insomnia haiku

Why I miss reading in bed

I know I'm not supposed to read in bed. When you have insomniac tendencies, they say not to do anything on your bed but sleep (well, and have sex -- though if sleep researchers had their way, no doubt they'd prefer you heed the advice of When Harry Met Sally and have sex on the cold, hard, Mexican ceramic tile of your kitchen floor). The reasoning is, your body needs to think of your bed as a place to sleep, and nothing more.

This means no watching TV in bed, no talking on the phone, no sprawling across the mattress on a lazy Sunday painting your toenails, or drawing, or reading the paper. And it means no taking a book to bed with you and reading until your eyelids droop and you put the book down and fall asleep.

With rare exceptions, I haven't read in bed for over a decade. Sleep is valuable to me, and if that means staying away from my bed until it's time to close my eyes, then I'll make that sacrifice.

But I miss reading in bed. I used to do it all the time when I was a kid, reading under the covers with a flashlight when it was past my bedtime ... which, come to think of it, was pretty much the only illicit thing I ever did. Once I got in trouble because my mom caught me reading in the bathroom late at night, and as punishment, she made me stay there and wouldn't let me go back to bed. Yes. I got in trouble for reading. I sat there in the bathroom, alone, humiliated and crying, and of course not going anywhere near the book that had caused me so much shame. Just think of how that all might have turned out. "I'm sorry! I promise I'll be good ... I promise ... I'll never read a book again!"

I was in love with books back then. Books were my friends, my comfort, my reward, my cotton candy. At the local library, they'd invite you to the ice cream party if you read 10 books over the summer, and you'd write down on a colored, folded piece of paper which books you'd read. By the end of the summer, I'd have at least five of those things stapled together. I accomplished that, of course, by reading nonstop during the day AND the night. I was pretty damn proud of myself for kicking the reading ass of every other kid in town (what a smug little nerdy bastard I was). They only let me have one serving of ice cream at the party, though. Totally unfair.

And then I got older, and I majored in English and worked in book publishing, and books became less of a fascination to me, and more like work. That's part of the reason I left book publishing -- I was tired of reading being my job, and I was tired of reading 90 percent trash to 10 percent treasure. I wanted to read for fun.

Then, of course, the Internet happened, and cable TV and DVRs happened, and I got distracted, and I never got back to reading books the way I used to when I was a kid. I come home from work, I don't want to think, I watch TV, I go to bed.

But like I said, I miss reading in bed. That used to be my time, when no one could make fun of me, and I didn't have to feel bad about being awkward or shy or having glasses and braces and few friends. It was just me and my book, and time and the world didn't matter. And while I'm still capable of feeling that way when I read -- and while I certainly can (and do) forgo TV for a few nights and curl up on the couch with a book  -- there's a part of me I think I lost when I stopped reading in bed.

Over the past few days, for whatever reason, I've had the urge to grab a book off the shelf and just do it -- take it to bed with you! Damn the consequences! Hug it to your chest! Feel young again! LIVE WILD!

But for tonight, anyway, I didn't. Who knows, though: Maybe tomorrow I'll decide that some things are even more important to me than sleep.

NyQuil, I am so disappointed in you (go to your room!)

I'm usually a huge "NyQuil: It does a body good" proselytizer when I get sick, but for the last two nights it's had the opposite effect on me -- rather than putting me to sleep, it's sped my heart rate up such that I can't sleep. Yesterday I figured my sleeplessness was attributed to taking a two-hour nap at 6 pm, plus the heat suddenly coming on in my apartment (hi, heat, nice of you to drop by! where were you all winter?), which made me feel like I was running a fever when really I was just warm.

But tonight, I took no such two-hour nap, and have been tired all day. And after taking NyQuil, I find myself even less able to sleep. Usually when I can't sleep, I take an Ambien; but having already consumed a dose of NyQuil, I find myself unwilling to mix the two and end up dying like Heath Ledger.

And for the record, yes, I have already Googled both "taking Ambien and NyQuil" and "Heath Ledger drugs." (Answer to the former: it's either a terrible idea or no big deal [thanks, Internet!]; answer to the latter: oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine, which means he took two painkillers, Valium, Xanax, a sleeping pill and an antihistamine. Just in case you forgot.)

