Type:Two

Been about a week, hasn't it? Not that there's been much music related interest of note right now. Nothing grabbing me, nothing throttling me. Man, I miss being grabbed and throttled. And even if I was I still wouldn't find the time to blog about it much these days. I meant to write more about what I thought about the Matthew Shipp CD. Or the Borat movie, not to mention the twelve-dozen other DVDs I've seen in the past few weeks alone. Or even the whole election biznizz. I try to keep politics out of my blog in general, since one of the reasons for this blog is to help divert my attentions away from the things that upset me the most in my real non-online life, like the war in Iraq, etc. Although right now it's been pretty not easy avoiding the little things in my non-online life not to bring them up from time to time.

I found out this week that I am borderline Type 2 Diabetes. This, of course, explains my constant need to sleep and/or pee. Now I am taking into account that my doctor did a blood test on me November 2nd, two days after Halloween, and although I didn't eat a lot of candy that night I did sort of snarf down November 1st since Joe and I had kinda sorta accidentally bought way too much candy in anticipation of a huge swarm of kids that night that didn't exactly pan out (I was at work that night but Joe told me that he had pretty much given out candy to eight trick-or-treaters total, tops), and since my doctor didn't advise me to fast before my blood test like she usually insists then it stands to reason my blood sugar was already through the roof, as it is with most folks post-Halloween/Easter and whatnot. However, it doesn't change the fact that I've gained 25 lbs since May of this year, and already being insulin resistant, already being warned that if I don't monitor my weight, my sugar intake, every freakin' molecule I swallow, than I'll be a diabetic by the time I'm 40, which is basically less than 3 years away. Looks like Christmas is early this year.

God, it's humiliating to admit this, because I loathe self pity and weakness since I know what I am capable of, but this week has been punctuated with minor, deeply embarrassing emotional meltdowns on my part. Being fine one minute, sobbing and shaking the next. I lied to my boss and told her I was sick when I showed up at work red-faced and puffed eyed Tuesday and she followed me back into the office fretting with concern, and since I rarely ever call in sick she believed me and set me home for the night. And I've been horribly ugly to Joe, not for anything he's done but simply out of anger and frustration towards myself, and he's been nothing short of sweet and supportive of me all week, lavishing me with more love than I couldn't even imagine humanly possible, because this man already never lets a day go by without reminding me just how much he cares for me. He's more than just a boyfriend. He's a best friend. And they don't make creatures this kind, understanding, and willing to stick by their nutty neurotic fat-assed girlfriends in this day and age anymore.

Shit. Guys, I know you're sick of reading this by now. I know I'm sick of writing about it. But I just can't convey to you what a complete and utter failure I've felt like over this past summer, and everything culminating into this week's news just put the big cherry Metformin pill on top of the Failure Sundae. And I know, "Melissa, you lost 140 pounds already -- that's hardly failing." But it is failing if I can't keep it the damn thing off, or at least long enough not wreck my health over it. This really is a health issue for me, folks. It's nice and all that I get compliments about my appearance since I lost weight and everything, but hey -- look, I know I'm never going to have a so-called "hot body", so it's not my goal to do so. Because quite frankly, it's not my job to have one. It is, however, my job to have a healthy body, just like it should be all of ours. And that's all I want. I want the strength I had last year -- heck, the last 3 years -- to do this again. I want the joy I had in relishing a healthy body. I went from going off my Avandia in May because my health looked so good to being put on Metformin because I'm suddenly borderline diabetic, and all because of just slacking off for a few months, not monitoring everything, not staying the course. Knowing what I had, and what I stand to lose, is what makes this change in events so devastating to me.

So here's where it stands: No more sugar, and once the Metformin helps me stay awake during the day, no more coffee or tea, or anything with caffeine that will stimulate my appetite. Get back to walking every morning until I'm back up to two hours every day. No more excuses. Not like I have a single viable excuse to offer anymore at this point.

I suppose in other, more optimistic news, Joe finally has a car again, since losing his in the floods during Hurricane Ernesto this summer. A 1997 Buick LeSabre. Like this, but more of a light tan color. My father saw a guy in his neighborhood selling it for $2950, and he had been fixing it up for years and planning on selling it to his own parents but it turned out that they really didn't need it so he put it on the market. Has a bit of an oil leak problem, but worn leaky valve cover gaskets are apparently inherent issues of otherwise rather well-made Buick engines. We'll just have to get that taken care of. Other than that it has an all new gas tank, and the engine is clean enough to eat off of. Really not too bad at all for an almost ten-year-old vehicle with about 150,000 miles on it. And at least we're not car-pooling each other to and from work every day. Joe just picked the car up from my parents' house this morning, so I'm assuming it got him to work okay since I haven't gotten any frantic eek-come-get-me-the-engine-fell-out-at-60mph phone calls so far. Keep thinking those positive thoughts.