The Geek's Meow

/me slinks into the bar, glances around, and quickly slides into a dark corner – a hooded figure with a mysterious past hanging around her like a shadow.

/me fades back into the dark corner to watch the room carefully, sharpening his dagger.

/me lurks quietly in a dark corner, obviously lost deep in thought.

Back in the day I played in an online RPG hosted in an IRC channel – mainly set in the common room of the Black Rose Inn, and inevitably you would try to introduce a new character, which somehow wound up needing that infamous “dark corner” spot before he, she, or they could become involved in the story in progress.

The trope was especially popular with new players who fancied themselves enigmatic.  To the point where us regulars would have tongue in cheek fun with the over-used gimmick.  I believe we pointed spotlights into the corner, sabotaged the conveniently placed table and chairs, and other ridiculous antics… including ignoring the mysterious stranger as they tried more and more to be obvious and lure in attention until they actually had to come out and interact like an actual person.

I mean, really, we were already chock full of adventurer stereotypes, down to the fact that we were all looking for adventure in the main room of a tavern/inn/bar – the ultimate “how to start an adventure” hook.  We had rogues and knights, and a few deities with nothing better to do, wenches and bartenders laying down plot hooks as often as they were serving drinks, and 90% of us were orphans with “unusual” backgrounds.  The dark corner was just a little too over the top trope for us after a while, even though we all spent time there.

And at times, those corners got a little crowded – for a room with a certain number of corners, strangely all of them were shadowy and regularly filled.  Try not to step on the kender, he called dibs on that one ages ago and he’s easy to overlook.

So to control my diabetes I’ve been pretty strictly regulated on what I can and cannot eat.  Contrary to my doctor’s orders I have been testing my blood 4-6 times per day (he only wants me to test before breakfast and before dinner) so I can uncover the impact of different food choices.  There have been mistakes (turns out levain bread is not just a fancy name for sourdough as the internet told me, so it doesn’t have the low glycemic index) and lessons (bananas are a fruit, but not a good choice), but no real deliberate “aw, fuck it” choices.

Until this weekend.  Saturday morning I did my 6 week blood work, including cholesterol, liver function, thyroid, and the dreaded hemoglobin.  This was the point my doctor expected me to have waved a magic wand and be diabetes free – even though I was traveling for work, not supposed to check the effects of food, and can’t take the Diabetes Class until August.  Needless to say, I have some issues with this doctor who is not great at communication or addressing my concerns, and I will be changing primary doctors now that I have my bloodwork in.

Due to the liver function test, I’d taken the precaution of no alcohol for two weeks before hand.  My diet had been pretty good for the time before the hemoglobin tests.  I was so strict with myself, and doing so good, so this weekend called for a little bit of a party!

Saturday afternoon I got to my hair appointment late, so no time for lunch at all.  A sugar free protein bar was all I had to keep me going.  That night, however, was a party with friends called “Meat-o-Rama” and we grilled giant tomahawk steaks, everyone brought toppings and some sides and we ate ourselves silly!  Before dinner the only snacks out were chips and fruit – specifically mangoes, pineapple, and strawberries… the first two being high glycemic index fruits.  So I took my pre-dinner blood sugar and decided that while I would still be in relative check there would be no after-dinner blood measurement so I wouldn’t stress myself out.  A little high sugar fruit, a single tortilla chip, and a little bit of steak topping that wasn’t great, but mostly meat and asparagus (with grabiche on the asparagus – an egg salad thing – and blue cheese or onions on the steak) so I wasn’t bad, I just also wasn’t stressing a number on my meter.

But Sunday, oh, Sunday.  We went for Moroccan food with our Weird Foods Group – who are currently going through a list of all the countries of the world alphabetically.  Plenty of diabetic-safe options in Moroccan food… and a few that kind of aren’t.  To start with, I forgot the mint tea was sweet, but it’s so good and so rare for me to have, so I got iced tea which I will sip slower than the hot tea and make it last longer, plus as the ice melts it gets more watered down and less concentrated sweetener.  Skipped the bread entirely, victory.  But a couple courses in there was phyllo wrapped ground chicken, topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon.  One of my FAVORITES at this place… so two bites and the rest of my round was handed over to my husband.  I had to have just a little!  I did avoid the couscous, but then came desert, the delicious little honey-soaked pastries… just one tiny bite and handed the rest off.  However I did have a second iced tea and one glass of sweet hot tea.  So again, no after dinner measurements.

