bazima.com: blog

Dear Computer,

I'm no doctor, but that toxic narcotic sleeping aid they call ambien is not for pussies.

I've never been a sleeping pill person -- too many negative side effects -- but I've been a bit of an insomniac most of my life. I try to go to sleep. I want to go to sleep. I end up lying in the dark staring at the tiny red light on my stereo for four hours. It's a problem. It makes getting up at a normal hour -- which is anywhere between 8:30am and 11am -- excruciating and impossible. Once I'm up, I'm okay. The sleeping part is rough sometimes too. If my boyfriend wakes up one more time with that I-got-such-a-restful-night's-sleep-and-life-is-so-fucking-good-right-now-I-coulod-break-into-song, I might suffocate myself with the duvet cover.

So when my psycho-pharmaceutically licensed headcleaner told me about ambien, I was practically drooling. It doesn't leave you groggy in the morning and it's sole purpose is to make you fall asleep, not keep you asleep. You only need to take 10mg for it to work. Still, I don't take it every night. That would be excessive. Plus, I'd build up an immunity to it after a while, so what's the point. It works fast. I mean, within fifteen minutes you're out cold.

However. If you don't prepare yourself by making sure you're up in the biscuit with your favorite pillow, ready to be transported, things get a little crazy. Lately on the nights that I've taken ambien some little party devil on my shoulder tells me to stay awake and watch the curtains on my windows turn into vibrating waves of color and shadows and the TV transform into a still life from a 3-D flick at the I-MAX theatre. And the TV's off. It all makes you giddy. Your head feels funky and you start whispering to yourself and giggling like a schoolgirl. Sometimes you decide to actually get up and do something. Something that you'll hardly remember the next day. And that's always a good idea.

One time I took an ambien and then decided to call my boyfriend at the time. We'd been in a fight earlier that night and our problems seemed insurmountable. We were on the brink of a bad break up. Apparently we'd come to some satisfactory resolutions over the phone which made him happy the next day. But I had no recollection of the phone conversation at all so I was still really mad from the night before.

Another time, while lying in bed at 3am as the ambien kicked in, I started to ponder my life strategy. I came up with such brilliant ideas and knew that if I didn't write them down I would never remember them. There was a pen by my bed, but nothing to write on. I didn't want to get up for fear of waking up my current beau (who calls ambien "shambien" and hates that I take it at all), so I decided to write a note to myself on my hand. Except it was pitch black. And I was on drugs. I woke up the next day and found illegible chicken scratch imprinted on the palm of my hand extending all the way up my right arm. As the pieces of the night before came together -- when you do remember ambien behavior it's not unlike remembering a dream, foggy and trippy and uncertain -- and I made out a few of the words etched into my skin I realized what brilliant life-changing career strategy I'd come up with. It was the most implausible plan I've ever heard in my entire life.

First the ambien starts it's subtle tingling and, because I've not prepared myself for passing out so soon, my brain just starts spinning and I tell myself I can just do one thing before it it knocks me out completely. It's not rational.

I need to force myself to do what the sleeping pill calls for. Sleep. Not start new projects, make phone calls, whisper in tongues in my boyfriend's ear. I wish I could ask him to watch me after I've taken one of the sleeping pills to make sure I go right to sleep, but he's unconscious before his head hits the pillow. That's another reason why lying hopelessly awake at night makes me crazy. Even when he's sleeping next to me I'm all alone. Maybe I need to do what the adopted son with Down Syndrome in Mommie Dearest was always told to do. Maybe I need to strap myself in. And then hope that the crazy whore with all the bright ideas (chopping down a tree in the backyard in the middle of the night and declaring war against wire hangers) stays the hell back.

Oh, well. Thanks for listening to my rant, Computer. It's 3am now. You must be exhausted.