Said And Done

"Can we do movie night at my house?" Scott says.
"Sure," I say.
"We didn't see you," the nice old couple who plowed into the side of my fucking car when I was driving to Scott's house says.
"Never going to fucking Manassas again," I say.

Could be worse, I guess...still, fuck Manassas.

The Home Depot: You Can Have Ass Pain. We Can Help.

Had to stop at Home Depot on the way, er, home this morning after doing the usual Saturday stuff, and I thought, “Every aspect of this is going to be a pain in the ass.  At every step of the process:  ass pain.”

I was, of course, assolutely absolutely correct.

How Would I Be Able To Tell?

For a while now, in addition to the assorted migratory aches and pains I have in my various joints and muscles, I've been getting odd feelings of numbness, tingling, and burning in my hands and feet.
Last week it got so intense that it kept me awake all night and forced me to conclude that the time had finally come to do something about it.
I'd never gotten around to actually getting a doctor in the whole time I've been in Virginia, and, indeed, apart from an ER visit shortly after I moved here and had slammed my car into a guard rail, and the time I got an infection in my eyes from my Gentle Molding lenses, I hadn't been to a doctor since I'd gotten a physical when I went into rehab back in 2000.
So the only option available to me was to go in to Urgent Care to get checked out.
During the examination, the woman examining me asked if I've been irritable. I laughed and said, "Only for the past 37 years."
She then asked if I've been more irritable lately.
I thought about the story that Alan Moore tells about how, on his 40th birthday, he announced to friends and family that it was his intention to become a magician - not the stage kind - and begin researching and practicing the dark arts. He asked all assembled to be sure to let him know if, during his studies, he appeared to be going insane. The response was, "How would we be able to tell?"
In any case, my odd panoply of symptoms led to the suspicion that I might have Lyme Disease, though Diabetes was also suspected, especially given that it runs in my family. So blood was drawn and sent off to be tested, and I was prescribed a muscle relaxant and told to start taking even more Alleve than I already was.
On Saturday, as I was in the middle of downing a Monster energy drink, I got a phone call with the results: Diabetes.
It wasn't really a surprise, but it also wasn't what I wanted to hear.
I was told to make an appointment with my doctor, and then, when I said, "I don't have one," told to head back to Urgent Care sometime Monday after fasting for 12 hours so that my blood sugar levels could be checked again.
So Sunday night found me fasting, and Monday morning found me back at Urgent Care, where I was told that they couldn't actually run the test because there were no doctors there and something something insurance wouldn't pay for it, and was told that I could make an appointment for later that day at one of their other facilities. So I made the appointment, and they drew the blood anyway, since I'd already been fasting.
That afternoon I headed to Ashburn and was reminded once again of the fact that doctors have a different understanding of the meaning of the word "appointment" than the rest of the world, and after a half an hour of sitting around in a room full of sick people and crying babies, I was finally being examined.
The doctor was kind of weird - it would take too long to explain how - and I was kind of baffled by the whole experience, and the next thing I knew I was being shown how to inject insulin.
So, yeah, I'm on insulin now.
Apparently his focus for the time being is getting my blood sugar levels under control, and then we'll talk about diet and possibly getting off of insulin and using some other method for controlling my sugar.
So I wasn't given any sort of diet plan or anything like that, and have so far been trying to wing it, looking stuff up online and asking my mom, who's had diabetes for years, for advice.
The doctor did give me a booklet, but it doesn't really go into details about what and what not to eat, and just says to "eat healthy," watch my portions, and figure out, based on my sugar levels, what works best for me.
Online resources tend to say the same thing, essentially chalking it all up to trial and error.
Some of the actual diet plans I've seen seem untterly unreasonable and unworkable, like "a slice of wheat bread and one hard-boiled egg for breakfast, three walmuts and an ice cube for lunch, a thimbleful of peanut butter for a snack, and a gram of skinless chicken for supper."
(I may be engaging in a bit of exaggeration.)
In any case, my level of irritability right now is even higher than the level of sugar in my blood.
This whole thing blows and it makes me want to punch someone. A lot.
I don't want to have to worry about "portion control," or "net carbs," and I sure as hell don't want to have to poke holes in myself multiple times a day for the rest of my life, though of course, having Diabetes means that my life is potentially going to be five to ten years shorter than it might have been otherwise.
In short, fuck this.
I really don't ask for a lot out of life, yet being able to just live my life without everything being a bullshit hassle is obviously too much to ask for.
But what's the alternative? There isn't one, and that's what pisses me off most of all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know; there are worse things in life and there are people who are much worse off than I am, and every cloud has a silver lining, and let go and let God, and so on and so on and so on.
But here's the thing: fuck you.
I have every right to be pissed off about this and I don't want to hear any inspirational platitudes, because nothing anyone can say can change the fact that this sucks.
Beyond that, despite being pissed off, as mentioned, I don't have an alternative, so I'm going to do the shit I need to do to manage this, and part of what I need to do to manage this is to express how pissed off I am.
Besides, that helpful little booklet I got said that it's natural for me to be angry and that I should express my anger.
So here it is.
Of course, the booklet was wrong on one point. It ways that having Diabetes doesn't have to prevent you from doing the things you enjoy. Bullshit. Because among the things in life that I enjoy are not having to test my blood sugar or inject insulin into my ass cheek.
*Sigh* Okay, fine, I'm done venting.
I'll stop being so negative. Life is wonderful. It's all sunshine, (sugar-free) lollipops, and rainbows...
Hmm...I guess I am more irritable than usual.

