Administrative Professionals' Day

Today is Administrative Professionals' Day. Apparently. It states as much on my desk calendar. I overlooked it because I was too busy focusing on the 8 telling me I only have 8 days until I'll be in New York City.

I talked to Amanda in Practicum and it was she that informed me of today. "You're going to get so spoiled!!" she said. I won't. Norma isn't that kind of boss. Instead she's the kind of boss that lets you leave early on Fridays and writes you as many letters of recommendations at it takes for you to achieve your dreams. But Rebecca did bring me a cupcake. It was really good.

Hey Now, The Dream is Over

You'll write your personal statement in 2 days after toiling over and writing 7 different drafts. You'll start from scratch and it'll be gorgeous. Your boss will tell you there's something wrong with them if they don't let you in. Allison will read it and tell you it gives her chills. You'll submit your application 2 1/2 weeks before it's due. Next text your mom and tell her you submitted it and use 6 exclamation marks. She'll respond with Does this mean you can relax now?. Ignore her response and bask in your accomplishment.

6 days before applications are due you'll send an email inquiring about the status of your application. The reply you'll receive will confirm that your application is complete and will tell you you'll hear about admission the second week of April. You make a countdown on your desk calendar, right above the countdown of your trip to New York City in May.

Dear Diabetes

Dear Juvenile On-set Diabetes (aka Type I),

We've lived together for 20+ years. I've hated every single second of it, roughly, but since I can't get rid of you - despite my best efforts with that pancreas transplant in '05 - I'm doing my very best to take care of you. I'm checking my blood sugars 3-4 times a day (at least), watching my carbs & programming the amount I do eat into my insulin pump then having the proper amount of insulin, and giving myself a bolus when my sugar is higher than it should be. I'm doing everything I should and am supposed to do to take good care of you.

So WHY are you being so petulant??

Transplant Update: First Kidney-versary

There is something in the transplant world known as the "critical year". It's the first year after a patient receives a transplant and it's the most important year. That first year is the most imuno-suppressed and the most likely period of rejection. It's the year a transplant recipient is monitored the most closely as the new graft settles into it's new home. My critical year ended on March 15th with a .89 creatinine and a party in honor of me and my sister.

I Hate to Wait - Inigo Montoya

Last week I submitted an application for my future. I won't find out if I'm accepted for 5 more weeks. It is pure torture. I've never been very talented at waiting.

I've been trying to keep myself busy, mostly to try and stay away from things I think will jinx my chances (I can be a tad superstitious) but it's not working very well. I'm still caught in that initial "application submitted" buzz, when all you can think about is how fantastic it would be if it actually happened, if you got accepted. Fair warning: this is purposefully vague. I greatly dislike vagueness, such as when people post "I'm soooo done!!!!" on facebook and that's it. We get it, you want attention without having to be specific. If you tell me what you're done with, I might care. So if you detest vagueness as much as I do, you don't have to keep reading. What's written here isn't a cry for attention, just something I need to write to exit my "application submitted"buzz. Free my miiiiiiind and the rest will follow, if you will.

Orlando

The breeze is creating ripples in the lake. As I sit here on this twenty-foot long pier lined with chaise lounges and stare at the water, I begin to feel like this solid, anchored pier is moving right along with it. The breeze shifts directions and there is a slight mist of water coming from the fountain in the center of the lake, which is filled with fish, and every now and again we see turtles with their heads like telescopes popping up out of the water. There is the moss-covered turtle, which I have never seen but Tim and Thomas saw him on Thursday, that makes appearances in his mossy shell. On the other side of the lake a lighthouse sits with a sweetery in the base, where you can buy ice cream cones and large cookies and other such things you might find in a sweetery.

Thought --> Action --> Discovery --> Plan

I am suffocating in this vast mountain valley. With The Great Outdoors just steps from my front door, all I want to see is concrete and asphalt. Instead of snow capped mountaintops I want to look up and see glass-laden buildings. I want to live on a tiny island that's dirty and expensive and spectacular, in a tiny studio, where a million people all try to hail the same cab. I need to get to that island. I need to head east.  I need to say "So long, I'm going to the Concrete Jungle."

In the Eyes of a Boy

Fourteen years ago on this day my two oldest brothers died. The years since then have withered away. I am older now, and I like to think I am wiser than that sixteen year-old, though I cannot always see it.  For eleven of those years, January 6th was sad and gloomy and reproachful. Then my nephew was born on the twelfth January 6th they'd been gone, and named Thomas Andrew for his uncles who left this life that day. And thanks to him, the day is no longer so sad or gloomy, and is not at all reproachful.

Thomas looking at a balloon

Best Of

2012 was a pretty good year for me. Other than the obvious - I moved into a retirement community and ended up with a spectacularly huge closet, duh - a lot of good came out of 2012. I felt it was well deserved since 2010 and 2011 were fairly awful, and I was happy that 2012 turned out to be quite the opposite. Here I am presenting my Best of 2012 list, complete with frivolities. Do enjoy.

Gray Bleeds into Black Bleeds into Gray

Last week I started writing about how much I love J.R.R Tolkien and all his stories about Middle Earth and how The Hobbit release was unleashing the nerd I so long have repressed. But things got busy and before I could finish it tragedy happened and it felt rather silly to publish something like that at this moment. But I also don't want to weigh heavy on Sandy Hook and gun control and the stigma this country gives to mental illness. I don't have answers, obviously, to gun control and mental health and how to prevent more of these tragedies from happening. At present lots of people think they do, and instead to coming together as a nation and supporting the families of victims, as well as each other, people are arguing and bickering and naysaying about who's idea is better, who's idea is right. In the words of Jack Nicholson from Mars Attacks!: "Little people, why can't we all just get along?".

The Christmas Baker

Christmastime is here again... I've just decided I'm going to try and incorporate as many one-liners from Christmas songs into this post as possible. Since I preeminently have decided to write about all the things I plan to bake for different events this season, that could be rather difficult. Due to my astounding ability to get decidedly off-topic, perhaps it won't actually be that hard.

Cataracts - For the Win!!

I've begun measuring things in days:
8 days = moving to a retirement community (this is real)
60 days = Christmas
23 days = Utah v. Arizona at RES with Max and Andrew
28 days = Thanksgiving
388 days = "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"
 224 = days since my transplant, days since my last surgery, days since I started taking prednisone, and days since I've had a dialysis treatment
2 = days since Dr. Winward told me I'm not legally blind, I just have cataracts in both my eyes