Even when I “party” and let loose I’m still keeping things in check and making good choices, as hard as that is, but sometimes you really do just need to snack outside the lines a bit.  And as long as I don’t check my blood sugar after, the world may never know how bad it was.

So if you’ve been in some sort of Game of Thrones fixated cave this weekend you may have missed that the next actor to play the 13th Doctor on Doctor Who has been announced: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40624288

That’s right – a female regeneration for lucky number 13!

Earlier this year I expressed some strong feelings on this subject (https://thegeeksmeow.com/2017/02/02/when-one-door-closes/) and I will admit I still feel conflicted.

In part, there is joy because under Moffat the portrayal of women has been lacking until Bill.  Interesting that it took a woman who was sexually interested in women for Moffat to not be ham-handed at a female character.  In 13 we have a new show runner, Chibnall, so there is a great deal of potential for change, and this is a chance to redeem the Whovian portrayal of female characters, leading the charge with the Doctor herself!

On the other hand, my earlier thoughts stand – if this incarnation is not troubled by her subconscious copy-catting of her closest rival, or if this was not a conscious choice to act as a counter to Missy’s mayhem, I am going to be sorely disappointed.  There has to be an element of strife tied to this and Missy, or I will feel deeply unfulfilled.

If this had been under Moffat, I would be ready to flip a table, but Chibnall and a new regeneration give me hope, as I look into what could be a bright and beautiful future… or into a dark post-apocalyptic abyss of misogyny and poorly written “bras in the Tardis” tropes.

Only Time (And Dimension In Relative Space) will tell…

But fake sweet is frustratingly bad?  At least, to my tastes.

Right now my options are fruit (but be careful because some are way high in natural sugars and thus too high on the glycemic index) or trying to adapt to fake-sweet options.

Stevia is right out.  I know it’s natural.  I know it’s better.  It tastes, to me, like plastic fake-sweet death, with a bitter nasty after-taste to boot.  Most artificial sweeteners do.  But Stevia, non-artificial Stevia, is even worse than any of the actual fake sweets.

So morning coffee time, and obviously my default iced caramel latte is right out the window.  Great.  But most coffee shops, including the one at work, have sugar-free vanilla.  I love vanilla, how can this go wrong?!  Oh, that too-sweet fakeness in the front, with the bitter cringe in the back, that’s how.  I decided Starbucks, my first experiment, must just be in the wrong, so I gave the work coffee shop a sugar-free vanilla chance.  I drank it, because I ordered it, but just as bad.  Maybe worse.  Cringe after every sip, then shudder as you down the last of it to finally be done!  Not a great way to start the day.

Diet sodas, they have caffeine – but they also have that artificial sweetener suckage.  I haven’t ventured there yet, I’m leaving this as a last resort because I’m trying to keep soda and ice cream on my “no go” zones.

Splenda – NOT TERRIBLE.  Not good, for sure, but NOT TERRIBLE!  So for the rest of this week the plan is to get a plain latte, then add a single packet of Splenda, and deal with the slight ick factor.

Next week, we’re bringing in Agave syrup goodness.  It’s sweet, without being sugar.  It’s lower on the glycemic index than honey.  It doesn’t taste like plastic fakeness to me.

Hey, if you take out the ‘ab’ and cut the ‘ic’ off the end, it’s there!

June 9th I met with my new primary care doctor, who officially declared me diabetic.  Our goal is to try to keep it in check with diet and exercise, instead of meds, unless absolutely needed down the road.

I love my laid back, semi-sedentary, food-filled lifestyle.  But I also like being alive for my lifestyle, so when it comes to medical concerns like this I need to take the advised steps.  That means carbs and sugars are not my friends for the next while, at least until we get this in check.  My doctor was confident that a month and a half or so would be enough to get things in progress, unaware that I would be traveling for work for the first two weeks of that, so my next blood test is set for the end of July.

Being out of town and eating with the coworkers that are also traveling means I don’t have full control over my food options.  I’m about a week and a half done with the two weeks, and I’ve been very lucky to have mostly been at restaurants that were willing to answer questions and accommodate minor changes.  “Hold the fries,” I say, as I weep for delicious potatoes.