Slow Sunday

Last night I was working merrily away on a picture when I looked up and was surprised to discover that it was nearly 2 am.
I went to bed and struggled to sleep, even though throughout the weekend I’d slept poorly and as a result was extremely tired.
The exhaustion I felt didn’t cause me to sleep in at all, and I was up at a bit after 9 and eventually began working on the picture, and then on another. And then another.
All three pictures (plus some more) are part of a single project which will eventually find its way here, but I can’t make any promises as to when, and will accompany an entry on a particular topic.
To make use of some uncharacteristically bad grammar, I have to say that this “hush hush” project I’m working on is the single wrongest thing I’ve ever done, I think, though in a particularly hilarious way.
I keep having to take a break from working on it so that I can take a step back, laugh, and say, “That is just so wrong.”
Hopefully it won’t take me too much longer to finish it so I can share it with all of you and you can either join me in laughing, or screw up your faces, scratch your heads, and say, “That’s not funny. What a buttwad.”
Whichever.
As mentioned, not much has been going on today apart from working on the picture.
I paid the majority of my bills for the month, having to take the time and effort to actually write everything down, since without a check card I can’t access my bank account online to keep track of things that way.
Pain in the ass.
I talked to my mother, who is thinking about checking out some sort of grief support luncheon thing that’s going to be held near where she lives in a few days, which I think is a good idea.
But other than that, things are pretty quiet here.
The weekend was long, slow, and boring, and full of inane conversations, as I detailed on Friday.
Tuesday Scott, Brian, and I will be attending this day-long training at HQ to learn all about “Web 2.0.” I’m sure it will be exciting.
Okay, I’m sure it won’t be exciting, but I’m also sure that it will be 9 hours of really easy OT.
A week after that our whole group is getting together for a team meeting/lunch.
In any case, I suppose I should get back to work on my project.

Pain In The Ass

The other day when I was checking my account balance I noticed an odd charge that didn't look familiar in my checking account balance.
Long story short, some jackass got ahold of my check card number.
So now I've had to have that card deactivated and have to wait a week to get a new one.
Pain in the ass.
At least the jackass in question didn't try anything too extravagant; he or she only spent $12.95 to buy a Web site template. Most likely to set up some kind of phishing site, I imagine. That it was a small amount is the only consolation, though I guess it's also cool that the company that sold it has already agreed to refund the money.
The money isn't the real issue, though.
The real issue is the inconvenience. Now I have to live on checks and my credit cards until I get my new card and PIN, I won't have any online access, and there are a couple of companies that bill my card automatically, so I have to go in and change all of that information once I have the new card.
The worst part is that my bank isn't going to go so far as to actually investigate it and figure out who did it, so whoever it was will get away with it.
Pain. In. The. Ass.