So ... here I am. Can't sleep, dum de dum. How about a haiku?

Ambien, Nyquil
Separately, they help you sleep
Together? DEADLY.

Whoa. Where'd that come from? Well, on that note, pleasant dreams. Wish me the same.

What it's like to have insomnia: a primer

There are some people who have never had trouble sleeping -- not once. They've told me so. I've mentally shot daggers at them through my mental eyeballs while smiling in fake delighted relief. "Good for you!" I hope they have some other kind of affliction that's equally foreign to me, like they can't tell right from left, or they feel sick around babies, or they fart uncontrollably in elevators and churches.

If you've never had insomnia (you lucky dog), this is what it's like.

It doesn't matter how tired you are. You could have gone without sleep for three days, and are just bone-weary tired, aching to lay your head on your pillow; but being tired isn't the same thing as being sleepy. Sleepy is when your eyes get tired. It's the feeling you have right after hitting the snooze button in the morning and falling back into bed, or when you're lying on your couch watching golf or the cooking channel and you're snuggled up in your afghan and your eyelids just pleasantly driiiiiift on shut. Or remember in class, when you would spend a good half hour watching that one guy struggle to stay awake, his head leaning forward before he'd jerk it back, then he'd start to sway again ... oh that was you? Well, if you've got that feeling now, you're good. If you have insomnia, then you're just tired. Taahrd. The body may want its rest, but the mind is completely awake.

Your mind goes everwhere. Contrary to what some people say, it is not that easy just to "let go your thoughts." Particularly if you have a lot on your mind, that's the stuff you're going to think about as you lay in bed, and it's going to go a hundred miles an hour and there won't be a break. On some levels, this makes sense. We're thinking people, and shouldn't bedtime be the one time you can be alone with your thoughts? But I believe the founding fathers of sleep meant bedtime was the time for little-t thoughts, like, "bunnies are cute," or "I like that freckle." Not big-T Thoughts like, "I still have to set up all the Emmys pages tomorrow and publish that other feature and close the poll and then publish it by Friday, WHEN AM I GOING TO SLEEP? oh and I have to get that video post done, when am I going to do that? WHY CAN'T I SLEEP? And shoot I forgot to contact the building manager, and forgot to kick that other meeting out of the room Friday so the IC guys can set up, and I need to update all the hubs before anyone notices, FALLING ASLEEP, ANY SECOND NOW and oh shoot when am I going to go to that store and do that thing and I wonder who won the election and ..." (Oh, did I put you to sleep? Yay!)

You forget how to sleep. This has always been a great mystery to me, this business of falling asleep. How? How is it done? I mean, one minute, you're awake, fully alert and conscious. And then you're just supposed to succumb to unconsciousness? What happens in the middle? It seems perfectly logical that your body and psyche would try to fight that off. And if you approach the loss of consciousness and realize you're almost there, then wouldn't that prick you back into alertness? I just have a hard time imagining willing myself into oblivion. Maybe I'm too curious for that. Wouldn't you want to know what was happening?

You feel everything. When I've eaten too late -- say, post 9pm -- I feel the digesting food in my stomach. When that's still the case by the time I go to bed, I can't sleep. I feel heavy, like a big pile of sand, and it's just not going to happen. So, too, do I notice every itch, every bug bite; my legs suddenly feel foreign and strange, which leads to ...

You're restless. Not confined to restless-legs syndrome, this phenomenon merely means that you toss and turn. Nothing feels comfortable, no position, no place in the bed. Too hard! Too soft! Too small! Man, I envy Goldilocks. She was no insomniac.

You lie there very still. You think, maybe this is the way to calm my thoughts down. (It doesn't). You try to think slower. Or think of a story from your past. You wait. You feel your heart beat, and the food in your stomach, and the mattress beneath you, and you're screwed. There's nothing for you.

You think about getting up. All the books say that if you have insomnia you should get up and do something else. But doesn't logic dictate that if you just don't quit, and keep at it a while longer, you'll eventually get to sleep? Doesn't work, though. You just spend another two hours tossing and turning and TRYING to think of nothing.

