The world is run by those who show up
I saw that on a bumper sticker recently; maybe I mentioned it already. The second line, in large print, says, "Get involved!"
I could just as easily reduce the whole thing to a simple two-word command: "Show up!" It's one of the best things I've been doing lately – just deciding to say Yes to various opportunities, and then following through and watching what happens.
As an example, a few days ago the dietician I met with in April called to see if I was still interested in taking the diabetes education course she's teaching at the hospital starting this week. With all the research I've been doing over the last couple of months, my first thought was, "Why would I waste my time? I could probably teach the whole course myself by now!"
But then I thought, well, there's got to be something new I can learn, and if nothing else I can schedule another one-on-one with her to go over my personal questions – the ones I wouldn't want to bore the rest of the class with. So I told her I'd be there, and tonight when I arrived it turned out that except for the hospital dietician, who was sitting in for her own continuing education, I was the only other person who showed up. What this means is that instead of having to listen to newly-diagnosed people ask questions I already know the answers to, I ended up with a two-hour personal consultation with not one but two registered dieticians – without having to beg my HMO for another referral.
I opened my book on the table between us and we reviewed every morsel of food, every minute of exercise, every moment of stress or anxiety, and every blood glucose reading I've had since April 23. I got to grill them both about diet, exercise, carb and calorie counts, stress, vacation, illness, medications, insulin, weight loss, A1C testing, triglycerides, iron deficiency anemia, and every other topic that came to mind.
The good news is, they both think my weight loss and glucose readings are excellent. The bad news – well, not so bad I guess but disappointing, at least to me – is that I think my definition of "excellent" is quite a bit more strict than theirs. They both think I need to be eating more calories and about three times as many carbs as I have been eating ... which I didn't like hearing, because one will make me gain weight and the other will make my glucose go up, but I'm willing to try it at least for a little while, in the service of the greater good – namely, with more calories my metabolism may come back to life and I'll start losing weight again, and with more carbs I will prevent my brain from withering up and blowing away. I'm supposed to aim for no fewer than about 150 carbs a day. Bleah.
Also, based on what she saw in my book, the one who's a diebetes educator suggested that if I want to bring my numbers even lower, I might consider adding another medication, one that's designed to increase insulin production. In other words, she thinks that my pancreas might be even a little more broken than I had thought (my words, not hers). So that was kind of a bummer, but on the other hand, it's good to find out about something else I might try.
In other news, remember how I was talking about starting to write again, and how I wasn't sure if I wanted to use my real name on anything I publish right now? Well, this week I decided I definitely want to start not using my real name anymore. I wrote something with one publication in mind – a fun, fluffy piece of about 750 words – which was then wrested from my grip, edited and added to in ways I would never have dreamed of (or approved, had I been given the opportunity), and stuck on the front page of another publication that it was totally wrong for – for which it was totally wrong, whatever! In a way it's really no big deal – it's just small-town journalism, not Great Art, and I will be getting paid for the piece even though it isn't exactly what I intended it to be ... But on the other hand, it bugs me to have my name on something that through no fault or neglect or lack of talent from me, is not nearly as good as I know I can make it. I already have to compromise so much with all the other stuff I do for work ... because even though I do the work, it isn't really MY work – it belongs to the people who pay me to do it, and it's their requirements that have to be met in the final work, not mine.
So if they want to pay me for articles and then slaughter the hell out of them, and publish them with typos and awkward, tacked-on introductions and fifth-grade cliches – that is fine with me. I just don't want my name on them. Am I being petty? Or stupid? Should I be more concerned with having my name out there again than with having final say over the exact words that get published? Is it worse to have to convince future clients that yeah, I know that isn't my byline but I really did write that piece – or to have to convince them that well, I know the writing isn't all that great but that's only because it was edited by some chucklehead without my approval?
Actually, I'm not all that upset over it. It's not like it's the New York Times. Mainly, it just interests me as an excuse to play around with new pseudonyms.
Ech. Enough. I ate the recommended amount of carbs for dinner tonight and now, an hour later, my glucose is 206. So it's off to the treadmill for me. Good thing I brought home a new trashy magazine from the stack in the break room at my office; that should keep me entertained for at least the next 40 minutes or so.
I could just as easily reduce the whole thing to a simple two-word command: "Show up!" It's one of the best things I've been doing lately – just deciding to say Yes to various opportunities, and then following through and watching what happens.
