The Little Reminders

So, it’s not a surprise if you’ve been here the past couple of days that the blog has taken a bit of a shift. Usually I’ll talk creativity, progress with work, the little gems I find while reading. But, recently it’s been all about turning my personal ship around. The SS Maurice is in bad shape and is going into renovations. As also noted prior, this is not the first time.

Which is why I find it curious that I never learn the lesson. The little reminders fall by the wayside. The benefits should seem obvious, but I eventually forget them automagically (much like I often forget where my girlfriend and I’s schedules overlap to her chagrin).

The little reminders that I’m on the right track are numerous, but no individual one really seems noticeable until you start stacking them up next to each other. I suppose that’s part of the reason it’s so easy to forget. You take out one of the little reminders and the structure still stands. It doesn’t seem so bad. But, then when three or four are gone, you look around at the increasing wreckage of personal health and wonder what the hell went wrong.

Working out, eating well, controlling intake, saying no to indulgences, all of these things lead to multiple benefits: reduced need for sleep, better quality of sleep, increased focus, increased energy, increased physical output, mood lifting, resistance to common illnesses. How do all of those things disappear and not send off a huge response on my give-a-shit-meter? Somehow, I always forget what I lose by not working to keep my body in working order.

Little Reminders - honey badger doesn't give a shit — And apparently I don’t either sometimes. I think he and the Blerch may be friends.

I have had all of the above flood back into my life and I feel really, really positive about it. It’s giving me idea time in the gym, making me feel better, and giving me a sense that I’m accomplishing something.

So here’s to the little reminders. Maybe I can make ’em big reminders moving forward.

September 26, 2014 0

Six Pounds

So, I lost six pounds already. I’ve been working out for maybe two weeks and the easy pounds are coming off. My girlfriend has been incredibly supportive, and my dad has even been going to the gym with me most nights. My blood sugars are still in the toilet, but it’s beginning to work itself out as I work myself out.

It’s strange too, because this is the third time I’ve been here. I remember when I was first diagnosed in 2005, the doctor and I had a very hard, very graphic conversation about where I was at and where I was heading. By blood was thick like heated animal fat, my sugars were at 288 ml/dl. At that pace, I was headed to renal failure and my kidneys were already in enough distress that I was going to be on ACE Inhibitors for the rest of my life. If I ignored it, I could also look forward to losing my feet, hands, and/or eyes. It woke me up, showed me how bad things were.

It put me on track right up until May/June of 2007. I went to Japan that year. And my sugars were great even with me indulging in local food and skimping on gym exercise (though I was walking around a lot on the guided tours).

When I got home, I let it loose a bit. I put on another twenty pounds after having lost about forty. A year later on my diabetes checkup, the doc said he didn’t like where things were headed. So, I endeavored to rein it in and for a little while it worked. Up until about 2012 I was managing okay. Average sugars were about 120 – 140, high, but not horrendous.

After that though, I started to lapse into ‘convenient’ eating. I started going out to lunch more days than not, I got cheap, quick breakfast food. I’d go out to dinner and clear the plate or not watch my portions when I was home. I stopped going to the gym at all (though I’d pay for it through the process).

As you might have guessed by the last entry here, it’s gotten bad again. Really bad. A1C never has been higher, even though my daily glucose numbers aren’t as high as when I was diagnosed. I’m facing injection therapy (again) and I’m definitely scared out of my wits.

But, so far, the fight has been working. I’ve already lost six pounds (these are the easy pounds) and I have at least fifty-four left to go. I have an array of tools available at my disposal, the primary one being the LoseIt! app I used last time to get myself in order. Additionally, I now have an even better gym plan, one that allows me to go to any convenient location. Given they’re one of the larger chains, this is handy for anywhere I go, even if I end up out of state. I also have the support of my girlfriend, my family, and my friends. I suppose I might also start crediting my active ignoring of the Blerch. As a friend has noted, discipline is required to really achieve. I have discipline – right up until I get a big distraction. That’s the big part. It’s easy to think you’re doing fine once you get to a good place, but I always seem to forget the part where it can’t be though of as a temporary change. It needs to be a forever thing. And forever is daunting. It’s why one of the AA pillars is taking things one day at a time. One day at a time isn’t as hard as looking into the cold stare of infinity.

But, I think I’m making progress, even if the numbers aren’t shaking out the way I want them to right now. It’s going to take a lot of time to turn this ship around.