You take a pill. And here I am. The significance of this particular pill is that, since I only have one pill left, I was planning to hoard it, and deprive myself. But this evening what did I find underneath the bed but what looked like ... half a pill of Ambien. It looked gross. Covered in dust. Sitting there for god knows long. And what did I do? I washed it off in the bathroom sink and swallowed it down. When it comes to swallowing some dust and dirt vs. having insomnia, I'll take the dust anyday.

And here, if it's late and this is any help for you, some pictures of sheep, jumping fences.

Insomnia Haiku: You're So Money Edition (Plus Watchmen)

Sleep not forthcoming
Maybe it's daylight savings?
But ... Swingers is on.

God, I miss thin Vince Vaughn (when he had hair, too).

Oh, and I know it's way too late for this now, but I'll throw it in anyway:

Review Haiku: Watchmen
Sigh. Grrr. Zack Snyder
Has no imagination.
Faithful, dull, cheesy.

It's a shame, because I did like the book (though not as much as some of my friends did), but ... well, on the one hand, it's so densely layered as to be unfilmmable. On the other hand, I never liked Snyder's 300, and didn't think he was capable of pulling off anything requiring nuance or intelligence or grace. Aaaand... I was right. A lot of that stuff doesn't translate well when you slap it directly on the screen -- it may satisfy some fanboys, but it doesn't make for a good movie. There was far more violence in the movie than there was in the book, mostly because Zack Snyder seems to like nothing more than a good blood-splattering. And the music was heavy-handed and obvious and horrible. I couldn't help but wonder what someone like Terry Gilliam or Paul Greengrass (both of whom were at various points assigned to direct) would have done with the movie instead. I KNOW what they would have done. They might have failed, but they might also have made a great movie, not this artless, mindless, ham-handed imitation of the comic book.

Or, I could just restate what I said to my friend Glenn afterward: "It could have been worse ... but that doesn't mean it was good."

All that said, my colleagues generally liked it. But my friends didn't.

Oh no -- that scene in Swingers is coming up where Jon Favreau calls the girl six times. Great, I came out to the living room to try to get some sleep, and now I'm going to have nightmares. DON'T CALL HER, MIKEY! STOP, BEFORE IT'S ... too late. Oh, it is so, so too late.

~~~~~~

(2 hours later) And then there are the times, like now, when Ambien doesn't work. Oh, you did all the things right -- took your half a pill, watched a little TV, maybe typed some things on your blog ... and when you started to see things double and type things wrong, and you got up and you felt like you were walking on a ship, that's when you knew sleep was nigh.

And yet. You lay down on the pillows and closed your eyes, and while your thoughts were no longer filled with fantasy baseball scores and the news of who got laid off today and that song that was playing on your iPod half an hour ago, now they were filled with .... strange things. Calming things, even. Tonight, I remember there was a snake that I was desperately trying to feed water. I turned the corner and then I was in a bright white bakery where every round table had its own cute stack of cakes. There was another scene, but I don't remember it now. These aren't dreams. These are half-dreams, almost-dreams, dream-lets, if you will. They have the potential to become dreams -- they don't require any thought and are very dreamlike in nature -- but you're still awake, only visiting, not living there.

And then I opened my eyes, and while the snake and the pretty cakes were all nice and good, here I was an hour and a half past Ambien and still wide awake. What to do? I can't take the other half of the pill... we all know where that went when I did it before. I was hoping I could come out here and watch my motor skills deteriorate some more, which would be a sure sign to go back to bed; but if anything they're getting a little better. So I've got nothing. Guess I'll just head back, defeated in more than one way, and attempt to dream of feeding water to a snake.

Insomnia Haiku: Five in the morning edition

Suddenly awake
For no reason I can tell
Did someone break in?

Insomnia Haiku: Nap version, plus my belated 2008 movies list

Three-hour nap today
Though needed, now regretted
Rested but no rest.

~~~

It occurs to me that I never did my list of favorite movies from 2008. This is partly because I had a busy year so I didn't get to see that many movies, but also because it was kind of a weak year for movies generally. Wasn't it? I was out of town for half of December and therefore missed most of the Oscar contenders, but really, I don't have any particular desire to see them now. When a colleague told me told me that he'd liked Benjamin Button and that it had a Forrest Gump sort of feel to it, that was maybe the first time that an intended compliment made me NOT want to see a movie.

