Delaware.

The only state within easy driving distance of where I live that I haven’t already been to is Delaware.

New Hampshire and Vermont are at least five hours away, if not longer. Ohio is about six. And I’ve been to every other state on the East Coast already.

Delaware is two hours from where I live. But I don’t know anything about Delaware and I don’t know anyone who lives there (thanks a lot, Hannah).

So I’ve decided I should go to Delaware sometime in the next couple of months in an attempt to cross off at least 1 state in my “go to 5 new states” challenge on my 101 Things in 1,001 Days Challenge (check out the list to see all my updates!).

What is there to do in Delaware? It doesn’t have to be a ton, I will probably only be going down for a day. Also, if there are any bloggers and/or readers who would like to meet me, let me know. I can’t promise a date right now, but if you have a particular weekend that works for you, drop me a line and let me know. We can arrange a “We-don’t-live-in-Delaware-but-we’re-here-now!” blogger meet-up of sorts.

Because that’s the way I roll.

Spring Break.

Well, as a 22-year-old post-graduate working girl, I sadly bid farewell to any hopes of having a spring break last year.

Luckily for me, my mother is a teacher and she has spring break, so when I found out that I needed to use up my two roll-over vacation days from last year, a mini spring break vacation seemed like a perfect solution.

My mother had never been to Boston before and I had only been there for about twenty-four hours last Labor Day. It was also within driving distance of where I live (which I still can’t get over) and would help cut the costs.

I drove up on Friday night so my mother and I were ready to go Saturday morning. We started off on Newbury Street with brunch and window-shopping. We even found a funny window! I thought this was hilarious and I ended up buying a magnet with the saying on it too. We walked the Freedom Trail through Boston, passing through the Boston Commons, Park Street Church, the Old South Meeting House, up past Faneuil Hall and into the North End. Unfortunately, both Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church close ridiculously early (like 4pm! What respected historical location closes then!?!). So we had to come back.

We had thoughts of going to the Old North Church for Sunday Easter service, but I ended up coming down with a bit of a cold and slept in until almost 11 a.m. instead. We didn’t want to waste too much of the day, so we took a quick jaunt over to Cambridge (I waved to Massachusetts General Hospital - home of Dr. Faustman - on our way there) where we had Peet’s coffee, toured Harvard University and stopped in the Curious George store. Afterwards, we made our way over to the North End to finish up our sightseeing stops.

When we got to Paul Revere’s house, there was a tour with some students going on. While the tour guide was speaking, he said to the students, “You all are from a high school in uh, in uh Portland…Portland, Oregon, right?” I thought he was going to say “Maine” because we were in Boston and you could practically throw a rock at Maine (well, compared to Oregon!). We stopped by the Old North Church and I had my picture taken with God (well, kind of). It was still early, a little after four, when we were done so we wandered around the North End looking for a place to eat. We actually stumbled upon a jewelry store where my mom bought a really great green ring (how Boston!) and I got a woven bag for the spring.

On Monday we decided to skip town and we drove up to Salem. Salem was probably not the smartest decision ever considering it was very cold and nearly nothing was open, but we did tour the House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s birthplace and one of the many, many witch museums which was sadly just a retelling of The Crucible, so I found it slightly dull.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s birthplace - cute house, too bad he wrote such a God-awful book like the Scarlet Letter

We skipped town on Tuesday, but not before heading up to Bunker Hill monument and I stupidly decided to climb to the top - all 296 steps! I have climbed to the top of Notre Dome (yes, it’s possible to climb to the very top of it), and I’ve been to the top of the Eiffel Tower and the Sears Tower (albeit via elevators - thank God). Somehow it’s been ingrained in my psyche that I absolutely must climb to the top of whatever monument I’m near, which isn’t so great considering how out of shape I am.

