Best Musical Year Worst Diabetic Week

Music
In the last twelve months I have seen, in concert, Weezer, Dave Mathews Band, James Taylor, Hot Hot Heat, Weezer again, the Foo Fighters, and Ben Folds. As well as a couple of small bands at 321 Artspace in Kennewick: Good Luck Mr. Gorski, Car Scars, Thanksgiving, and others. All of these I like a fair amount of their music, and five of which I would list in my top ten musical acts (two are Weezer).

I went to see Ben Folds last Saturday at the Paramount Theater in Seattle. The opener was some guy named Chris Mills and he was pretty good. He went out there just with his guitar, and hopped around rocking out to his mad licks. I’m retarded.

After he was done and the intermission ended, the lights dimmed and some crazy sci-fi-sounding music started playing and the light guy went to town. Figuratively. He started turning on random colored lights at different intervals, making it seem as though the instruments were changing colors. And to this, Ben and his band entered.

They began with “Bastard” and went through the set list, at first playing only songs produced since Ben went solo, finishing the first part with a cover of a song done by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg titled, “Bitches Aint Shit.” Ben is such a great entertainer that he really pulls that song off well. He can really tap his inner gangsta, and just bring it. Dawg. When they finished that, the drummer and bassist left Ben and his piano to have some alone time with the crowd.

He then began playing some of the tracks from his old band, Ben Folds Five, as well as some of the slower ones from his newer albums, including “Fred Jones,” and “Gracie.” One of the songs was the crowd-involving “Army.” On the album that song has a part that has saxophones and trumpets, which Ben apparently forgot to bring, so he had the crowd sing the two parts.

After he we finished that song, the band came back and they played three more songs and left the stage. For the encore, they came back and played three more, and finished with, “Not the Same,” which again required crowd involvement for the background, “ah-ah-ah-ah” choir part.

It was an amazing concert, and luckily for me, I had fantastic seats. I was sitting behind Ben slightly, and five rows from the stage, so from where I was, I could see every crazy-quick keystroke, every elbow he dropped, and every rocking stomp he delivered to his piano.

Diabetes
The day after the concert, I went down to the Tri to run powerpoint for my church, cause all the high-schoolers were at winter camp. I got a call from Danielle at McDonald’s saying that they needed help covering a sick call. So I decided to do it, and after church I headed back to Yakima. A little before I got there, I started to feel kinda sick to my stomach, but they needed me, so I went in anyway.

It just got worse throughout my shift, and I ended up throwing up. Thrice. I went home and fell asleep and I was still feeling sick the next day, so I skipped school. I didn’t eat much that day even though I started to feel better in the afternoon. Not eating is probably the thing that caused what happened next.

I woke up around 9:15 the next morning to a needle in my right arm, blood all over my bed and right arm, and two EMTs and three firemen holding me down in my bed. I had apparently gone low in the middle of the night, and my roommate, Nate couldn’t get me up to go to class.

He had tried juice, and some “Insta-Glucose,” which is basically cake frosting, but I just refused and kinda fought him off. I was conscious, but not lucid. He called my mom to ask her what to do, cause she has dealt with it a fair amount, but the last time she had to pin me down to feed me something, I was probably five or six. She said if I wasn’t responding, he should call 911.

When the paramedics got there, they tried to get me to drink something, but when I refused they decided to push D-50. This wasn’t an easy task, as it apparently took all three firemen to hold me down to start the IV.

In about a minute, my blood sugar jumped from 35 to 430, and I was given a juice to drink and a peanut-butter sandwich to eat. One of the EMTs remarked to me, “Finish that sandwich, cause if I have to come back here, and that sandwich is just sitting there on your bed, I’m gonna be mad.”

Can you keep a secret? What am I saying?! You’re the internet, of course you can’t! Oh well, I’ll tell ya anyway: I only ate half the sandwich.