EDIT: Post was screwed up thanks to a lame computer. It is fixed.
I’m at Robbie Q’s/<lj user=lilsamkudu> house in Chicago. New Year’s Eve ’06 was by far the quietest, most unnoticeable year change I’ve ever experienced. It was my first outside of California, and probably not my last. The only thing I really noticed was that my cell phone now says 07 in the area of the year.
However, I realized last night that I’ve never had anyone to kiss-ring-in the new year. Had you been here, Maiya, I would have destroyed your face with mine.
———
Robbie Q and I are on tour!
Here’s our schedule below. If you don’t know about these dates, and want to, email me at mightymikemcgee at gmail.
1/02/07 Black Pearl – Columbus, Ohio
1/03/07 Boston Cantab
1/04/07 Bowery Poetry Club – NYC
1/05/07 Nickel City Slam – Buffalo, NY
1/06/07 Ithaca
1/07/07 Ithaca/NYC
1/08/07 The Downtown Writers Center – Syracuse, NY
1/09/07 Bowery Poetry Club – NYC
1/10/07 Hang/Drive to Ann Arbor
1/11/07 Ann Arbor High Schools/Detroit Symphony
1/12/07 Toronto Poetry Slam/McGee’s B-DAY!
1/13/07 Toronto
1/14/07 Detroit
1/15/07 Return to Chicago
I will then stay in Chicago for a few more days. More than likely with Alvin Lau, my homie from another mommy. It will be R&R before major college touring. That schedule will be up soon as well.
———
So, last week I was feeling a soreness in my lower abdomen and thought, ‘damn, I’m hitting the road soon. I guess I should get it checked out.’
On Thursday night, I hung with Tristissima at a cafe in Santa Clara called Barefoot Coffee Roasters. It’s a sweet spot.
Well, with them having free wifi and such, I brought my Apple iBook and used it on battery power. I did much work on it. It got down to 12% power, and before I could plug it in, it froze. I shut it down, and it has never come back on. Never.
The next day, I went to the doctor to find out what was ailing me. I worried all the various worries. Cancers, hernias and more.
Doctor takes my urine, with asking, and they run tests. They immediately notice many much sugar in my urine and promptly diagnose me with Type II Diabetes. The pain was being caused by a Urinary Tract Infection. Yes, dudes get them, especially dudes with no bladder control. I used to get them often as a child.
I always knew I was a candidate for diabetes. It makes sense. 16 million Americans are Diabetic, half of them don’t know it. Doc says most of them are triggered by junk food and improper diet. Guess who’s taking better care of himself now? Now onto the issue of smoking…send patches!
While we’re at it, why don’t you go get checked out for diabetes? If unchecked, it can lead to kidney failure and heart disease. Yum.
So now I know I’m diabetic and can hit the next phase of management. I’d been cutting sugars out of my diet for the last few years. I have to be very careful, especially with so much “road food” out there, my snack choices at truck stops are now limited indefinitely. Bye bye pasta, booze and most breads. That’s the saddest realization. Those are my party foods.
I feel fine. Don’t worry. I’ve probably been diabetic for sometime. The only difference is that it’s diagnosed and I’m able to control it. I’ve got meds now. And Splenda. Sweet, sweet Splenda.
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Christmas with my family and friends ruled. Seeing them infuses me with joy. I miss them already. They called me at 2:00am to ring in the Pacific Coast New Year. I love them dearly.
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In conclusion, I’m a diabetic with a UTI, a dead laptop, away from my family on tour with Robbie Q – could things get any worse? J/K, bitches!
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Word to the nerd.
This entry was written by , posted on 1 January, 2007 at 11:53 AM, filed under Personal Updates and tagged chicago, diabetes, New-England, robbie q, uti. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
Hi friend! We’re looking forward to your Ithaca visit! See you in a few days!
I am so looking forward to this Wednesday!
Aww Mike, that really sucks. I’m sorry. It’s no fun to find something like that out. I hope it doesn’t affect you too much. Good luck with the quitting smoking.