And slowly, my blood sugar tests are generally getting better.  Not always, and I’m working to find out what factors impact that, but the average is coming down.  Today I am running an experiment – since sourdough bread is supposed to have a lower than average glycemic index, I tried eating a sandwich at lunch.  Tonight we’ll see if my sugar was effected as long as I’m careful about everything else and use that as the one anomaly factor.

Generally one would go through a diabetes class after diagnosis, giving you diet information as well as guidance on how to use your blood glucose meter and other helpful steps.  But then, generally one doesn’t leave the state for two full weeks immediately after getting one’s diagnosis.  I spoke with my my insurance’s education team last week, just to find that sure enough they couldn’t get me into a class until August, even with me being flexible on location.  You may note that date being after I’m supposed to have resolved this and taken my blood test?  Yeah, I thought that was weird, too.  Luckily I made the reluctant pharmacist give me basic instructions on using the blood meter, since she wanted me to rely on the class to teach me.  Even so, her explanation was sparse at best, I spent the night and next morning pouring over the manual to understand it.  I believe I have it right now.

No guidance, away from home, with a new diagnosis for something the internet contains volumes of conflicting information, and I haven’t lost my mind (or thrown the diet out the window) yet!

Back in high school I was part of the computer networking classes.  Classes mostly populated by guys, who were awesome and found ways to be inclusive – including inviting me to their LAN parties.

So after I arrive, I start getting a feel for the game they’re playing… it’s called StarCraft and it looks pretty cool.  The guy I’m sitting behind to watch gets word that one of our group needs to be picked up with his computer, so after showing me the basics he hands over the last little bit of his game as Protoss.  I get the hang of what he showed me, which was basically building a few things, mostly carriers.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with StarCraft, Protoss are a warrior alien race, who consider themselves first-born into the universe.  Theirs is a long history filled with nuance, intrigue, loyalty, and badass armor:

In the original StarCraft, a swarm of carriers is actually a viable strategy for winning the game.  So my lesson was not as throw-away as it sounds.

Rather quickly that game came to an end, and the two best players, who had been forced to play on separate teams because of their skill level, requested a game where they would be allowed to play on the same team.  To balance this, they agreed to play two of them versus four of us.  The plan was that everyone who was experienced with the game would set their race choice to “Random” and I would be allowed to choose Protoss, as they were the only race I knew at all, in the interest of slightly evening up the playing field.

So Hank and Jamelle, our best players, formed their alliance, and the rest of the room settled in for a game we knew we would lose, but we were going to have a good time trying to take down our star players.  The game started… well… awkwardly.  On our team Charith was forced out of his base right away, so he started rebuilding on Jason’s doorstep, which meant our team’s chat was filled with them arguing like an old married couple about who was allowed to occupy that space.  Quietly, I built some basic units, and kept leveling up my production until I could make those carriers.

After the banter and bicker died down, I realized I’d been at the carrier construction for a while, so I asked in team chat when should I deploy my carriers.

“How many do you have?”

“13?”

“NOW!  DEPLOY THEM NOW!”

(Note: this was the day I learned 13 carriers is a lot of carriers)

So my carrier swarm sweeps down across the map, looking for Jamelle’s base that someone on our team had located earlier.  Because he was teasing us out loud, he’d slipped his headphones down around his neck, and his attention was on his careful probe of the map that he was engaged in.  As a result, even though his base started screaming out alerts that he was under attack, he missed the heads up sounds.

With a gleeful giggle, I carefully swept through about two-thirds of his base unchallenged except by his passive defenses.  Finally Hank looks over and points out that Jamelle is being wiped off the map and he might want to do something about it.  “Oh crap!  Who is… COLLEEN?!”

Queue the giggle of madness and triumph.  Unfortunately two-thirds wasn’t enough, since the army he brought back was quite strong, and with my reduced skill level in comparison he was able to handily wipe out my carriers.  Since most my eggs were in that basket, it was easy for him to sweep back to my base and with Hank’s help take me out entirely.

