Several of the posts coming back from the Children With Diabetes annual Friends for Life conference (FFL) have likened this gathering of beta-less buddies to a traveling circus, a family reunion, and the sitcom Cheers, in whose eponymous bar "everybody knows your name" -- except that in the case of FFL, "everybody knows what it's like to live with type 1 diabetes". The effect, even without the Disneyification (FFL is always held at Disney World), is a Magic Kingdom of Diabetes. It makes sense: the event promoters are (and need to be) familiar with the condition, and the property managers need to be aware of -- and capable of handling -- a large, temporary influx of people who all have the same, or similar, "special needs". (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)

Canada and the United States of America both celebrate their "birthdays" on this long weekend. Flags are flown, fireworks launched, parades marched, and we perceive a sort of unity and interallegiance to our governments and our fellow citizens. While the United States celebrates it's independence from England, we also understand the various states' interdependence upon each other in matters of commerce, transportation, and national defense. It would seem to me that the Canadian provinces are similarly interdependent upon each other.

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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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Wednesday I was stuck on nursery rhymes. Thursday, it was fairly tales. Reading the Wikipedia entry on Red Riding Hood, I followed the link to an entry on something I'd never heard of before: liminality. While Wikipedia has not nearly evolved into something rigorous enough to be considered a sole source for research, sometimes a new word or concept can shift something known and comfortable into an entirely different perspective; this is what that definition did for me.

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With a new year come new ideas, new resolutions, new solutions to old problems, and of course new problems needing solutions.

Among the last is, once again, need for a full-time job. Cell phone sales were not high enough to keep me on until Christmas, so I am once again navigating the waters of unemployment and job-search.

For now, enough of that. The meme going around the Diabetes Online Community has been that of "spreading the word" -- both telling people with diabetes of the online resources available to us, and bringing our online activism out to the world in which we live, visit our doctors, purchase our food and medications, and educate our children. While most of us talk about outreach in terms of getting our real-life neighbors to hook up with our online resources, I see a different reality.

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