Last night I got drunk and showed a bunch of people my boob.
hey hey now
y’all got no love for the South, for real. you could easily do a swing through 5-6 cities in a week in FL alone. you make me sad, orphaned baby panda sad.
Shit. That really bites, but hey, with the food changes, you’re gonna be alot healthier than a big chunk of the world. I’ve been having food issues too, and had to drastically change my food world.
Good luck with quitting smoking, too.
This may fix your laptop…
You probably need to reset your power manager. I don’t know what model of ibook you have, so I can’t tell you how to do it. But this article will tell you how
Resetting Powerbook and iBook Power Managers
Good Luck with the laptop and the tour and the health.
In conclusion, I’m a diabetic with a UTI, a dead laptop, away from my family on tour with Robbie Q – could things get any worse?
Yeah. You could be fat.
Oh, wait…
Thank you for telling me this before you posted, because you know how I get. I can get you heaps of Type 2 recipes/tips from the Jopster.
I love you, Biskit.
I’m sorry to hear about you being a diabetic. It’s better to catch it earlier rather than later.
Not to be a jerk and Ruin your new found love of splenda….BUT it’s not as good for you as you’d think. It’s made by chlorinating sugar and changing it’s molecular structure. 2% of it contains methanol and arsenic.
You’re better off going to a health food store and getting some stevia. You can find it at trader joes. It’s derived from a plant. It helps balance blood-sugar levels, reduce cravings for sweets, aids in digestion, and it has NO glycemic index. It’s safe for diabetics.
Please take care of yourself. If you’ve any questions… I’ve grown up with my dad being a diabetic. I know plenty of recipes and ways to cut sugar from recipes to lower to fat content as well.
Love you.
MMM,
I recommend Weight Watchers… I lost 100 lbs in 2 years. WW is not perfect, but it does work. There are meetings in almost every city, and it also is working for my bud
You saw me 2 months ago in Normal, and how much I lost from when I was touring through San Jose in 2004, plus you can see me in the front row cheering you on in the Chicago NPS video. I was huge, and now, I am thinner than Richard Simmons is gay. Okay… I exagerrate, plus I have been binging these last two weeks. Anyways, good luck! It is tough, and I am sending you loving nerdy vibes dude!
Andy
Yay for Chicago, my hometown of course!
I don’t suppose your major college tour includes Illinois State University? It happens to be right next to my tiny liberal arts college and im sure i could gather a large crowd to come see you..
Happy New Year!
Diabetes.
Hi Mike. I’m not best pleased to hear that you and I have this in common as well as poetry…
The American Diabetes homepage is http://www.diabetes.org/home.jsp. They have recipes and all sorts of good stuff. You will have to find a way to get some exercise each day, that helps control the sugar as well as keeping good circulation in the extremities which is very important. And drinking a lot of water helps also.
To those of you reading this who don’t have adult onset diabetes, please be careful about the amount of calories you eat. Type II diabetes is caused by overloading your system with calories over years and/or decades until your system simply stops producing enough insulin, or the chemicals necessary for the body to use insulin. Booze, sodas, ice cream, and chocolate caused me to get diabetes, and you really don’t want to do as I have done.
Bradley
Listen to the Yoda of Diabetes
It’s all about “Diabetes for Dummies”
Somebody get this book for Mike for his Birthday!
MCGEE FOREVER!
Stay away from the sweet deliciously decadent dark side of diabetes Mike!
Yoda says, “Fruit Roll-ups lead to high blood sugar, high blood sugar leads to emotional problems, emotional problems leads to suffering!”
Take care of yourself man!
Hello Mike,
Boo to diabetes. Yay to tours. Good luck on all your changes. You know I’m loving you.
Oh Mike..
What a shame, that really, really sucks — except for the catching it early part. I’ll have to take pizza wings & beer of your list when you visit then. The city is really looking forward to your visit. Me, most of all. Can’t wait to see you.
do you know about the normal slam? it gets features (like mike mcgee) all the time – second and fourth tuesday of every month.
for more info, you can go to myspace.com/normalslam or send me (robbie q) a message at myspace.com/theenvironment
for cereal.
Re: Diabetes.
Thanks, Bradley. This is good to know. Thanks so much for the info.