Haecceity.nu

“You’re like rags to riches!”
“She was never in rags!”
“She was never in riches, either.”

This was the conversation that happened between my grandma & mom after I showed them my new Louis Vuitton bag (that Louie convinced me it’d be cool to buy, I swear) over webcam last night. As amusing as their reaction to it was, I guess they have some kind of point. I don’t really consider myself rich but Louie and I, with our combined income, are well off and I feel really, really lucky for both of us to be in careers that we love and make a good living so that we can afford the things we want along with the expensive San Francisco rent we pay. (Wow that was quite a run-on sentence, there.) :P

I wrote this last night, when I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking too much. I haven’t written poetry in a few years so it’s not that great, but it felt good to get my feelings out onto paper. I think I want to start writing poetry more often.

The hooks of memory
are freshly pierced into my mind.
A rush of fear and sadness
mingled with the smell of burning.

Never forget.

Smoke so thick it blot out the sun,
how can I forget such a darkness?
People so desperate to get out that they jump,
how can I not remember watching as they fell?

It’s impossible to.

Buildings once bright, tall and firm
reduced now to ghosts in the skyline,
a hole in the heart of my city.
How can I not recall that void,
felt in my own chest?

Life moves on.

10 years have gone by but still, the image—
seared onto the backs of my eyelids,
a brand of remembrance so vivid and real
that the nightmare once lived
is absorbed through each blink.

I remember.

I figured I should announce this here, since Louie did on Twitter on Monday. He’s leaving Apple as the Visual Designer on the iTunes Team to join Square, an up-and-coming company that process credit card payments. They have really cool iPhone & iPad apps and I think they’re also available on Android. I had planned to use their service to sell Paper Owl Press stuff when I get it up and running (which is taking much longer than I thought, I keep putting it off).

Anyway, he’s really excited to work on something new and to get rid of his 2+ hour commute to Cupertino (1+ hour(s) each way!). Square’s office is about 4-5 blocks from our apartment, so pretty convenient. :) He starts in 2 weeks.

Other changes include doctors! Since he’s switching jobs it means we’re also switching health insurance. My current endocrinologist doesn’t accept the new health plan, so I’m going to have to find a new one, again. I’m not really looking forward to that process, but I have an appointment today with my current one to get prescriptions and such that will hopefully last me till I find a new doctor. Wish me luck? (Anyone know of a good endo in SF who accepts Kaiser?)

I’m back from my just-over-a-week-long visit to New York and have realized that San Francisco is indeed growing on me, I actually missed quite a few things about it! But I will still always miss certain things about NYC, too. As a given, missing family & friends is assumed in this list post. :P
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You may or may not have heard via Twitter, but my endocrinologist has put me on a CGM for a week (well, 5 days) since my last A1C result was much higher than it should be. We’re trying to figure out why, hence the temporary CGM. I went into the Diabetes Services office last Monday to get it put on, and it was more of an ordeal than I expected it to be.

Firstly, I was nervous. I didn’t know how big the needle would be or where the diabetes educator would recommend putting it. I’ve never worn a CGM before, but I do wear an insulin pump. However, I only put my infusion sets in my legs mostly because I get the heeby-jeebies about putting them anywhere else.

When I got to the office, the diabetes educator, Sylvia, was very nice and had everything set up and waiting for me. She recommended putting it in my stomach or hip, so I opted for my hip and took a deep breath… However, the launcher wasn’t working! Which, of course, made me more nervous. I’ve had issues with my pump’s infusion set launcher before and it’s not a fun thing to deal with. (Basically, it either causes the set to go in too slow, so it hurts more, or not all the way in so you accidentally pull it back out and have to start all over again.) After a few attempts with the launcher not working, she decided to try a new launcher… which then worked. Damn things.

It hurt a bit, I’m not going to lie. That coupled with my mounting nerves due to the launcher issue caused me to feel quite light-headed, so I had to lie down after the CGM was in and she was calibrating my meter with it. I thought I was going to pass out, so she brought me a cold towel, a glass of cold water, and pointed a small table fan at me. If there’s a good place to feel like your going to faint, it’s a doctor’s office. I felt much better after about 10-15 minutes and was on my way home shortly after that.

I’ve worn the CGM for ~4 days now, and I go in tomorrow to take it off. So far, it’s been really uncomfortable. I have no idea if it’d be better or worse if I had chosen my stomach for the site instead, but in it’s current placement on my right hip it’s very itchy and I’m constantly afraid of pulling it out. Additionally, I once accidentally rolled over on it in my sleep and woke up abruptly because it felt like someone had stabbed me. :/ So I’ve been taking great pains not to hit it with things like my purse or backpack or the back of my chair at work. I think this has caused the extra pain/pressure on my lower back, which has been killing me all week. I’m probably standing funny or walking/sitting weirdly. My mom thinks they might have put too much tape on it, which causes more pulling at the set as I move. Augh!

In any case, I’m glad that I was able to do this and I hope the results will be helpful in adjusting my doses and achieving a more normal A1C. *crosses fingers*