Stay with me people. The progress will come.

September 25, 2014 0

Diabetes or: My Body, the Human Trashcan

My body is a battleground. I suppose everyone’s is, but right now I’m focused on mine because it has Diabetes. I resent this broken, crappy body. I value my mind far more, but I often lose sight of the fact that it is a physical thing that lives in my body. If I keep treating my body like a trashcan, I won’t have the mind it houses to enjoy.

As a diabetic I know goddamned well that I have to be careful. I want my fingers, toes, eyes, and kidneys. I can’t do without any of them. But, I haven’t been careful. I’ve been stupid.

The thing that gets me is that I used to be so good about it. I used to be careful. I had my days planned out, ate at regular intervals, went to the gym 4-5 times a week, took walks on my breaks, counted my calories, prepared meals. I haven’t done any of that for two years. I just keep taking the medicine. And it’s showing.

A controlled A1C for a type two diabetic is less than 7. The test before the last one was 7.8 – a cause for concern. Now, it’s 10.2. This is not just uncontrolled. This is catastrophic. This is the part where injectables come into play. This is where organs are straining.

So, the push begins anew. This will be my third rally from uncontrolled states. I will be monitoring intake of all foods and re-firing the engines of exercise. I’ll be getting a new monitor with cheaper strips, because while good goddamn I like the freestyle lite monitor, the strips are not cheap.

diabetes ritual blood sacrifice — The butterfly strips tend to make it more like a test and less like an Aztec blood sacrifice.

I’m going to have to break from old habits. I’m going to have to get life predictable again. I’m going to have to drag order kicking and screaming from chaos.

It’s going to be a long trip. But I think that with a little support and a lot of understanding from the folks in my life, it’s all possible.

Wish me luck.

September 22, 2014 0

New Bloods – Second Gen Gamers

It shouldn’t be a big surprise that I frequent game stores. I like all types of game stores from the ubiquitous video games stores to the personal favorite RPG stores. We have a local store nearby, The Days of Knights, in which I have spent much of my formative years in. I have seen it in no fewer than four locations in my time on this Earth, and while I don’t get the opportunity (or disposable income) frequently enough to go as regular as I once did, I find myself there on occasion still to commune with my fellow gamers.

On my last trip in, I was in the back of the store and I overheard a conversation starting and could not help but listen in with the acuity of Sawmise Gamgee. The conversation was between a middle aged fellow and his tweenage daughter. It went something like this:

Daughter: These are the games?

Father: Yes, these are the games.

Daughter: Dad… you know… these are books.

Father: Yes. The books are the games.

Daughter: [silence] How…?

Father: You have the games in the books. You just have to go through them and, you know, make them.

Daughter: And you said you played them?

Father: Yes, I used to all the time.

Daughter: [first sign of real interest] With who?

Father: Lots of people.

Daughter: When?

Father: A long time ago.

I was touched. I was getting to see something happen between a parent and child that is sacred, at least to me personally. I’m a second generation gamer – my dad taught me the basics via Warhammer Fantasy Role Play. He taught me how to GM. I still bounce stories off of him when I develop plots as he so infrequently can manage to show at the table regularly these days. So I felt kind of privileged to be hearing it, at least at first.

There was a brief period of time here where my attention flagged (cause you know, I’m in a game store and I found something shiny), and then I hear something that kind of made me step back for a second and question whether or not this father might be the best person to explain RPGs to this youngster. They cross my path again and I hear this exchange:

Father: You could be a fighter, or a knight, or a wizard –

Daughter: [Hopeful] Or a unicorn?

Father: [Exasperated] You’re not getting it.

death unicorn — I dunno… she might be getting it.

On the face of it, it’s funny, but on the other hand I found a part of my inner gamer a little bit cross. While on the father’s side in my own terms of gaming, who says that his daughter couldn’t play a unicorn if she really wanted to? In the age of FATE and My Little Pony, I’m thinking that somewhere there’s a niche roleplaying community and market for second gen gamers to play unicorns to their heart’s content. Her dad might not be able to provide that for her (nor could I really), but someone else could. Since gamers are communal in nature, it’s entirely possible there’s someone her dad would trust that could do that for her, or at least he could incorporate a unicorn into the game as a companion animal. Roleplaying Games aren’t really meant to be constrained – people play the things they want to play. That’s why there are so many. Creativity can grow out of it, and limitations on it can stifle the imagination in those wonderful younger years of gaming.

