Mea culpa.

I promised I'd blog regularly about my life with diabetes, and I haven't. Truth is, once you get used to things, life with diabetes isn't all that much different from life without diabetes. Yes, different diet. Yes, more exercise. Yes, I've lost 26 pounds, and people notice it and comment on how much thinner I look. (And I have plateaued in my weight loss over the last month or two, but I will get back on track and take off the last 15-20 pounds to get to where I want to be.) But those things haven't really changed my life.

Life at work has become interesting, challenging, sometimes rewarding, and sometimes frustrating. I think that makes my job wonderful. Better than if it were dull and not so interesting. (Well I wouldn't be too upset if things were less interesting some of the time, but it's okay.)

Rose is hanging in there. She struggles with walking - her hind legs seem to be getting weaker - and won't come upstairs at all. She is usually able to manage the two steps to get outside from the back door, but sometimes I have to give her a boost. But she seems not to be suffering in any way, so I am cherishing this time she has left with me. Every day since the evening in August when she couldn't walk and I thought I'd have to put her down until she miraculously woke me up at midnight to go outside has been bonus time, time I never thought I'd get.

Meanwhile, Mom has been in and out of the hospital twice in the last two weeks, and although I think she's okay, it's tough being on the other side of the continent.

I read a book I wish I could make everyone I know read: Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. It's a little bit random in its organization, but he makes so many important points about things I've had on my mind for a long time.

Here are some quotes, which I actually picked up on another blog, Grounded in Reality. They are the same quotes I would have selected from the book itself.

One of the most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human and animal suffering. Religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are not -- that is, when they have nothing to do with suffering or its alleviation. Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral -- that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings. (p. 25)

Whenever the guy in the White House talks about gay marriage, or the guy in Rome talks about birth control, I will remember just how immoral they are.

There is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: the creator of the universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend an eternity in hell.... An average Christian, in an average church, listening to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse--and there have been some extraordinarily arrogant scientists." (pp. 74-75)

Well, just stop reading my blog and start reading the book. Or at least check out Grounded in Reality, which I'm going to add a permanent link to.

The book I'm currently reading is Reading Like a Writer, by Francine Prose. It is the best book I've ever read on writing, and I'm just about a third of the way through.

The election is just a few weeks away, and I'm very hopeful. The whole Mark Foley scandal has, I admit, worked out well to boost my hopes that the Republicans will lose their vice grip on our nation, but I am puzzled that anyone's vote would be affected by what Foley did. Honestly, he may be a dirty old man, but I don't see why that matters in the election. To me, the real scandal, the real reason to care about this is because of the arrogant, unconscionable way it was handled (or not handled) by Hastert and his cronies. They are horrid. The perversion of power they exhibited is far worse than anything Mark Foley did.

Okay, I'm done for now. I'll try to get back to my blog sooner rather than later.