All that said, here's my belated list, based on what I did end up seeing:

1. Slumdog Millionaire - Yes it's a shameless crowd-pleaser, but who cares? I loved it. Also, someone told me that he was liking the movie until the last scene, which he thought was weird and he "didn't get it." Right then and there I decided that I could never talk to that person about movies again. Lasting impression: The final scene in particular made me want to go watch a marathon of Bollywood movies.
2. WALL-E - Not everyone's cup of tea, but I thought it was beautiful and heartbreaking and Pixar's most grown-up movie yet. How they pulled off nearly an hour without dialogue is beyond me, but I was transfixed. Lasting impression: I decided that the next time it gets too hot, I'm going to clap my hands twice and yell out, "Shade!"
3. Iron Man - Believe it or not, I liked this more than Dark Knight. I don't know if it's a backlash or what, but Iron Man was just so much more entertaining and surprising to me. I didn't know what to expect -- was nervous, in fact, that it would disappoint -- but there's a part of me that feels like superhero movies ought to be fun. Lasting impression: I am in love with Robert Downey Jr.
4. Tropic Thunder - I didn't say these were the BEST movies of 2008. Just my favorites. And this movie made me laugh more than any other the whole year. God bless Robert Downey for making it safe to say "retard" again. Lasting impression: I am in love with Robert Downey Jr.
5. Shine a Light - I hadn't listened to the Rolling Stones with any enthusiasm since college, and this movie made me realize, whoa, they're a band. They still love playing together. And they're awesome. My only complaint: More Marty! Lasting impression: I put a whole bunch of music documentaries in my Netflix queue, and I bought an electric guitar. Really.
6. The Wrestler - A lot of people say they liked Mickey Rourke, but not necessarily the movie. I disagree. He was incredible, to be sure, but I really dug the film as a whole. Favorite scene: The one in the deli, the happy one. I didn't want it to end, mostly because I knew it couldn't last. Lasting impresssion: It makes me sad to look at Mickey Rourke. What the hell happened?
7. The Dark Knight - Yeah, OK, fine, it was good. Heath Ledger deserves the Oscar. But does the movie deserve all the praise that it's getting now? I'm not so sure. Aside from Ledger, can you really say that you remember all that much of the movie? Or that it was better than Batman Begins? Maybe it didn't help that I was sitting in the third row in an IMAX theater. I probably ought to give it another chance. Lasting impression: Ledger, I guess.
8. Son of Rambow - I saw this at Toronto in 2007 and adored it. Again, a shameless crowd-pleaser, this one about a kid whose religion forbids him from watching movies; he ends up befriending the class bully, who introduces him to the movie greatness that is First Blood, and they attempt to make their own Rambo movie. Lasting impression: I cried at the end. Shut up. Also, Ed Westwick (Chuck on Gossip Girl) is in it, except Gossip Girl wasn't on the air when I saw the movie, so now I have two reasons to watch it again.
9. American Teen - Documentary about five high school students, whom the filmmaker followed throughout the course of one year. You start off thinking, this is so manipulated, but by the end -- well, their lives are full of drama, because after all, they're teenagers. And it's riveting. Lasting impression: Thank God I never have to live through high school again.
10. The Visitor - I'm so happy Richard Jenkins got nominated for his role as a closed-off, widowed professor who comes to life when a young Syrian immigrant teaches him to play the drums. Jenkins is excellent, and this is one of those small, nuanced dramas that tend to get overlooked. Lasting impression: I am very proud that when Oscar nominations were announced, I yelled out, "Richard Jenkins!" one second before they said his name.
11. Frost/Nixon and Milk (tie) - I'd seen Frost/Nixon on Broadway and really liked it, and I was pleasantly surprised that the movie was possibly even better than the play. Frank Langella blew me away, both times. Michael Sheen wasn't too shabby himself. As for Milk, I feel unqualified to judge the movie on its merits, because I saw it two days after the election -- and the passage of Prop. 8 -- and therefore, every time there was a happy scene where they achieved some political triumph, I started sobbing. Sean Penn was good, but I was more impressed by the supporting actors, like James Franco and Emile Hirsch. Lasting impressions: Glad I saw both movies, but I can't say they rocked my socks off.