The drive home is terribly long, but we made a couple of pit stops. The first was in Providence, RI for a bathroom and Macy’s stop. The Macy’s was not on purpose, but when you walk past all those clothes on the way to the ladies room you just haveto stop. Then we stopped for dinner in New Haven and took a quick spin around Yale, mostly by car, but we did get out and visited the library, which is amazing. My mother and I briefly contemplated me attending Yale for grad school, but then we discovered they have no master’s programs in journalism or communications. So we said, “Well, Yale’s out!”

Because, you know, I totally could have gotten into Yale…

Wednesday was my mom’s final day and we spent most of it just sitting around my apartment. In the afternoon, we went to the city for dinner at my old favorite, Cibo (those of you who attended OCapalooza last year will remember Cibo) and then we rushed over in very heavy traffic to see A Chorus Line. It was amazing! I have seen quite a few Broadway shows, but each one are so different than I have a hard time picking a favorite. This is definitely a fun, yet touching look at what an actor goes through on Broadway and I have much more respect for those who pursue show business.

My mom left yesterday morning, so now life has finally returned to somewhat normal. I am way behind on most of my freelance projects so other than running a handful of errands I plan on staying put in my apartment and taking care of what needs to be taken care of. Won’t be very relaxing, but at least I’ll get some of the stress off my plate!

You can check out all my photos from spring break on Flickr.

Appetizer

Just a quick little blog before the big massive one coming later today…

The memoir meme is going around. Most of you have probably seen it, so I’m not going to bother posting the rules.

Here is mine:

I love life, and you too.

Sayonara!

I never thought getting ready for vacation could be so stressful!

Between buying my iPod charger and car adapter, cleaning my apartment and my car, working on projects at work and all my freelance projects, reserving a hotel for my mom once we get back from Boston, purchasing tickets to a Broadway play (we’re seeing A Chorus Line on Wednesday - my 7th show!), doing laundry and packing and… and…

Sigh. There’s more. But I can’t remember it all.

I am excited to take off for Boston momentarily. Just need to plot direction to Boston, write down some of those restaurant names and put my PJs and shampoo in my suitcase.

I’ll be back from Boston on Tuesday! Don’t break the Internet while I’m gone…

So. Much. To. Do.

I have less than three days left before I take off for my vacation in Boston with my mom. I’m leaving immediately after work - actually I’ll probably leave about an hour early to try to beat traffic - on Friday and I’ll be gone until Tuesday night. My mom doesn’t actually leave until Thursday, so we’re spending Wednesday in the city. Which basically means I have to prepare myself for being away for almost a week.

There is so much to do.

I had to pick up my contact today and buy an iPod USB cable (which went missing about a month ago). I also need iPod car adapter so I can listen to music on my drive up, get my oil changed because I’m way way behind, send out second round of questions for the JDRF Blogger Round Table, try to get some progress made on the Diabetes Self-Management article and JDRF article, and clean my apartment or at least enough so that my mother doesn’t gasp when she sees the way I’m living, which I have to admit isn’t very pretty at the moment.

Did I mention I work nine hours a day?

It’s a lot and I’m already tired.

By the way, if there are any college students or just-out-of college students who would like to answer a few questions about nutrition during college, please shoot me an email at amblass at gmail dot com or leave me a comment with your contact information.

Hey, it’s okay!

… to have a blood sugar of 312 mg/dl and not have a frickin’ clue why.

… to contemplate ditching the pump each and every time you have to wear a dress.

… to think your insulin pump is cooler than their insulin pump.

… to have diabetes burnout the day after you’re diagnosed.

… to cringe every time someone says, “Oh well at least you don’t have…” Diabetes still sucks even if isn’t cancer.

… to read articles about diabetes research and not understand a single word.

… to be managing your diabetes just fine on injections, thank you.

… to have type 1 and support the American Diabetes Association (we may not understand, but we still love you).

… to clap your hands with glee when you have a good blood sugar.

… to eat dessert (as long as you cover it!) and enjoy it!