As a kindness, Hank and Jamelle agreed to leave one pylon.  Without a “worker bee”, as I called them (more accurately a probe, a small unit that is responsible for all construction of Protoss equipment), I was helpless to rebuild, but by leaving that single pylon I was not “defeated” and could still watch the game.  They also set the game so I had the fog of war lifted (on the promise I not share anyone’s information, since I was effectively dead in the water) to allow me to see all the action as the game went on.

And sure enough, the two experts did indeed take our disjointed and squabbling force out, bit by bit.  Of course they forgot about my little pylon, so there was a momentary confusion when the game did not end as expected… but it was soon resolved and victory was theirs.

My first real StarCraft game, and I was indeed a force to be reckoned with.  Never under-estimate the new guy! (Especially when all she knows is the over-powered carrier swarm tactic.)

But now trapped in this cruel spiral – work makes me too busy to write, I feel bad about not writing, when I find time (like now) that I could write a little the guilt fills me up and stifles the writing I want to do.

I feel like a dry well, waiting for a rainstorm I can just see on the horizon.  Being busy should mean I have lots to talk about.  But since I doubt my readers want to understand just how often college boys have to pee (I was helping with a collegiate event at work that, in part, required escorting these kids to the restroom), I’m tapped out.

I’m also seeing some of the signs of a depressive episode coming on.  That makes me feel smaller, drier of creative thoughts, less like what I say is what anyone wants to hear.

Everything is still on fire.

I put out one fire.  Then I get a new fire.

I haven’t forgotten you all, I promise.

But fires.

Bye now.

It’s 8:19 AM, and I’ve been on the road for an hour. It’s the 405 N, and I’m just past the airport. Southern Californians will understand how bad a situation this is.

Granted, it’s not completely stopped dead. In some ways, that might just be a relief. No, it is firmly stop and go, just a little more on the go side than the stop side.  Which is why the black sedan adhered to my rear bumper is getting on my last nerve.  I can clearly see her face in my rear view, and she’s so close I can’t see the logo on her hood.  Since my accident last year identifying the car behind me has become more important.

The read out for external temperature is 74 degrees F, which feels magnified when you’re inside a glass and metal box, so the AC is humming along to try and keep the weather inside my car, well, also 74 degrees. Somehow when you’re in the box that’s both a more acceptable sensation and harder to achieve, apparently.

As we start to move I keep a careful amount of safe follow distance ahead of me, this was always my instinct but it’s more pronounced… well, since the accident. I’ve been staring at the back end of a blue Hyundai compact for miles, we’ve formed a sort of kinship. I don’t tailgate him, he doesn’t brake suddenly, we keep a careful space between us but since we’re going the same direction we’ve bonded. Okay, so maybe I should turn the AC up a bit more? I’m getting weird, even if it’s only in my head.

*zip*

Suddenly my careful follow distance is filled with a white Chevy truck! No signal, just crowding me out. Grr, I was barely moving forward at any reasonable pace, and now the intruder from the left has me backing off so I can go back to my safe sp-

*zip*

HEY! Now it’s a white RAV4 – Hybrid, even, and as a fellow Hybrid RAV4 driver I normally have a certain amount of respect for them, but there is no room for respect as I continue to slow to near-nothing in order to preserve that room between me and the next rascal to occupy my bubble.

*zip*

Oh no, a black Ford Exploder, sorry – Explorer, has cut in. She promptly does another lane change to the left without a signal. After a moment’s hesitation she dives across the double yellow line into the carpool lane. My lane is actually moving faster than the carpool, so I spare a glance her direction to confirm my suspicion – her vehicle does not have clean air stickers for sure and there’s no one in that vehicle with her. Somehow her need to be somewhere trumps all the laws regulating the carpool lane. My brain starts spinning nasty stories about her arrogance and entitlement.

Every one of these cars has a turn signal, why can’t any of them use their blinkers? I make a point of making space for anyone trying to blink their way through, and yet these fools think it’s safer to crash through unannounced. As a result the story my mind spins about each case is that of a rude choice to invade my road-space, although my more rational thoughts are fully aware that nobody is seeking to slight me, and in some cases they don’t signal because other, ruder, drivers will close spaces if they know someone wants in.

Yet my blood still boils and their thoughtlessness makes me feel like I’m moving backwards and further from my destination, no matter how little it’s true.

So, for me, just turn on your blinker?

Day job has swallowed my soul.

Okay, at least my attention.

I will resurface as soon as possible.