Note: I have eleven places on here instead of ten because I made up the whole list, then realized I'd forgotten about The Wrestler. And I have twelve movies instead of eleven because ... well, I'm indecisive that way.

Movies I didn't see, but that (based on what I've heard) might have made my list if I had: The Bank Job, In Bruges, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Teeth, Boy A, Reprise, Man on Wire
Movies I hated, didn't like or was disappointed by: 88 Minutes (hated), Gran Torino (didn't like), Quantum of Solace (didn't like), Sex and the City (disappointed)

And there you have it. Here's hoping 2009's a better year for movies. I haven't seen anything yet, but it looks like Fanboys may be my first film of the year -- I'll let you know how it goes.

PS Crap, just realized I forgot Appaloosa. That would definitely be in the top ten, despite the fact that Renee Zellweger nearly ruined it for me (as she does). I ain't redoing the list, so just put it somewhere around number eight, please. Top thirteen movies of 2008 -- is this the lamest "best of" list you've ever seen, or what?

My freshman college English professor would be concerned about this post's lack of a thesis statement.

Hello insomnia, my old nemesis. I'm not sure whether I can't sleep because it's the end of a long weekend, or because I'm stressed about the week to come (Oscar nominations are Thursday), or because I'm being interviewed on the radio tomorrow morning -- twice -- as an expert on "Lost," which is not only laughable but is also making me really nervous.

I've done some radio before, but the unpredictability always puts me on edge. I mean, this shit is live, and on a topic like "Lost"? They'll actually expect me to know what I'm talking about. My tendencies to freeze, blank out and babble will not serve me well here. "And so that guy ... uh, what's his name again? The guy with stubble? Played by the guy who was Charlie on 'Party of Five'? Oh right, Jack!" Over the weekend I watched the season premiere (press membership has its privileges), and now on top of my general stage-fright nervousness, I'm worried that I'll mix up the plotlines and accidentally give something away. "And then it turns out Libby's not dead, she's Claire with plastic surgery! And Hurley's the father of Claire's baby! And Jack's father IS the smoke monster ... and the polar bear!" (Calm down, none of that actually happens. As far as you know.)

Anyway, in regard to my recent blogging negligence, I've tried, I really have, to come up with something that might be suitable to post, but all I've got is a head full of randomness (that sounds like a good album name, doesn't it? please don't steal it). So maybe if I empty it all right now, my head will clear itself for something good and worthwhile. Or not.

- It's 2 a.m. right now, so yay, Happy Inauguration Day! Oh, I probably shouldn't have led with that. Now everything else is going to seem stupid and petty by comparison. Ah well. Let's call that my tribute to George Bush.

- Inauguration Concert, Thought 1: That poor navy guy, messing up not once but twice during the national anthem in front of, oh, only a couple million people. He did mess up, right? First he missed the first two lines, and at the end he started singing "brave" a beat too early. I can't even make fun of this guy because I'm afraid he's about to kill himself or something. Um, moving on.

- Inauguration Concert, Thought 2: It amuses me that the person whose appearance on stage got me most excited was Jon Bon Jovi. My inner aging fangirl involuntarily went, "Squeee!" I told this to a friend of mine this weekend and he told me he hated Bon Jovi. Needle scratching across the record: Whaaaaa? I don't believe, in the history of my being alive, that I have ever met someone who hated Bon Jovi. Oh wait, shoot, I have. I dated a British guy once who, when we were in a bar listening to the sound system play "Slippery When Wet," said he "didn't get" the Bon Jovie appeal, and then when I tried to open his ears to the sounds of awesomeness emanating from the speakers, he waxed rhapsodic on his love of Siouxsie and the Banshees instead. I broke up with him a week later. No offense to Siouxsie.

