When I started WhatSomeWouldCallLies.com I was in transition.  I was leaving the world of political blogging and news reporting, and I still wanted to write…but I wanted to write something new.  My first blog entry on this site explains:

This blog will contain, in no particular order, stories from my life that I will retell as accurately as possible.

In the past couple of years I’ve strayed from the idea of this site being a blog of Mike’s life-stories.  This site has been a home to an eclectic mix of crap Mike likes to talk about.  There’s been a lot of Diabetes Blogging, drawings and pictures of children flipping off the camera.

Starting today I’m going to return to telling the stories of my life (in no particular order).  So expect to see more posts like these:

• This is the one that explains why I’m afraid of the oven.
• This is the one where I pass notes.
• This is the one where I date a Republican.

I have been spending the past couple of months working behind the scenes with some friends to re-launch the new 1HappyDiabetic website.

1HappyDiabetic is a super-positive place where I will be posting most of my diabetes stuff from here on out.  If you come here to read diabetes stuff, click through to 1HappyDiabetic.com and check it out.

If you come to WhatSomeWouldCallLies.com to read about my caffeine addiction, ex-boyfriends that refused to perform important duties and my lackluster dating life…worry not.  This website will continue to be a place for me to talk about my filthy life as a single 30-something – just remove all of the crap about injections.

But seriously, go here:

I know it’s kind of strange or neurotic…but it’s true.  I get really caught up on the aesthetics of a site and I struggle to give it the attention it deserves if I don’t feel like the look is right.

So I redesigned this mutha (again).

If you’re reading this in a RSS reader, you should click through to see the new design.  In the past year I’ve redesigned about four or five times.  Just over a year ago I was publishing to a completely hand-drawn design which was too cluttered for me to think straight.

The previous look was born out of my want to have a really simple design where the text was the main feature.  Yet something about that no-sidebar page made me want more.

So now my simple sidebar has links, but all of my links are in 16px squares.

Whatever.  What do you think?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSSkZX2_XlY

Today’s Prompt: What have you learned from other blogs – either this week or since finding the D-OC?  What has your experience of blogging the DBlog Week topics with other participants been like?  What has finding the D-OC done for you?  If you’d like, you can even look ahead and tell us what you think the future holds!

This Lincoln quotation is one that I truly try to live my life by.  I’m pretty sure it was Lincoln that said that…or it was that guy that created Daily Kos.  Whatever.  The reason I bring it up is I’m about to be pretty honest, and I hope that you read the entire post before concluding that you’re offended by and dislike me.

D-Mom Blogs suck.  Or at least that’s what I thought before Diabetes Blog Week.

Let’s face the facts ladies.  Most of you D-moms with blogs are Christian, married, devout family leaders that like Regis & Kelly.  I, on the other hand, am a 30-year-old childless, atheist, homosexual that likes Kelly Roland.  We are different.

In my limited exposure to D-Mom blogs, I had always thought that your pages were full of I-was-so-scared-when-my-child-went-low stories.  And in my head I couldn’t really relate.  I’ve never been an outsider looking in on someone elses’ low (unless you count that time that Amanda on Big Brother Season 9 had a hypoglycemic seizure).

In this past week, however, I have read a lot of mommy blogs and I’ve come to realize that there is much more depth to these pages than I had ever given them credit for before.  For example, tears came to my eyes when I read Caleb’s letter to Diabetes on Tuesday.  He signed the letter, “Your owner, Caleb.”  Woah.  More simple and to the point than I’ve ever been.

I also had thought that as an adult Type 1, I didn’t have anything to share with moms.  What knowledge did I have that I could share with a parent of a child with diabetes?  But this week I learned that not only did my humorous approach to managing this chronic illness translate to parents of children with diabetes, but that we could also benefit from one-another’s tips and tricks.  On Wednesday when I wrote about going low just before a blind date, I mentioned that I quickly sucked down two packets of sugar from the table at the restaurant.  And I got a really great comment from Amy who writes the Embrace Diabetes blog.  She said:

Ok. Sorry about the low. Sorry it happened at a most inopportune time. I’m glad it ended well. But I have to tell you . . . I learned something. This fairly new d-momma never thought about the sugar packets on restaurant tables. We had an unfortunate circumstance about a month ago with a low at a restaurant and, I can’t believe I’m going to admit this, I NEVER thought about the sugar packets! Ingenious!!!! I did get a little chuckle . . . but that you for the most obvious, most useful insight for the next time we are restauranting with a low! Awesome!

