My name is Wonderhussy, and I. AM. EXHAUSTED!!!!

This exhaustion is mostly due to the bogus program of sleep deprivation I’m engaged in, to combat the chronic insomnia from which I’ve been suffering the past two years. (Basically, by limiting your time in bed to fewer hours a night, you’ll eventually get so sleepy that you’ll SLEEP the whole night through.) As previously mentioned, since May 2nd I’ve been going to bed at 2am and rising at the ungodly hour of 8am every day…sleep or no. It hasn’t worked AT ALL, but I don’t want to give up because I HAVE to beat this fucking insomnia so I can get back to the business of living a fabulous fun-filled life!

As the days went by, I found myself getting tireder and tireder…but still paradoxically unable to sleep well. That’s insomnia for ya — it’s a classic mindfuck!

The tireder I get, the harder it is to stay awake til 2am every night. The insomnia websites recommend reading or watching TV, but I can’t do either of those late at night or I’ll doze off before 2 and ruin my chances of sleeping. I basically have to stand upright to stay awake, no matter how tiring it is. One night I was sooooo tired my eyelids were just drooping like an old man’s ballsac, and the only thing I could think to do was go for a long, lonely walk. I put on my hoodie and iPod and sort of ambled around East Charleston Blvd. in a zombified haze, killing time until 1:45am at which time I could shuffle home to bed.

It was an interesting walk, though. East Charleston is full of crazy Mexican stores — I mean CRAZY — and though they were all closed at that hour, I was able to look in the windows and see some really weird shit. It was almost like being in another country! There were no less than 3 Quinceañera stores in the immediate vicinity of my house, and I spent quite a few minutes drooling over the poufy Barbie-princess style ballgowns they make for those chicks to wear. I have long been OBSESSED with Quinceañeras — I find them such a creepy, bizarre ritual. For those who don’t know, it’s like a sweet sixteen party, but for Mexican girls — and they do it at fifteen, since as we all know those girls mature at a faster rate. Their families ball the fuck out for these parties, with ginormous dresses and hairdos, and then they bring out this super-creepy giant “Last Doll” to symbolize the passing of youth, and then bring out a pair of high heels on a pillow, to symbolize the coming of womanhood. LMFAO!!!!! (Then the next day some dumb homey brings out the First Jism, which leads to the First Teenage Pregnancy, which leads to My First WIC Coupons, which lead to My First Snot Nosed Brat Throwing a Temper Tantrum in the Kotex Aisle at Food-4-Less, which leads to Wonderhussy getting the fuck out of there.) (I’m kidding…..relax!!)

Aaaaaaaaanyhoo, another night I wandered around the Strip, instead — but that was even worse! My intent was to walk from one end clear to the other and back — all the way from the Stratosphere in the north to the Mandalay Bay in the south, and back — a total of about 8 miles. But the sidewalks were so choked with cockroaches, whores and drunk idiots that I had to give up after a mere 4 miles. It was literally making me sick. I hate summertime in Vegas!

Anyhoo, every night I find some way to stay awake til 2am, and then try and sleep til 8…which hasn’t been working, and has led to some serious sleep deprivation, which has led to some serious bad shit. One night, I was driving up to my boyfriend Captain Crunch’s house (he lives waaaay up north), and I got pulled over by the freaking cops!! They thought I was drunk, because I was weaving — but really I was just trying to brush my hair, which I had just washed. It was two officers, a chick and a dude, and they were like “You were weaving pretty badly back there…you wanna explain why?” You could tell they thought they had another juicy DUI on their hands, but sorry fellas, I was sober as a judge. I just pointed at my hairbrush, on the seat beside me, but you could tell they didn’t believe me. Then when I got out my driver’s license they saw my medical marijuana card, and now they were REALLY suspicious: “Is that why you were weaving?!!!!!”

“Sorry officers; I am a classic textbook example of a responsible medical marijuana patient — I do not use it socially or recreationally, only in bed to help me sleep!” You could see the disappointment on their faces, but it was funny, I had a giant prescription vial full of Afghani Kush in my overnight bag, which was open for all to see, right under the guy cop’s nose. Either he didn’t see it, didn’t care, or actually respected my prescription. Who knows!

