It's unusual for me to have nightmares — especially nightmares about flying. Mine are usually about family relationships gone completely awry. But facing a World Diabetes Day on which I am working at a place whose uniform does not allow even a touch of blue, having given Nick Jonas my last World Diabetes Day pin (and not having had the money to replenish my stash), and having failed to have the presence of mind to do the Big Blue Test at least once (even though I am bicycling to and from work at least half the time), I feel a bit like a diabetes failure. (READ MORE)

Today is the 6th Annual D-Blog Day and in some ways, I'm stymied by the topic: Gina has proposed we all do a 12" x 12" scrapbook page. Growing up, a scrapbook was a shoelace-tied book of heavy vellum-colored Manilla paper to which one pasted telegrams, newspaper clippings, greeting cards, and the like. In theory, one scrapbook could last a lifetime; in reality, the pages started falling out about five years in, and we always had to be careful not to lose either the pages or the stuff glued on to them. My mother's scrapbook has telegrams of congratulations from relatives who couldn't make her wedding and a guest-card with the lyrics to "Bei Mir Bist Du Shane", telegrams of congratulations when my sister and I were born, and newspaper clippings from every time one or another of us was mentioned in the local newspaper. (READ MORE)

Between the High Holy Days, my upcoming JDRF walk, and online friends who are mourning recent losses, the deceased have been on my mind lately.

More specifically, those who have been lost to diabetes -- whether as a patient or as a victim of someone Driving While Low -- as well as those with diabetes who have died, but not from diabetes.

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Every November, those of us in the diabetes community bewail the "invisibility" of our condition, our passion, our advocacy over the remaining eleven months of the year. One of our ongoing gripes is that -- unlike breast cancer's pink ribbon, the red ribbon of AIDS awareness, Livestrong's iconic yellow wristband, or the double-cross of the American Lung Association -- there is no single, universally-recognized symbol or color representing diabetes.

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It's been a bit busy this week, leaving me somewhat late on reporting back on Saturday's d-group meeting to see Breakthrough: The Dramatic Story of the Discovery of Insulin, a special exhibit showing at the New York Historical Society. Since I had to work Sunday, this ended up as the total of my World Diabetes Day celebrations this year.

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The first week in August marked the start of the 2010 run of the New York Renaissance Faire, an event in which the most popular exhibitions involve aiming long, pointy objects at impossibly small, circular targets. Whether it's an 8-foot-long lance hooking a three-inch-diameter ring, or a 26" arrow aimed at a bull's eye 100 yards away, or a sword or spear looking to unhinge a 1/2"-diameter ring of chain-mail armour, these are impressive displays of marksmanship and control -- kind of like trying to keep one's blood glucose levels between the mythical "102" and "104" (mg/dl) of glucometer-packaging displays, regardless of what one eats and when. (READ MORE)