Mar 01, 2007

Diabetes and Subconscious Behavior in New Jersey

Andy Stuckey

Yesterday was my first video shoot for my new job. Murray and I are making five music videos for the Web site www.heavy.com, and yesterday we shot the first part of what will be a video for our song “Garden State of Love.”

Obviously, the song is about the wonderful world of New Jersey, and we spent all day in the Garden State. It was quite an experience. We found all of the stereotypes of traffic, air pollution, a few meatheads, and plenty of Soprano wannabes in Hoboken. After a morning shoot near a power grid, our friend and the self-proclaimed "King of Hoboken," Adam Wade, led us to Piccolo's for their famous cheesesteak sandwiches and an opportunity to take in some authentic New Jersey. After tapping up two units of NovoLog (insulin aspart), I ordered the cheesesteak and a diet coke.

When you walk in to Piccolo's, you can tell that the owner is really proud that Sinatra was from New Jersey. Also, the clientele is made up of regulars who call each other by name. We got a table for six and soaked up some Ol' Blue Eyes while we ate. Little did the customers know that, an hour before our lunch, my friend Jenni had been fake-puking clam chowder outside of a bar on Garden and 5th Street. I'm sure she got a few looks with her bedazzled denim jacket and humongous frizzy hair. For the shoot we were all decked out in 1980's New Jersey fashion, also known as 2007 New Jersey fashion. (I'm kidding—I'm from Alabama, I moved to New York to buy shoes. Zing.)

Needless to say, it was a fun day in New Jersey, and we only got lost once. One wrong turn sidetracked us for an hour. There are no places to turn around and go the other direction in New Jersey.

One prop for the day's shoot that helped me out a bit was that miraculous invention, the Blow Pop. It's a piece of gum on a stick that has hard candy wrapped around it and comes in a variety of wonderful flavors all created in labs in New Jersey. Or, in the world of diabetes, it's a couple of glucose tablets if you've left yours in the car half a mile away.

One of the bits Jenni was doing was that she always had a Blow Pop in her mouth, so I had three or four of them in my pocket for backup. It just so happened that, toward the end of the day on the boardwalk at Liberty Park, I got the feeling that my blood glucose level was sinking. I didn't have my diabetes/Jack Bauer man-purse with all of my essentials in it, so I began to feel a slight panic. Sometimes, I think that the thought of my blood glucose being low makes my blood glucose go lower faster.

It's weird. First, I get a little shaky and know I need to do something about it. If I don't have something nearby, the panic button is pressed and the scrambling starts. Yesterday, the scramble started with my typical first move: Check and see what's in all of your pockets, as it is likely (if you're always planning ahead) that there is something in there that can help. My first slap yesterday turned up four Blow Pops.

So I took a moment to enjoy a watermelon Blow Pop, and my blood glucose was fine when we got back to the car. Looking back, I think I probably put all of those Blow Pops in my pocket just in case. It's one of those subconscious things you do when you have diabetes.

I think that this video is going to be funny, and tomorrow we are shooting with two Chevy Camaros. You heard me, two Camaros. It doesn't get any cooler than that.

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