Anyway, they still made me get out and do a sobriety test, just because they could…and I passed, of course. Still, they ended up giving me TWO traffic tickets, at which point I just broke down weeping. It wasn’t the tickets so much as the sheer exhaustion, and the feeling that everything was just piling the fuck up on me. You could tell they felt sorry for me, but apparently not sorry enough to let me go with a motherfucking warning. Fuckers!

My fatigue only grew worse as the week wore on. Part of my therapy is to listen to this 20-minute relaxation mp3 twice a day in the afternoon, and I usually doze off while listening to it (it’s just a bunch of chimes and gongs, allegedly isochronic tones that will “reprogram” my brainwaves). Well, one afternoon I had a foot fetish photo shoot at 5pm over at the Imperial Palace, in the Penthouse. (If you’ve ever seen what a class-A dump the I.P. is, you can only imagine how fabulously shitty the penthouse was. It looked to be on par with a Motel 6 penthouse…if Motel 6s had penthouses.)

Anyway, before I went over to the photo shoot, I figured I had just enough time to do a quick relaxation session, then powder my nose and head over there. Alas, I was sooooo tired that I passed the fuck out and slept for around 30 minutes, waking up with only 15 minutes to get over there in time!! Fuckin’ insomnia! I didn’t even have time to wash up or powder my nose…so I had to roll over with filthy feet and a shiny face 🙁

I jumped in my truck and tried to hurry, but I had just gotten those two tickets and I was loath to speed, so I kinda limited myself to 1 or 2 miles over the speed limit the whole way there. I made it more or less in time, though — and what a freaky scene!!!!

Apparently, this wasn’t for any website — it was a private fetishist from Montreal, some random Quebecois who came to town and hired all these chicks to come up to his room, put on a karate gi, and pose for a series of still photos pretending to kick his frog ass!!! LULZ!!!! He hired one chick to take the photos, and then this other guy was in charge of the remote control for the TV, which displayed a series of photos he wanted to recreate. All I had to do was copy the poses, and pretend to kick his ass. He was a nice looking guy, very soft-spoken and mild-mannered, and at the end of the shoot he gave me a single red rose. Like the Bachelor, LOL! He also gave me $300, which since the shoot only lasted 45 minutes was pretty sweet.

The best part of all this was the chick who was leaving just as I came in (he had models booked one after another…he really spent some coin on this little trip). It was an Asian girl with an odd-sounding New Zealand accent…and come to find out, she has Foreign Accent Syndrome — you know, where you randomly acquire a foreign accent out of nowhere??!!! IT WAS AMAZING! She said she fell off a wall and hit her head when she was a kid, and then gradually developed a Kiwi accent over the years. She said it was very gradual, so that her family didn’t even notice right away…but it has become so pronounced that there’s no escaping it anymore. Crazy!!! I told her she was lucky she didn’t develop a hillbilly twang instead, or something even worse where she said “sorey” and “aboot.” LMFAO!!!!!

Then the chick who was photographing the whole thing chimed in. Apparently SHE, too, fell and hit her head once…and it fucked up her pituitary gland so that it stopped secreting HGH, and she gained all this weight. She has to get regular injections from an endocrinologist just to stay normal. But then she got uterine cancer, and had to stop taking the HGH (to inhibit tumor growth) until they gave her a hysterectomy. FUCK! All this medical talk was kinda freaking me the fuck out…but now that I think about it, maybe that’s exactly what I need — maybe if I fall off a wall, I’ll hit my head and reboot my brain so that I can sleep again! Or…maybe not.

Anyhoo, all of that at least kept me awake for awhile. I’m telling you, I need constant diversion to keep my eyelids from falling shut after about 9pm. Some other things I did this week to stay awake were: walk my dog around silent, sleeping neighborhoods; go to this weekly drum circle up in Red Rock Canyon (a bunch of hippies and assorted weirdos gather up there every Sunday for an awesome jam); and hike up Lone Mountain. Let me tell you about this last one in more detail.

