After a lot of tsuris which I'm certain Mom never meant to visit upon us, her remains were laid to rest on Friday the 13th, and — for what it's worth, since we've been far from traditional about it — the week of shivah, the deepest mourning, has been observed.

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When resources are scarce, it is human nature to try to prioritize and cut back until the situation improves. Usually, these are either short-term or seasonal shortages, giving us some idea of how long we will need to endure -- a sort of "countdown" calendar to work against. When we don't know how long the shortages will last, when necessities such as food, water, and medicine will return, we hunker down into what is called a "siege mentality". The problem with a siege mentality is that it can lead into a downward spiral, with the shortages getting more and more pronounced, until it seems impossible that there will be an outlet or that it will arrive in time... or until the besieged die.

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I say it, but I don't believe it.

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A couple of weeks ago, Kim over at Texting My Pancreas got together with a few other movers-and-shakers in the diabetes online community to create a project to support and encourage other people with diabetes. Called "You Can Do This", the project includes videos, blog posts, and artwork from people with diabetes, for people with diabetes.

It's sort of a crowdsourced Test! Don't Guess campaign, with two main rallying cries: "You can do this!" and "You are not alone".

It's not all unicorns and glitter.

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The Mr (on the phone to me): Where did you leave those coupons?

Me: On the kitchen table. (Like I said I would.)

The Mr: OK I see them.

Me: You're not going now are you? (Holy Hell I'm going to freaking kill you if you say yes.)

The Mr.: Yeah.

Me: You're going to leave the kids home alone? (You freaking idiot.)

The Mr.: I'll only be gone 30 minutes. They've stayed home alone longer than that.

Me: The store is open until 9. You can go after dinner. Plus, you said you'd make dinner (and why do you have to be so freaking selfish?)

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I was talking to a friend of mine today over email about the whole bipolar thing. She told me I was pretty brave to have put it all out there for the world to see. It didn't feel brave when I wrote it, but I guess in a way it was.

The stigma surrounding depression is lessening. More people are being diagnosed and getting help and being vocal about it. But bipolar is a whole different beast. And I think there are still a lot of misconceptions about it. Enough that it did take me almost two months to write about it here. Enough that I did hesitate before I told too many people because I didn't want to be looked at differently. I didn't want to be the "crazy lady."

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