Ultimately though, the dad was trying to share something he loved with his children – and I suppose that’s good enough. I just hope the girl can go off and find a game where she can be a unicorn all she wants.

UPDATE 11/28/14: Apparently, there’s even a Pathfinder supplement for the guy’s daughter: Ponyfinder.

September 14, 2014 0

Hamster Time – Elliptical Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a big part of coming up with good stories, ideas, characters and places. However, there’s precious little time to do it by most folks’ standards. We have jobs, families, obligations, friends, hobbies, and interests. Carving time out to just think is challenging enough without working out the kinks for writing fiction.

However, take heart. Brainstorming isn’t something you need to cloister yourself away for. The best way I’ve found to brainstorm is Hamster Time.

It doesn’t actually involve a hamster, but it does involve the hamster wheel, metaphorically speaking.

I’m a big, fat Diabetic guy. In order for me to keep things in control, I have to keep my body in working order or things go to hell. What this typically means is that I have to find a way to get my butt moving, and the best way to do that is to go to the gym. When I first started, I didn’t like it. Every part of my being was aware that my body was on fire and that it just wanted the exertion to end. But, after a while, it got bearable. I realized that without a whole lot of effort, I could keep the body moving on the treadmill or elliptical machine (my hamster wheel of choice) while allowing my mind to wander. After a while, I picked up on something pretty cool – when I worked out, it left me a hell of a lot of time to think.

Putting this time in my day accomplishes a two-fer: I keep my body in better working order and I can take the time to muse on any particular aspect of a story that I might have in mind. Sometimes it’s pure idea creation, other times its working out an existing idea until I get it’s inner logic worked out. Sometimes it’s building a character or even a confrontation. I love listening to instrumental pieces in these cases – especially if I’m working out a battle. It’s like transcribing kung fu movies with their own soundtracks.

Given my lack of gym time recently, it’s not surprising that the creative fires banked (and my ass got fatter) a bit in the past year. But with a little luck, I’ll get that hamster wheel rolling, get my Diabetes back under control, and start outputting more (and better) work.

September 12, 2014 0

Worldbuilding – From the Land Comes the Story

I recently had a discussion between three of my friends. Part of this conversation drew out one of the reasons I write. I love to create things. New things. When given a blank piece of paper, I enjoy that what gets put on it is something that perhaps only I could have created. Sure, I could draw a picture of a flower. Lots of people have drawn flowers. But this flower could be wholly imaginary. The flower can become my flower.

I don’t have to stop with the visual. The flower, in addition to looking unique, could have properties purely fantastical for use in any narrative. It’s pollen could induce blind hysteria. Eating it’s seeds could let you see extraplanar beings that aren’t phased in with our reality.

The possibilities are limitless. With the tool of imagination, I can make anyone, anyplace, or anything I choose.

Worldbuilding is usually where I start though.

Stormy — Start with the clouds first. ‘Cause clouds are cool.

I guess I’m big on the nurture side of the nature/nurture environment. Where you live and how that place treats its people you is going to tell you a lot about any people and cultures that come from those places. So when I want to tell a story, I usually need to know where it is. So, last night, I started to work out the world in which the characters in the new collaborative project I’m working on are going to come from.

I had a loose story – one of revenge – only loosely planned out. The characters weren’t coming to me though beyond my two protagonists. I needed something to help me bring more lives out, so I started with their environment and worked my way out. Before I knew it, I had a city in mind, as well as the non-human entities that lived there. I started to imagine what life there would be like. It would easily kill any but the most cautious of humans, but the spiritual, non-human residents were attuned to it. They’d be similar to us in a lot of ways though.

I pushed further. Who were their neighbors? How did they interact? What was the rhyme and reason for their cosmology? How do they feel about humans and their strange home called Earth? How did they interact? And after asking these questions, I felt the supporting cast crop up like seeds planted in good earth. Now I had a mentor for my two protagonists. Soon I had an enemy. Then others who would make life interesting for friend and foe alike. And before I knew it, the story was starting to find itself.

If only it wrote itself – that’d be a trick!

But this is a part of the process for me. Sometimes to work out the little details I have to start big and not be afraid to step into that large world I’ve just created.

So I’m making the world as big as I want. The more the merrier.

September 9, 2014 0