So a few months ago, I was on my way back from a photo shoot in the desert, when I passed this random wacko who was pedaling a stationary bike on top of a stack of shipping containers at the side of the freeway. I pulled off immediately and navigated a warren of bizarre back streets and frontage roads to get to him, just to find out what the fuck he was doing up there. Come to find out, he goes up there every day for a few hours to promote his fitness website, 1minuteexercisechallenge.com — this guy is a fitness fiend. He seemed like a genial enough kook, so I gave him my card, and he started reading my blog, and we sort of became friends. He saw on my bucket list that I’ve been meaning to hike up Lone Mountain (a smallish hill in the northwest part of Vegas with amazing views of the city), so every couple weeks or so he would text me, “So when are we gonna hike Lone Mountain?” Well, I’ve been too busy lately with random shit, so I kept blowing him off…but now that I have all these endless hours yawning ahead of me every night before I can go to bed, I finally had the time to do it!

I was kinda worried he was trying to hit on me, but I figured if he reads my blog then he would know I’ve been dating Captain Crunch, and would realize that this was just a friendly, time-killing hike. As it happens, I needn’t have worried, because he himself is a happily married Mormon with five kids!!! We met up at the mountain, and as we hiked we talked of cabbages and kings, and I realized how hardcore this guy is: he works out non-stop, every minute of every day. He works from home, at a treadmill desk, and then does all these high-intensity one-minute workouts using his kids as weights in between…in addition to bicycling atop the shipping containers every day. I was exhausted just talking to him — how does THIS guy not have trouble sleeping?!

He also convinced me it was OK to hike in my flip flops, without a headlamp…even though it was already dusk when we set off, and the trail was covered in all kindsa loose scree and stuff. Fuck! I almost ate it a time or three, but it was actually a great hike and I enjoyed it immensely. On the way back down I mentioned I had a sore throat, and he told me I should gargle with essential oregano oil, which you can find at health food stores. It was already 8:30, and Whole Foods closes at 9, so I was like, “Oh well, I guess I’ll go tomorrow…” But then this amazing guy offered to give me a bottle of his personal supply, if I followed him home!

Now I know what you’re thinking: That’s the oldest ruse in the book, right?! Well, you’re wrong! I followed him to his amazing badass custom house, which is on a half-acre lot in a really cool neighborhood, and he invited me inside and introduced me to his wife and kids — all super-photogenic blond Mormons, right out of a movie! It was crazy!! He said he had told his wife about me and my blog, and I was just shocked that they would invite a hussy like me into their home to hobnob with their impressionable offspring.  But they were so fucking cool! He brought me the bottle of oregano oil, which he warned would burn my mouth and throat really badly, and taste really gross. His kids all gathered around to watch, expecting me to puke or something…but I’m here to tell you, for a hussy like me, oregano oil ain’t no thang. I gargled it, put drops directly on my tongue, and then drank some of it mixed with water…and yeah it did taste pretty funky, and burn a little…but it wasn’t bad!

They were all shocked and appalled at my apparent lack of tastebuds, and the guy tried to ascribe it to my consumption of alky-hol having desensitized my tastebuds. That’s where you’re wrong, bro — I have excellent taste buds. It’s more likely due to the fact that I regularly drink cayenne pepper mixed with hot water (for my sinuses)…now THAT burns! Once you’ve drunk cayenne pepper tea, oregano oil ain’t no thang at all.

Anyway, not only did he give me the oil to take home (surprisingly, it works very well…I gargled with it 5 or 6 times over the next couple days, and it really did the trick), but he also gave me a bottle of lavender oil, said to help with sleep. The jury’s still out on that one…but I’m here to tell you, oregano oil is a great homeopathic remedy for a sore throat, people.

So after chatting with his amazing family for a few minutes, I left them to their happy shenanigans and toodled off down the road, with the invitation to come back whenever I wanted for family fun night. How cool is that?! I just LOVE meeting random people like that…especially when they turn out to be so interesting. And to think, it all happened because I took the initiative to exit the freeway. Let that be a lesson to you all…STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES!