So even though most of you are Christian, married, devout family leaders that like Regis & Kelly, I now know that we can learn from one another…and I don’t think your blogs suck.

This post is part of the Second Annual D-Blog Week.  To take part, check out the details on Karen’s blog!  And thanks, as always, to Karen for organizing such a great advocacy effort.

Today’s Prompt: Admiring our differences: We are all diabetes bloggers, but we come from many different perspectives.  Last year, Diabetes Blog Week opened my eyes to all of the different kinds of blogs (and bloggers) out there – Type 1s, Type 2s, LADAs, parents of kids with diabetes, spouses of adults with diabetes and so on.  Today let’s talk about how great it is to learn from the perspectives of those unlike us!  Have you learned new things from your T2 friends?  Are D-Parents your heroes?  Do LADA blogs give you insight to another diagnosis story?  Do T1s who’ve lived well with diabetes since childhood give you hope?  Pick a type of blogger who is different from you and tell us why they inspire you – why you admire them – why it’s great that we are all the same but different!!

I read a lot of diabetes blogs.  My Google Reader is clogged with about fifteen daily reads and then another 20 occasional reads.  And there are definitely different types of d-blogs.  There are mommy blogs, type 1 blogs, type 2 blogs, video blogs, I-use-a-pump blogs and I-eat-low-carb blogs.  And I read them all.  And I could easily turn this list into lessons learned from my blog buddies (lesson: you can re-use syringes; lesson: carb-counting; lesson: sign-up for a free meter and get a free vial of test strips; etc).  But instead I wanted to focus on one particular lesson I’ve learned from my blog buddies: Humor is a particularly effective medicine to use for diabetes management.

I’ve learned this lesson from every “type” of diabetic blogger.  People like George “Ninjabetic” Simmons and Bill “1HappyDiabetic” Woods (and many others) have taught me that if you can’t laugh at Diabetes, it will consume you.

After my diagnosis I felt very alone.  I was depressed and had a rather pessimistic outlook on life.  “You have diabetes” to me felt like a death sentence…and not just a normal death, but one that involved sugar-free pudding, ugly diabetic socks and weekly doctors appointments.

It wasn’t until I found TuDiabetes and the amazing online community that I started to feel optimistic about the life that was ahead of me.  And that’s when I truly started to see the humor in dealing with a chronic illness.  It was then that I realized that I needed to laugh about Diabetes (even when I didn’t really feel like laughing) because it boosted my spirits and made it possible to get through those tough days.

And that’s how I deal with my Diabetes now.  I laugh.  I watch videos like this one.  I read twitter feeds like this one.  And sometimes I can’t find anything to laugh about so I laugh on credit.  It’s totally cheesy, but sometimes smiling and laughing (whether it’s genuine or not) will improve your mood.

Saturday Night Live‘s Gilda Radner died from cancer, and in her autobiography It’s Always Something she wrote:

“The important thing is that the days you’ve had, you will have lived. What I can control is whether I’m going to live a day in depression and panic, or whether I’m going to attack the day and make it as wonderful a day as I can.”

I’ve gotten beat up on the Internet for comparing diabetes and cancer…and I’m not trying to compare the two now.  But what Gilda says about her cancer…and how she knows there will be something to deal with every day is transferable to anyone with a chronic illness.  Additionally, Gilda knew that her sense of humor was something she could use to help live each day to its fullest.  And so can I.

I’ve always thought that my best blog posts are the ones that are highly personal (and completely honest despite this website’s title). [example 1] [example 2] [example 3] [example 4] [you get the point]

So in my daily effort to think of a new WhatSomeWouldCallLies.com greatest hit, I sat down at my computer today to think of something totally personal to write about.  Here’s what I came up with:

This is my medicine cabinet and some explanations.