- Inauguration Concert, Thought 3: Also cracking me up was the sight of the little girl, dead asleep, directly behind Obama. I think it was during the Garth Brooks part of the concert. (And dude, what made him so special that he got to sing three songs?) If you knew her parents, wouldn't you call them and say, hey, you might want to wake little Mary up because she's proving more fascinating to the viewing audience than the president-elect himself? On the other hand, they were probably told to turn their cell phones off. So throw something at them, for gosh's sake. Do your patriotic duty!

- Timewaster: White Whine - A New White Person Complaint Daily. I find this so much more satisfying than Stuff White People Like, for some reason. Who the hell knows who's posting this stuff, what color they are, or if the quotes are even real? It's just funny, is all. Cycle back through the older pages for gems like "Ugh, why do people even bother complimenting me on my car if they’re going to mispronounce Audi?" or "Can’t they just make ski boots that are easier to walk in?"

- Timewaster - If you, like me, were always slightly irritated by Garfield and his "hilarious" antics, feeling that they obscured the personality of the comic strip's true star -- Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle -- then this is your lucky day. On Garfield Minus Garfield, there is no cat. Hurrah! But it isn't such a happy day after all, because without Garfield, Jon is just ... sad. Wow, lonely and sad. Check out Jan. 8 and 9 in particular. I may have to rethink this whole "Garfield was useless" theory after all.

- "24" - New addition to the 24 Drinking Game: Drink every time Agent Renee Walker says, "I've got to make this right." Another drink if anyone says, "The agency/government's been compromised." Also, I've noticed that Walker's boss, Agent Moss, is saying "dammit" a whole heck of a lot. Did he and Jack make some kind of deal?

- And now, if your day has not already been eaten up by first-day-back swampage and the inauguration and watercooler talk about "Gossip Girl," I present to you the timewaster that will blow. Your. Mind. Courtesy of my friend Tom, here is the greatest music video of all time. Enjoy.

In which I am a menace to poles, subway riders, and (mostly) myself

I know for a fact that all six readers of this blog find it HIGH-larious when I embarrass myself and then write about it here. Folks, this one's for you.

I spent Thanksgiving in San Francisco with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, my ridiculously cute nephew, and family friends. Yay, Thanksgiving! The only potential snag: I was taking the redeye back on Sunday night, which is not my favorite-ist thing to do, except everything would be cool this time because I had Ambien, right?

Well, not exactly. I KNEW I packed it -- I remembered taking half a pill out of the pill cutter, wondering how I could pack it, then just bottling that half-pill and tossing the bottle in the suitcase -- but then, on Friday night, I realized the bottle was nowhere to be found. It was a full bottle, and that shit is both difficult to obtain and expensive ... not to mention, you know, my one remaining link to sanity. I ransacked my suitcase twice. Panic ensued. Then rage, after I told people and their first response was generally "Someone stole it! It was the TSA! They pull this crap all the time!" Dun dun DUN! I nearly rushed to this blog to write about it but then remembered the Great Mouse Non-Incident of 2008 and thought, well, perhaps I should gather some proof this time, yes?

Well, whether there was a ring of sleep-deprived Ambien thieves at the TSA or I was just a forgetful idiot (those two things not being mutually exclusive), the fact remained that I had a dreaded redeye flight in my future, and no Ambien to soothe the blow. Rage gave way to distress. Then I went to a party on Saturday night at which I happened to mention my dilemma -- to much "those thieving TSA bastards" sympathy -- and the host, a friend of a friend of mine, said, "Oh, do you need some Ambien?" He cheerily produced a plastic bag, plucked out a bottle and teased a single pill onto my palm. And this was the real stuff, not the generic kind that I usually take. Best. Party. EVER.

Sunday night. Airport. Let's forget about the part where I left my keys at my brother's place, which I didn't realize until I was already at the terminal and he was already back home, so he had to come all the way back to the airport and bring them to me. (I am such an awesome houseguest.) Anyway, I'm on the plane, and I take half the pill, which I'd very crudely cut up/mangled with a kitchen knife, because normally a full dose is a little too much for me. I fall asleep, only to wake up a couple hours later, and now I am pretty wide awake and there is nothing on TV except what appears to be Angel, so I ... take the other half.

