Eight years, baby, you and me.

So today is the eighth year anniversary of my being diagnosed with diabetes. Woo-boy. You'd think it's about time for me to stop eating like I'm a 10-year-old who'll live forever, but nope.


Maybe I am a 10-year-old who will live forever.


I still have another four years before I've been diabetic half my life, so I'll just pin the health habits on still being used to non-diabetes-ness, which still makes up the majority of my years.

Tomorrow I go to Portland, Oregon, for the wedding of my third-oldest cousin (number four of us all, but I'm the runt). I was there the week before I was diagnosed, as it happens. I wouldn't stop drinking or going to the bathroom. I even got to go on a very special private tour of a USFWS animal forensics lab, but the whole time I just complained that I was thirsty. Heh.

I've been to Portland just once since then, in 2007. It was in that same visit west that I first saw Cogswell. My mother and I then drove up the coast and took part in a family reunion.

So fun story: a few summers ago I was with my sister in her car while she was listening to old voicemails. Our service will save them for so many days, but then erase them if you don't save them again, so she gives them a listen-through regularly. One message comes on, beginning with something like, "it's the happiest message ever!" It was a young man wishing Laurel well and wishing she was wherever he was. Then other people came on and started expressing similar sentiments. I felt a tinge of envy. Envy at my sister for having friends who cared about her like that, and envy at the people giving the message for making such a fun call. I felt socially inadequate. By maybe the third or fourth person on the call, though, it struck me: these were my cousins speaking. It was from that '07 reunion, which Laurel didn't make it to. It had been me who said it was the happiest message ever. It had been my idea.

Alright then. Maybe I'm more fun than I thought. I should try to tap into that more.

Anyway, so I now have less than a day to pack, but the laundry's done, so it should be fine. I was thinking of taking another walk to town and going to Subway, but at this point I probably won't. I'll probably spend today playing Oblivion, and then finally packing at aroudn 9:00 tomorrow. What fun.

Fun fact: I almost didn't want to make ths post, because up until I hit the publish button, the archive sidebar on the blog, beginning in May, will list the months' total entries as 1, 2, 3 and 4. I'm about to go and fuck it up, though. Tsk.