As an example, a few days ago the dietician I met with in April called to see if I was still interested in taking the diabetes education course she's teaching at the hospital starting this week. With all the research I've been doing over the last couple of months, my first thought was, "Why would I waste my time? I could probably teach the whole course myself by now!"
But then I thought, well, there's got to be something new I can learn, and if nothing else I can schedule another one-on-one with her to go over my personal questions – the ones I wouldn't want to bore the rest of the class with. So I told her I'd be there, and tonight when I arrived it turned out that except for the hospital dietician, who was sitting in for her own continuing education, I was the only other person who showed up. What this means is that instead of having to listen to newly-diagnosed people ask questions I already know the answers to, I ended up with a two-hour personal consultation with not one but two registered dieticians – without having to beg my HMO for another referral.
I opened my book on the table between us and we reviewed every morsel of food, every minute of exercise, every moment of stress or anxiety, and every blood glucose reading I've had since April 23. I got to grill them both about diet, exercise, carb and calorie counts, stress, vacation, illness, medications, insulin, weight loss, A1C testing, triglycerides, iron deficiency anemia, and every other topic that came to mind.
The good news is, they both think my weight loss and glucose readings are excellent. The bad news – well, not so bad I guess but disappointing, at least to me – is that I think my definition of "excellent" is quite a bit more strict than theirs. They both think I need to be eating more calories and about three times as many carbs as I have been eating ... which I didn't like hearing, because one will make me gain weight and the other will make my glucose go up, but I'm willing to try it at least for a little while, in the service of the greater good – namely, with more calories my metabolism may come back to life and I'll start losing weight again, and with more carbs I will prevent my brain from withering up and blowing away. I'm supposed to aim for no fewer than about 150 carbs a day. Bleah.
Also, based on what she saw in my book, the one who's a diebetes educator suggested that if I want to bring my numbers even lower, I might consider adding another medication, one that's designed to increase insulin production. In other words, she thinks that my pancreas might be even a little more broken than I had thought (my words, not hers). So that was kind of a bummer, but on the other hand, it's good to find out about something else I might try.
In other news, remember how I was talking about starting to write again, and how I wasn't sure if I wanted to use my real name on anything I publish right now? Well, this week I decided I definitely want to start not using my real name anymore. I wrote something with one publication in mind – a fun, fluffy piece of about 750 words – which was then wrested from my grip, edited and added to in ways I would never have dreamed of (or approved, had I been given the opportunity), and stuck on the front page of another publication that it was totally wrong for – for which it was totally wrong, whatever! In a way it's really no big deal – it's just small-town journalism, not Great Art, and I will be getting paid for the piece even though it isn't exactly what I intended it to be ... But on the other hand, it bugs me to have my name on something that through no fault or neglect or lack of talent from me, is not nearly as good as I know I can make it. I already have to compromise so much with all the other stuff I do for work ... because even though I do the work, it isn't really MY work – it belongs to the people who pay me to do it, and it's their requirements that have to be met in the final work, not mine.
So if they want to pay me for articles and then slaughter the hell out of them, and publish them with typos and awkward, tacked-on introductions and fifth-grade cliches – that is fine with me. I just don't want my name on them. Am I being petty? Or stupid? Should I be more concerned with having my name out there again than with having final say over the exact words that get published? Is it worse to have to convince future clients that yeah, I know that isn't my byline but I really did write that piece – or to have to convince them that well, I know the writing isn't all that great but that's only because it was edited by some chucklehead without my approval?
Actually, I'm not all that upset over it. It's not like it's the New York Times. Mainly, it just interests me as an excuse to play around with new pseudonyms.
Ech. Enough. I ate the recommended amount of carbs for dinner tonight and now, an hour later, my glucose is 206. So it's off to the treadmill for me. Good thing I brought home a new trashy magazine from the stack in the break room at my office; that should keep me entertained for at least the next 40 minutes or so.
Labels: diabetes
2 Comments:
yes. I have to remember that more. that's so cool you got a free, in-depth consultation, and that you can prepared to ask questions. Yeah for showing up! (I'm going to repeat that as a mantra--although it's not a catchy one.)
I can so relate to being edited by a chucklehead! It is infuriating when editors ruin your writing and/or introduce error. It happens a lot.
I do a totally different type of work from what it sounds like you do, and my name is rarely attached to my work, but clients always believe me when I say it's mine, so I'd say that you probably won't have any trouble using a pseudonym. I think it's pretty a pretty routine thing for writers to do.
Post a Comment
<< Home