(Alternative title to this post: “If a diabetic worked at Glamour…”)

Boundaries.

Ever since Kerri posted about the play that she, Nicole, Shannon and Julia went to a couple weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about the whole concept of Internet privacy and boundaries and how they play a role - if any - in how I blog. Anyone who reads my Twitter feed has probably seen a couple of casual mentions about starting a new and different blog. It isn’t the first time that I have attempted to step away from the diabetes spotlight since I started blogging about it almost three years ago. My ill-fated attempt at creating an comprehensive blog for myself did not go as well as planned. The reason I think that happened is because I had already established a rather diabetes-heavy audience and switching to an entirely new topic (my life in college) didn’t gel very well because most of the people who read my blog were not in college and I often felt a bit boring.

So an audience disconnect was one problem.

Another problem that I’m mulling over is the fact that there are things that I want to write about that I’m not necessarily sure I want the entire world to know that I’m writing. I became “Internet famous” at a rather young age. I was sixteen years old when I started my first website, I was seventeen when I started hosting Teen Talk, I was nineteen when I started this blog and I was twenty when I started Diabetes Teen Talk.

I went to prom, graduated from high school, started college, met new friends, dealt with deadlines, had my first job, traveled the country, took finals, met new people, got interviewed, graduated from college, found my first real job and moved across the country all on the Internet.

That’s a lot of my life, and not even including all the conferences, meet-ups and magazine appearances I’ve had.

I’m not exactly an unknown person.
But there are things that I wish I could talk about without having to worry about my parents, my boss, my co-workers, my grandparents and cousins and friends (all of whom read this blog ::waves::).

I feel stuck, in a way. I don’t want to stop writing about diabetes. I love having this outlet and I love hearing that this has helped others, like the mother who wrote me this week, “Your blog gives me hope.”

I mean, how can you stop writing a blog after that?

On one hand I want to write more about my life and I want to write about things without worrying about offending anyone’s sensibilities or having it brought up in real-life conversations or held against me in the future. I have been reading some blogs written by other twentysomethings who talk about boys and sex and work and living on their own and fashion. I want to write about the ten million other things going on in my head because right now, I need a “twentysomething support group” much more than I need a “diabetes support group.” Handling a disease is easy compared to starting a life practically from scratch. I know that I haven’t written very much about my move across the country, but damn is it hard.

On the other hand, however, I don’t necessarily want any of the aforementioned groups to know every last detail about what I’m thinking about or what I did last Saturday night (not that I did anything last Saturday night - this is purely hypothetical…).

Sandra also posted today with concerns about privacy for her son and how to maintain a balance without embarrassing him. With this blog, I’ve always been pretty strict that I don’t talk about anything that could potentially embarrass the person I’m writing about. I don’t write about arguments with my parents, I don’t write about the stupid things my friends do and I pretty much avoid the topic of work at all costs (except for that one post about the holiday party, but that was somewhat diabetes related so I feel that can be excused). Everything is in the context of what we do, not what is said, and I feel that is a pretty safe avenue to go down.

I don’t even know how to end this post because I’m still unresolved. There’s no magical resolution sentence saying, “But I’m going to do this and live happily ever after… the end!”

How do you break out of your shell without anyone knowing?

Spreading the Word.

If any of you have read Bernard’s blog today, then you’ll know that a very important announcement was made.

No, I’m not talking about Abbott’s Navigator.

I’m talking about JDRF’s new diabetes blogger round table!

Featuring some of the OC’s finest, the purpose of the round table to gather a group of some of the most respected minds in the diabetes community to talk about topics that are on everyone’s minds including new technology, cure research, advocacy and the daily trial and tribulations of living with diabetes. The first round table discussion is on our favorite topic, blogging and social networks!

If you’re wondering how I know so much about the round table, it’s because this is one of the many projects I’ve been working on over the past couple of months. I’m very excited that it’s finally on the JDRF website and you should all check it out. Unfortunately these round tables are not in person - wouldn’t that be fun? - but I am leading the round tables by sending out discussion questions about once a month.

