Note to self:

the next time you try to brush your teeth after you've taken your ambien, you may want to make sure that the toothpaste you're using is really toothpaste. and not, yanno. diaper cream. in the dark the tubes look rather similar. and in the ambihaze, you might not notice the different consistency (or smell) until it is tooooooo late. and you don't want that to happen, right?

hugs,

me

Upon Reading My Last Post

(which, indeed, I have no memory of writing)

I frantically checked my outbox.

Turns out I mostly sent boring academic stuff.

Which is kind of sad.

Because, apparently, even when drugged, I'm a total geek.

Woot.

Dear Blogosphere

I have just written three (or four? the very memory is a bit fuzzy) emails to people a full hour after I took an ambien pill.

meaning.

I might have written some very strange things.

And tomorrow I might not remember it.

And I am sorry.

And I will go to sleep now.

The Great Thing About Ambien

is that sometimes in your hypnotic state, you actually do things that are really helpful. Like, you randomly decide to put all of your pictures on a secret data drive *right before your computer crashes.* You don't remember doing it (though after you find them you do have a vague memory of maybe doing it at three in the morning while feeling the ambi-haze), but those pictures of your babies' first birthday? Totally safe. Yay for Ambien!

Weird Protagonist Names

Okay, y'all. I need to gauge the weirdness of some names.

I have these two characters and I'd been calling them Holly and Ivie, but last night (really late and probably after I'd taken an Ambien) I decided to change their names. The change was primarily because of some really important plot stuff that I can't get into without giving too much away, but also because of the fact that some really well-selling books from a genre similar to this one were headed by a protag named Holly.

I chose the names Sila and Sanna. Now, these *specific* names were chosen, like I said, for important plot stuff I don't want to get into, though aesthetically I'd probably have chosen something different. (Yanno, like Holly and Ivie.)

But are they too weird?

And is it worse that they're supposed to be pronounced with a Sh? ('Sheelah,' and
'Shanna.')

How do you feel about book characters with weird names?

Vote:

Why You Should Not Read Books About Vampires After Taking Ambien:

because Ambien is a class of drugs known as hypnotics.

and when you get hypnotized, your brain doesn't always know the difference between reality and fiction.

and so you wake up looking like this:

someone signed me into google chat and wrote in my status section "lifetime but no real time."

1) I don't chat. Chat freaks me out *almost* as much as the phone
2) then who the *&^% was it that signed me in that way?
3) cuz usually when I ambitype (type under the influence of ambien) I at least stay true to my personal phobias and at least sort of sound like myself
4) and "lifetime but no real time" doesn't sound like me so much
5) except it's sort of starting to in a really vague and fuzzy way
6) geez

First, a disclaimer: I took an ambien an hour ago, which means I am not allowed to be posting anything

But Steve just made me laugh really hard and I knew that if I didn't write it down, I wouldn't remember it tomorrow because, yanno, Ambien makes me forget stuff that happens after I take my evening pill. (It also impairs my judgment and lowers my inhibitions, which will have to be considered caveat #2. Ergo, I cannot accept full responsibility for the appropriateness/inappropriateness regarding any of the following and readers should be duly warned thus.)

So, Steve has always had this habit of literally falling asleep in the middle of our conversations. Only… He keeps talking. And sometimes it takes me a minute to figure out the precise point where his consciousness has been compromised. See if you can spot the PPCC (precise point of compromised consciousness) below!


Me [fluffing up my pillows and such, getting ready for bed]: “So, Doogie says I have to have a bone scan done.”

Steve: “And it'll take all day?”

Me: “Yeah. I’ll be at the U hospital. They wanted me to get a CAT scan the same morning, and I heard them on the phone wrangling to get both procedures done in the same hospital so I wouldn’t have to trek up to Huntsman Cancer and I almost yelled out the hallway, ‘Naw! I LIKE Huntsman better! PLEASE send me there!”

Steve: “20 year old hospitals *are* pretty creepy.”

Me: “It’s not just that the U is creepy. They’re *nicer* to you at Huntsman. There are all these soothing fountains and aromatherapy and all of the posters on the wall say things like, ‘You aren’t going to get addicted to pain killers! Please take MORE! And if you still hurt, we can give you STRONGER STUFF!’ Or my personal favorite: ‘Ten ways to sneak extra calories into your diet.’ I liked the one about just randomly adding heavy cream to everything. So tasty.”

Steve: “So, what does the bone scan show?”

Me: “They usually only use it to monitor cancer progressions, etc., but it also has some uses particularly suited to identifying degenerative facets in the vertebrae.”

Steve: “What does the messed up facet look like?”

Me: “Well, the scans show bright spots and dark spots. Dark spots are cancer spots. Bright spots are spots where the bone has been doing an abnormal amount of bone re-generation--like if it’s been really stressed from the slouching and the baby birthing and the getting-whacked-in-the-side-by-a-drunk-driver thing. So, dark spots = bad, bright spots = not so bad. Unless they’re tumors, I guess. Those can be bright too.”

Steve: “So, best case?”

Me: “They find a few messed up facets. They inject a few things into my spine. I feel no pain for two years at which point they inject some more things and life is good. Worst case would be that they find nothing and my back still friggin hurts. No, strike that. I guess worst case would be they find a multiple myeloma. That word has been randomly appearing in my nightmares, remember? So I looked it up. It’s incurable. Median survival rate 50 months. Totally hypochondriachiacally creeptastic, right?”

Steve: “But do people your age even get that cancer? You’re young.”

Me: “Youngish. Young people don’t tend to get colon cancer, either. But that’s what my grandma died of. When she was *thirty six.*”

Steve: “Well, I guess we’re going to have to add that to the list.”

Me: “What list? A list of cancers that are completely unlikely anywhere except in my family?”

Steve: “No, The Cookie list.”

Me: “Cancer cookies?”

Steve: “Yeah, Cancer cookies. We’ll have to make some. Put them in Tupperware.”

Me: "Okay, but only if we can randomly poor cream on them." [laughing because I know Steve is totally asleep now and if I wanted to, I could keep the conversation going for awhile just because it'd be hilarious. I'll have to do that some night when I'm not on Ambien.]

Oh, geez.

looks like I posted stuff while I was on Ambien. (Even found my way to Poll Daddy! Impressive!)

To everyone I emailed last night after 11--the semi-coherent and rambling messes of verbiage complete with reference to fairy-bugs & "computer-flies"

I'm sorry. I have no memory of it. (Like, absolutely NONE.) In the future, I'll keep my computer in another room so I can't reach from my bed and start typing after I've gone to bed.