In one of my high school English classes, we had to read Samuel Beckett's play of this name. Thirty-some-odd years later, I don't remember the details, only that it centered around two men who seemed to be relatively old, penniless, and alone. They met at a particular spot each day, left each evening, and could only remember one day past and think towards one day forward. They awaited a third character, the eponymously named "Godot", who never arrived. The style was considered existentialist in that there wasn't all that much character development: what you saw was what you got. While I never read the French original, in English, "Godot" seemed a thinly-veiled metaphor for "G-d" — and since old, penniless (and possibly homeless) folk have always had the shortest from-this-point life expectancy, it made sense — at least on one level — that these two characters were waiting to die.

  (READ MORE)

I got a bit of flak from a number of folk in the type 1 community for juxtaposing the You Can Do This project with the "you CAN eat this if you have diabetes" mentality of, well, many of the same folk. The issue is, the same folk who are, on the one hand, encouraging us to test and inject and correct are the folk who are talking about Food Police and Diabetes Police and how we, as people with diabetes, have to fight against those stereotypes by -- well, by eating all those things we should never touch with a ten-foot-pole.

This may work for people with type 1 diabetes, but it can be deadly for those of us with type 2.

  (READ MORE)

A bell's not a bell 'til you ring it... -- Oscar Hammerstein II

Much like the opening lines of the "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" reprise ⁽¹⁾, knowledge -- like love: doesn't exist "'til you give it away." Data become knowledge when they are shared, analyzed, verified. Or like money in Hello, Dolly!, knowledge "is like manure -- it doesn't do good unless you spread it around, encouraging young things to grow."

While sharing everything you know may, perversely, show up everything you don't know, knowing what you don't know gives you the option to learn it. Of course, there will be someone who will take that opportunity to say that it's your posterior, not your cranium, that has the intelligence,⁽²⁾ but y'know what? That's just him (or her) sharing his (or her) lack of knowledge. (READ MORE)

"The 'Diabetes Police' are everywhere, telling us what we may or may not eat or do, on pain of losing a leg, going blind, or -- G-d forbid -- dying like their father's great-aunt by marriage did thirty years ago."

• --"They" tell us we may not eat breads and cakes
• --"They" tell us we may not eat fruits or sweets
• --"They" tell us we may not eat that nice, juicy bacon cheeseburger -- especially if it's accompanied by a plate of crispy French fries and a frosty tankard of microbrew ale
• --"They" tell us we may not drink anything other than tap water, or black coffee sweetened with Splenda
• --"They" tell us we must eat tons of cinnamon, bitter melon extract, and a myriad of other "cures du jour" that cure diabetes only in Halle Berry's pipe dreams

  (READ MORE)

A recent tweet from my friend A. introduced me to a comic-strip blog that shows life as it really is for telephone-based customer service professionals. Having worked in phone-based support myself, I know his work rings as true to call-center life as Dilbert does to life in a high-tech company.

  (READ MORE)

Since I changed my endocrinilogist last year, I've really been happy with my experiences with Dr. K. She's the kind of doctor that means business but doesn't come off as if she's judging you. She tells you what she thinks, but leaves it up to you what to do. So usually, I'm fairly excited (yes, I said excited) about going to see her. Even when I know I've been doing 85% of things wrong.

This appointment didn't feel that way though. I just really didn't want to have to go. I've been making some changes and my averages are down. I didn't want to hear that I'd been doing this and this wrong, even if she does leave off the judgement. I just wasn't willing to expose all those mistakes to the light.

And I feel torn between wishing I would have canceled and being excited about the outcome.

  (READ MORE)