I am also looking for suggestions, so if you think of a great topic that you’d like to see some of our bloggers hash out together, please let me know at amblass at gmail dot com.

Reactions to the Navigator Announcement

A conversation between two bloggers:

Christine: holy crap, that navigator was approved

Christine: i thought for sure things were going to start exploding when this happened or something

Allison: I know!

Christine: like the end of the world

Allison: hahahaha

Allison: seriously

Allison: it’s the sign of the apocalypse

Allison: quick

Allison: look outside

Allison: do you see any pigs in the air?

Christine: oh gosh, the sky is falling

Christine: little pieces of the clouds are falling to the ground

Christine: oh wait

Christine: that’s just snow

Old Friends.

Over the years, I have met a lot of people with type 1 diabetes at events like conferences, Walks to Cure Diabetes and support group meetings. It’s hard to keep up with everyone, which is why I enjoy blogging so much. The Internet is constant and my blog is (almost) always here, even when I’m not so I never have to worry about missing someone. I have met a lot of people at the events that I have kept in touch with over the years, but rarely have time to see because of distance and other scheduling factors.

So when I found out that Mollie and Jackie Singer were in New York City before they left, I jumped on the chance to see them. Mollie and I played Facebook Wall tag for about a day before we finally nailed down a time to meet. It was Friday night and we were going to meet at Penn Station for dinner.

It was a windy, rainy mess of an evening and I tried to contain my anxiety about missing the train to New York City. Mollie, her twin sister Jackie (who does not have diabetes but who knows more about the disease than most people with diabetes) and their mother, Jackie (who also happens to have a twin sister named Mollie - funny, no?) met me at Penn Station before we ventured back outside for dinner.

I picked Harrington’s Bar and Grill, a restaurant I had been to a couple times before and it has a great proximity to Penn Station. It’s just one block away and you only have to risk being killed by a taxi cab once.

The waitress led us to their upstairs dining area where it was slightly quieter away from the bar. Mollie, Jackie and I have known each other for over five years and I initially met Jackie at Children’s Congress in 2001. I recognized them from all the JDRF videos and promotional material that I had seen, but I didn’t get a chance to meet Mollie because of how busy we were as delegates. Not that it ever really mattered. Mollie, Jackie and I worked together for a couple of years on the original Diabetes Teen Talk, which at the time was “Teen Talk @ Diabetes Station.” Mollie and Jackie and I rotated hosting duties for the weekly chat. Mollie has also helped me on numerous projects over the years, so it was a thrill to finally meet in person.

The first part of the conversation revolved around why Mollie and Jackie were back in New York City though I’m sure Mollie will eventually post all the details on her blog so keep an eye out. We talked about how I ended up in New Jersey and I gave them a crash course in what I do for a living. I joked that six months after I started working in digital media for a public relations agency, my father was still asking, “But what does that mean?” I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to properly explain it, but I did feel successful when I introduced Mollie and Jackie to the idea of “microblogging,” which is blogging in short form rather than long prose. The most popular tools for microblogging are Twitter and Tumblr.

We also talked about diabetes advocacy and what it’s like to go from a child advocate to an adult advocate. Mollie and Jackie started a project called the Diabetic Angels at their school when they were younger, and now different chapters have popped up all over the world. They are planning on continuing to grow this project.

I mentioned how when I was selected to be a Children’s Congress delegate how mad I was at myself for starting so late.

“I remember telling my mother, I only have three more years!” I told them. We all agreed that it was important to continue this advocacy work even though we were passed that cut-off point for being a “juvenile” and hopefully it will help make people aware that this isn’t a children’s disease.

I have often said, “Juvenile diabetes is not a Peter Pan syndrome. It does not keep us children. We still grow up.”

I think we’re growing up quite well, if you ask me.

Mollie, myself and Jackie