I'm it! Here are my seven.

Jonah and Beth both tagged me for the seven random/weird things meme. Thanks! This is good, my exam today is done and I wanna get back to blogging. I feel like I already write here some of the weird things about me, but I'll try to cook up a few more.

1. When I was little, I used to shave every morning. I would get really really jealous of my dad shaving, so he'd give me a plastic spoon and some shaving cream (the kind with an orange top that comes out as awesome turquoise gel and turns into creamy white foam when you rub it). I would stand next to him in the bathroom mirror and shave my face almost every day (except when I got out of bed too late, which yes, I was doing even at 5 or 6 years old). Kind of funny for someone who doesn't shave her legs or pits at all now. Or... maybe it makes perfect sense.
   
2. I love thunderstorms.
   
3. Sometimes when I have a really intense yawn or nose-blowing, I feel like I can breathe in air through my ears.
   
4. I am kind of in love the idea of my body being pregnant. Not with the idea of having a kid, I really want nothing to do with having any kids right now (or possibly ever). Just the idea of my body being physically pregnant. This is the opposite of how most people feel I think - they want the kid without all the icky physical things about a pregnancy. And I am well aware of how ridiculous this may seem, especially considering the actual reality and the extra mental/emotional and physical burden that would come with a diabetic pregnancy. And I should know better, considering that what I do all day at work is review medical records of pregnancy, scary complications and all. And even scarier/more painful, labor and delivery records (can you say, episiotomy? how 'bout 2nd degree vaginal laceration? contractions at a pain level of 10 out of 10?). But that's why this is just a fantasy, and it's about the beauty and roundness and just the general physical idea of being pregnant.
5. Speaking of being pregnant, people think I am all the time. I get people giving up seats for me on the train for no apparent reason except that they are looking at my belly and smiling sweetly at me/it. I get asked about it my strangers and less socially conscious/inhibited family members (most recently, my grandmother and a cashier in a cafeteria). I wrote about it a long time ago - I just have a belly on me, which isn't that proportional to the rest of me I guess. Haha, or maybe my thoughts from #4 cause me to give off some kind of vibe?
   
6. My ring finger is my favorite for checking blood sugar.
7. I eat apples from the bottom up instead of around the sides. Since I eat more of the apple than most people, usually a little tiny core, it's the best way to go at it.
   

I'm tagging bsom, estrogenmoment, Claire, misscripchick, Liz, Kameron, FatlyYours, Jes, and Hannah. (yes, that's 9... see below how I feel about rules! or above, how I feel about decisions...) I don't know if all of you do memes, but it's worth a try.

Rules (but I'm all about bending/breaking 'em if ya want):

1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

Call for submissions on wealth, redistribution, and class, and a few other things

1) I wanted to do "NaBloPoMo," or National Blog Posting Month. I'll admit the initial temptation was due to the great lolcats-themed badges. I am easy, anything related to that website wins me over immediately. But I do think it would be a great chance for me to learn to write shorter (and more frequent) posts, connect more with other diabetes bloggers doing it, and to force me to finish up all the half-written or outlined posts (there are lots) on stuff I've been wanting to write about, and generally get more comfortable writing and enjoy getting stuff out. However, I am really behind with the class I'm taking and at work, and kinda stressed, so I need to be looking for ways to limit, not increase, my internet time.

2) I went to my diabetes doctor this week - a few thoughts, I will write more later. There wasn't much in the way of surprises or even guilt because I know I've been struggling with my blood sugars a lot the last few months, and part of it is this weird absorption issue, among other things.

3) There's a new project that I heard about at Aid & Abet that looks great. It's a website called Enough, looking for submissions on wealth, redistribution, and class by November 15th-ish (loose deadline). I think it would be cool to get some stuff from you folks out there that involves health/illness, disability, and how that both affects and is affected by wealth, class, our economic system, and ideas for change, etc. I'm hoping to submit something.

One of the coordinators describes what they're looking for:

Call for Submissions: Enough

What is the difference between financial security and hoarding wealth?
What are some ways we can share resources to support community and movement-building?
How can we talk to each other about personal money issues and politics without guilt, shame, and judgment?
What does a politics of wealth redistribution look like in the day-to-day, and what are the obstacles to developing conversations about this in political communities we belong to?

These are some questions we’ve been thinking about, and we’re interested in jumpstarting conversations about how we conceive of and live a politics of wealth redistribution. We’d like to invite you to contribute some writing to a website we’re creating to explore this topic, called Enough.

The ubiquity of capitalism in the U.S. can limit our ability, even in radical communities, to conceptualize creative responses to oppression and injustice. This can manifest both in how we build movements (reproducing bureaucratic, hierarchical, business-type models; packaging and “selling” social justice work to foundations in exchange for grants), and in how we deal with personal finances in our own lives (defaulting to patterns like hoarding, excessive consumerism, and individualism in how we conceptualize our lives and futures and economic security).

