving to DEATH food lady?  Look at Doodle for goodness sake! He was abused before you got him, ya know? We need turkey to soldier on.”

I finished my meal and began work on puppy-food.  Herbert, despite his obvious starvation, managed to drag himself into the kitchen to lay on the floor in the hope of a spare morsel of deliciousness. 

The poor little bastard can barely hold his head up. 

The rice and turkey are cooking for you little Herbert. Stay strong!

I’m screwed.  My life is a Rubik’s cube of stupid at the moment.  I am quite literally on hold with the unemployment office trying to explain to them that although I was supposed to have been getting some form of money from them for the past month; I have yet to receive anything.  Additionally, I am now employed so I am expected to be at work during the hours that the unemployment office is open to go and try to get the paperwork sorted out.  My father, bless his heart, sent me a check for a sum of money that would help me get through until my first pay check–but here is where it gets awesome.  His check doesn’t arrive until Monday, but early Monday morning (well before the post gets here) I am being sent on my first Caribbean business trip to the island of St. Thomas.  I have to get a prescription before I go…the co-pay for that is $30.00.  I have $46.00 cash left to me.  The unemployment office is unable to find my file, so they are going to call me back.

I know I am supposed to be grateful for all of the love and support I have.

I know I am supposed to be an adult and support myself.

I know I am lucky to be alive and have a new job and I need to be AM excited about everything.

I am well aware of all of that; but right this moment I am so far past freaked out about money I cannot see straight. I think for the rest of the evening I shall work myself into a stressed out ball of stress, sob for a while, potentially vomit, then listen to an audiobook until I’m numb.  

ah, friday nights.  good times. ~sigh~

Correction: screw that.  I had awesome leftovers for dinner along with a can of tomato soup.  It was SO good. We are talking a roast beef with horseradish sandwich on roasted garlic bread served with a hot bowl of tomato soup.  I cannot describe how good this was.     Additionally, I came to the conclusion that I have a stupid infection and that is what is making me all emotionally volatile and beating the hell out of my blood sugars.  So, sorry for the desperate woe of earlier.  Sometimes, we all feel like absolute shit and I tend to write about it.  I need to spend my energy on focusing on the good things, like the perfect half a sandwich with some soup.  🙂

I am spending the evening relaxing after my first week of work; embracing my pillow as the true love of my life. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Do you know I forget?  I really do.  Even though I was raised in a home literally surrounded by this disease (mother, neighbors, friends) sometimes I don’t even think about it. Most days it doesn’t even occur to me that I am a diabetic.  But I am.  Sometimes people ask me if I am “the good kind” or “the bad kind”.  I always want to scream when I hear that.  There is NO good kind.  Some people are even so helpful as to suggest “oh, type 2?  Well THAT can be fixed by diet and exercise.” (FUCK THEM—they mean *I* did this to myself)  Although, I feel it important to note that if I don’t eat—I am not diabetic.  I don’t mean if I only eat healthily—I mean No Fucking Food.   But the second a piece of anything with any caloric content whatsoever (lettuce, chocolate, popcorn, beef, whatever) my body (without medication) throws the sugar into my blood and my body cannot use it.  This causes my body to send panicked signals to my brain saying “HELP, BITCH—WE ARE STARVING HERE—THERE IS NO FUEL IN OUR BODY—WTF ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?!?!”  Brain replies, “DAMN BODY—GIVE US A FEW SECONDS HERE, I’M TELLING THIS PAIN IN THE ASS TO EAT!”   The body can’t figure out why the fuck it feels like shit and why it is HUNGRY all of the time—even when it is so full there is physical pain.  With proper medication my body works just fine, food turns into sugar, sugar fuels my body, food is an afterthought not an all consuming IMMEDIATE NEED, and I go through life happily forgetting. 

Until I do something stupid like forgetting to eat.  Now, if you read that sentence and thought—who the fuck has ever forgotten to eat?!?!  Get tested for diabetes.  But given that my sugars are under control believe it or not; sometimes that shit happens and I forget to eat.  Or sometimes my pancreas and/or liver gets all excited and spits out extra insulin and combining that with my medications make me “go low”.  The term LOW was something I learned as early as age 4 and I knew I had to put sugar into my mother, my neighbor, or my friend before they went SO low they would end up in the hospital.  What I NEVER understood until I was a diagnosed diabetic almost 25 years later and went through my first low was how much the idea of any food at all makes you want to vomit.  Or how you are soaked through with so much sweat you have to shower and change your clothes when it’s all over.  Or lastly, how incredibly weak and sick you feel , standing up is almost impossible, and the nausea makes you want to die.  

(Hopefully) You have all seen those stupid flyers in doctors’ offices telling you the symptoms of potential diabetes.  Below is not my attempt to recreate that list (thirsty, lots of urination, etc.) nor give you any personal medical advice; it is however shit I noticed a HUGE difference in and wished I had been treated at the very young age of 13 when I couldn’t stop eating and everyone treated me as a leper.   

*MY* Warning Signs of Diabetes

• NEVER FORGETTING FOOD – if you cannot stop thinking of food.  I mean—never forgetting a meal ever.  Feeling hungry while *knowing* in your rational mind and aching belly that you are full. 
• LOOK LIKE A DAMN CHICKEN – you know what I mean; big torso—scrawny legs.  Definitive belly?  Come on, if you have a big belly and widdle iddy biddy scrawny legs.  Yup, that is a big ass sign of “the diabetes”.  It is a fun little genetic trick that allows us folk to still run from predators by having normal sized legs and arms and a fat belly to live in feast and famine.   However, since our running away from predators AND famine “time” has been limited here in the first world—this has just led to us feeling hungrier, getting bigger bellies, and feeling worse and worse.