Mistake! Mistake! MISTAAAAAAKE! When I wake up at JFK a couple hours later (remember that when you take Ambien, you are supposed to get a full eight hours sleep), I am still under the influence. Please understand that being awake and under the influence of Ambien isn't like being drunk; you're fully conscious and aware, you just don't have absolute control over your motor skills.

It's not that I've never had this sensation in the comfort of my living room, but it's odd and alarming to be experiencing it in public. I wander off the plane in a daze. I have trouble walking -- I feel as though I'm just putting each foot forward in order to keep from falling on my face. I run into a few poles when I can't quite maneuver my suitcase around those dangerous hairpin turns. For some reason, I take one look at the long line for cabs and decide I'd be better off taking the subway home instead. So I do this, and I'm handling it just fine until I decide to get up and look at the map in the subway car, trying to figure out where we are on the F line (yeah, I didn't know the F went that close to the airport, either). I'm studying the map when the train starts up again -- you know, as trains do -- hurtling me first one way, into the laps of two strangers on my left, then the other way, onto the laps of two strangers on my right. I apologize profusely, and when an older woman asks me if I need help, assuming that I'm a tourist, I lamely say I was just trying to figure out how long it is until we hit Manhattan. "We're still in Queens," she says, slowly. Strangely, the other people I knocked into have all vanished.

Home at last. I haul my suitcase up to the front of my apartment building, open my purse to root around for my keys ... and promptly tumble straight down the stairs. These would be concrete steps. They hurt. There is blood, and the sudden surety that my knees are about to turn several shades of black and blue. I briefly consider, then discard, the possibility of closing my eyes and taking a nap right then and there. I manage to stumble inside and send an email to work saying I just biffed it on my apartment steps and will be working from home today, and fall asleep for three hours.

But before I send that email or hit the couch, I go into my bedroom and check the nightstand, and what do I see there?

A full bottle of Ambien.

Have a great week, everyone. Don't take drugs. In public. And if you do, then wear kneepads.

UPDATE: I have been informed that the Ambien I was given was 12.5 mg -- the strongest pill available. My prescription is for 10 mg pills. I usually take half a pill. You do the math. It's a wonder I didn't wind up in a hospital ... on the other hand, my "I'm working from home because I just fell down the stairs while high on Ambien" has provided my colleagues with endless entertainment, so at least I've brought some joy to the lives of others. And that's what counts, right?

Insomnia Haiku: Vegas Edition

Warning: composed under the full-fledged, by now, combined effects of Ambien and The Hills. (Don't try this at home.)

Back now from Vegas
Up 300 at blackjack
Hey! Vegas likes me!

Crazy cab driver
Makes jokes about "titty bars"
My mom laughs weakly

Cirque du Soleil, I'd
Never seen, not once. But now,
After "O," I'm awed.

Late Night Links: Let them eat pie, cake, meat gadgets and bird doo

Can't sleep -- ate too much
pappardelle and short ribs.
Let's play Late Night Links.

* There's nothing like a divorce cake to make the dissolution of your marriage taste a little sweeter.

* Manny Ramirez fans new and old, you owe it to yourself to read Bill Simmons' essay on how and why things soured between Manny and the Red Sox. I am alarmed at how quickly I've come to love Manny Ramirez. And he will break our hearts.

* I was intrigued when I first spied this page on gadgets made of meat, but come on, keys made out of cold cuts? My monkey could do better than that! (Top Chef reference, of course.)

* Last week I wrote a post on Cinematical about great pie fights in movies (with accompanying videos). Terribly silly, and written hastily, only as a favor. But it got a lot of comments, so maybe people like seeing others getting cream smashed in their face. Much more elegant than a regular food fight, don't you think? Less brute tossing, more placement.

* This was the video that made me start recording the Daily Show -- all about how McCain, not Obama, is actually "the black man." Ribs, Jon! RIBS!

* And finally, the video below really, REALLY should not make me laugh -- there but for the grace of God, and all that -- but it totally does. As a bonus, I watched this directly after I'd made the mistake of watching Elisabeth Hasselbeck slam Barack Obama on The View, so the bird helped me erase that taste from my own mouth. Next time, if the bird could aim for Hasselbeck, I'd be much obliged.