We’d like to address some of the ways that class privilege and capitalist dynamics function even within communities and within the lives of individuals working to fight oppression and economic injustice. It can feel taboo to share details about things like income, inheritance, class background, debt, and spending. Silence and secrecy about money make it difficult for us to challenge ourselves and each other when classist dynamics arise. Social conditioning trains us to hoard money rather than share it and build community. We want to get people talking about building shared values and practices around wealth redistribution, because we think figuring out how much is enough, and when to give away money, are key under-discussed questions in anti-capitalist politics.

Some examples of the kinds of things we’re looking for:

-Pieces about how your class position has changed over the course of your life, and how that has affected feelings of responsibility about wealth redistribution.
-Stories about cool methods of figuring out what is “enough” when it comes to making/saving money. How do class background, class conditioning, fear, guilt, and other factors influence how you think about this question? How do you figure out what you need versus what you want when it comes to consuming?
-Examples of (or ideas for) community-based support systems that serve as alternatives to individualistic models of taking care of ourselves.
-Strategies for redistributing wealth in your community, or to support social justice work.
-Discussion of how ideas about wealth, security, scarcity get reproduced in families.
-Diatribes on the politics of inheritance.
-Discussions of professionalism and salaries.
-Exciting models of people dealing with money ethically in activist spaces and organizations.
-Strategies for overcoming immobilizing guilt about class or money.
-Anti-capitalist/anti-racist/anti-imperialist analysis of personal choices about saving for retirement, buying real estate, taking certain jobs, supporting our community, etc.
-Diagnostic worksheets to help people figure out any of the following:
My place in the economy (local, domestic, global)
Am I rich?
What sources of security do I have that I may not be aware of?
How do I know if I need something or just want it?
What are my resources besides money?

The two of us come from very different class backgrounds (Tyrone grew up in a first- generation owning-class family, and Dean grew up on welfare) and we’re hoping for a specifically cross-class conversation about these issues. We think that the anxiety that can arise when talking about these things among folks with different experiences of class can be useful and productive, and we hope to create a space where we can learn by sharing our experiences and challenging each other.

Please send us an email if you have an idea you’d like to write about, a resource you think we should know about, existing writing you think we should post in this conversation. Your piece can be short or long, written in any style.

Please send submissions to: tyronius.samson(at)gmail.com and/or deanspade(at)gmail.com.

Theory and Practice: Ketones

I couldn't help but be hit on the head with the irony of checking for ketones* while I crammed for my chemistry test on guess what? Ketones (and other carbonyl compounds). My professor likes to emphasize that we should not just memorize the material but understand it and know how to apply it. Unfortunately, he was talking about applying it in the form of writing reactions down on paper, and my excellent ability to pee on a strip and correctly read and interpret that data didn't earn me any extra points today. And I sure could've used them.

Since there were only a couple of us taking the exam in the office, I was totally tempted to make some joke or mention to the professor about the ketones. Some way to get a little validation for being funny/smart/special from the (hot) professor as I failed his exam. But I couldn't figure out how to do it without mentioning my urine, and well, that just seemed to defeat the purpose. Not so attractive, baddecisionmaker, not so attractive.

I took the exam in the professor's office before class because that was my accommodation through the disability resource center (since I might need to leave to pee, or need extra time in case of a low or high). It was the first time I've officially registered my diabetes; at the college I graduated from it was more relaxed; classes were smaller, and I relied on just talking to professors. I have had more problems lately, and also have started thinking about my diabetes and ability/disability a little differently in the last 5 years since I started college. I got more time than I would've even though my blood sugar wasn't too crazy, but this accommodation was actually not great for me because I took it at 10am instead of noon, and I do not function well in the morning (and could've really used the extra 2 hours to study). Also, the professor was having office hours at the same time so it was not quiet. Maybe he hadn't thought about this because the other kid getting accommodations there with me was deaf. I was jealous.

Anyways, I am a nerd and was curious about the ketone strips I pee on. Last week I was actually procrastinating by reading the ketostix box and trying to figure out how the reaction worked (no success) instead of studying the actual material. Yeah, that's how ridiculously distractable and unfocused I am - procrastinating by reading the box of my diabetes supplies, haha. That's why I had to cram for this exam.

I was checking for ketones because I'm still having weird blood sugar/insulin absorbtion issues, and I was having some unexpected highs and wanted to make sure my pump was working enough that I wouldn't be sick or wake up high and groggy the morning of my exam.


*non-pancreatically challenged folks' glossary: I and other type 1 diabetics might check our pee for ketones when we have unexplainable or multiple high blood sugars, think we might not be getting enough insulin, or are sick. Having ketones is different than just having regular high blood sugar (in fact, you can have ketones without high blood sugar), they are a sign of things not working right in the body and can be part of a dangerous cascade/imbalance if they are at high levels. It requires different and more careful management than just regular blood sugar issues. (Nerds: they are the byproduct of the body's metabolism when it switches over from it's normal fuel of sugar to breaking down fatty acids. The acidity in your blood can get dangerous.)