1. I actually only use hairspray on days when I want to impress someone.  I normally use other products (I don’t want to ruin #2 for you).  But when I want to ensure that my mess look keeps it’s shape I’ll spray a little Tresemme Oohh Laa Laa on it.

2. I wear contacts like twice a month.  Seriously.  It has mostly to do with laziness.  It’s just so much easier to put glasses on each day.  How do you normal contact wearers do it?

3. American Crew Pomade is the best hair product ever made.  I have tried many cheaper alternatives (I don’t want to ruin #7 for your) and I’ve always returned to American Crew.  That little tub cost $15-ish…and I’ve genuinely tried a dozen alternatives (I video blogged about it) and none of them are even half as good.

4. I was really sick last week and I drank about half of this bottle in one day.  I have a problem with over-medicating when I’m sick.

5. I’m a 30-year-old with pimples.

6. This is the only thing in this post I’m kind of embarrassed about.  This bottle was purchased and consumed the same day as #4.  I told you…I have serious cold-medicine dependency issues.  It actually took longer to recover from the high blood glucose numbers that were induced by the over-consumption of Whatever-Quil than it took to recover from the cold.

7. This is one of the few hair products that came close to compete against American Crew.  It’s called Survivor Putty from Garnier.  It’s not as good as the Crew…but it’s okay.  That’s the only reason I’ve kept it.

8. I bought these “SUGAR BLOCKER” pills that were supposed to help lower absorption of sugar or something.  Total scam.  It’s some weight-loss program, but I bought it because I thought it would help my glucose levels.  Didn’t work.

9. My favorite cologne: Acqua Di Gio. I wear it almost every day.

10. I used to take a multi-vitamin…and quit.

11. Hangover pills.

12. I don’t really have a good reason for having 2 deodorants.  I really do use both too…well I use only one a day.  I don’t know why I have two open deodorants, but I do.

That’s pretty personal.  What’s in your medicine cabinet?

So I was dating a news reporter…and that got canceled.  Then I was dating a nuclear engineer…then I found out he was a top.  Then I turned 30 and got a tattoo.  Don’t worry, it’s not on my face. I facebook and twitter a lot.  You should follow/worship there.  I love me some RuPaul’s Drag Race right now…Hallalou! Oh, and I’m an Angels fan now.  Go Angels!

So now that the seal has been broken, I should be able to start blogging more.

Happy 2011 bitches.  I went through a lot last year, and I’m totally ready to start a new year.  Here are my list of 13 favorite blog posts from 2010 (in no particular order).

1. This is the one that is self-fulfilling.

2. This is the one about fonts.

3. This is the one that is gross to me and probably nobody else.

4. This is the one that is ambiguous.

5. This is the one with a depressing haircut.

6. This is the one he did not say a bad word.

7. This is the one that shows that it’s hereditary.

8. This is the one that is personal.

9. This is the one where I look like a complete ass.

10. This is the one about my mom’s band-aid.

11. This is the one about an old crush.

12. This is the one that may or may not be ironic.

13. This is the one that it is kind of awkward.

This is what I wrote on September 28th, 2007 [link]:

I went to a concert in Los Angeles last weekend, and I met a guy that was really handsome, and all-around pleasant.

We couldn’t talk too much because the music was loud, but I had the opportunity to drop a couple of details about my life, and I learned a little about him too.

I didn’t give him my telephone number or my email address. I did think about slipping him my business card, but that’s kind of lame. So you can imagine my surprise when I got an email from this tall/dark/handsome cliché of a man this morning.

He did some googling and figured out my name, and found the political blog that I run. His email said this:

Mike: I enjoyed meeting you last Saturday and wish we could have talked a little more. If you’re interested in chatting, email me. Maybe we could arrange to sit together again–this time in a locale that will allow us to get us to know one another better.

Sweet huh?  I feel like a character in some chic-flick.

Every once in a while I like to click back and see exactly where I was one, two or three years ago.  Just another reason I like having a blog.  You should make one, really.

As it turns out the guy that stalked me was totally creepy.  Read this post: This is the one that is a follow-up to the stalking post.  If this was Bridget Jones’ diary, it would have ended better…but I would have been a chubby, emotional woman.  Let’s call it a wash.