Now, the reason I had a sore throat is twofold. One, Captain Crunch had it and likely passed it on to me…and two, since I’m so sleep deprived, my immune system is kinda weakened. I also got a god damn yeast infection, which was a whole other rigamarole — I know damn well when I have one of those, but if you go to the drug store all they’ll sell you is this nasty-ass injection tube full of cream that is messy and time-consuming and just plain GROSS. Meanwhile, if you get a prescription from a doctor they’ll give you ONE SINGLE PILL which fixes it all. ONE PILL!! How the fuck is that fair, I ask you?!

Since I still have insurance until the end of the month, I figured to kill some more endless evening hours by going into the 24-hour Quick Care for an exam after work one night, so I could get the prescription for the pill. But what a fucking farce! I had to go in, wait around, get triaged, wait around, pee in a cup, wait around, see the doctor, wait around, then finally get my prescription and pay FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS for the privilege! And that’s WITH insurance!!!! WTF!!!!!

Then I had to drive to TWO separate pharmacies to find one that was open 24 hours, and wait around some more with a bunch of cranky old Jewish men who were also at the pharmacy at 1am on a Thursday night, for some reason. They were cool, though — because I only needed one pill, my scrip was filled way before theirs, so when the pharmacist called me up first they mock-grumbled about it not being fair. “Hey guys,” I said, “It’s cuz I only need one pill. One magic pill!” “One pill!” they said, referencing the Jefferson Airplane song “White Rabbit.” “What is it, a magic mushroom?” “Um, yeaaaaaahhhhhh! Something like that,” I said. LOL — a yeast infection really IS a sort of fungus!!!! The joke was totally on them!

The point of this is, I spent $60 and 2.5 hours to get one fucking pill — and when I got it, it was packaged in a cardboard box, in a paper bag, with a paper information booklet stapled to it, inside a plastic bag with a foot-long paper receipt. ALL THIS FOR ONE FUCKING PILL! No wonder our society’s so fucked up!

Aaaaaanyhoo, these were some of the things I did to stay awake this past week. But wait, it gets even worse! One of the readers of this blog emailed me, lambasting me for not going to see a REAL, LEGIT DOCTOR about the insomnia — no more of this sleep restriction quackery, please! I don’t know why I never looked into sleep specialists before — I guess because my experience with my primary care doctor was so shitty, and then with my therapists and psychologists too, that I just sort of gave up on modern medicine. But now that I only have insurance til the end of May, I finally looked up a guy and went to see him.

He was a really cool guy with an affable demeanor, and I told him the whole fucking sob story — how I thought the insomnia was set off by my having eaten LSD and Ecstasy at Burning Man in 2009. Interestingly, he didn’t judge — in fact he said he actually went to the very first Burning Man, LOL! He agreed with my program of sleep restriction, but said I wasn’t tired enough, and that I needed to reduce my time spent in bed to only FOUR hours!!!!! FOUR HOURS!!!!!! So now I can’t go to bed til THREE A.M., and have to get up at 7 — EVERY SINGLE DAY! Oh gosh, now I’m REALLY gonna be a wreck!

What really sucked though, is I was telling him about the jackass psychiatrist who diagnosed me bipolar, and how I didn’t think it was true. He said I did seem manic, which I totally cop to, but I am not really depressive — if anything, I’m MONO-fucking-polar! Meanwhile, I was probably acting extra manic because a) I was soooo tired, but I try to put on a good front; and b) I was trying to be extra engaging and likable, so he might agree to see me at a reduced rate once I lose my insurance. So of course I acted manic!! It’s called a charm offensive, people!

But because I came off so energetic, he said I wasn’t nearly tired enough for the sleep restriction therapy to work, and so for the next 2 weeks I’m supposed to do this 3-7am bullshit and see if it works. When I heard that now I have to stay up even later, my facade crumbled and I broke down weeping. “I’m soooooo tiiiiiiiired,” I sobbed…and guess what, now I REALLY looked bipolar 🙁 But I’m telling you, people…if you were this fuckin’ tired, you’d cry, too.

Anyway, he sent me on my way with another bullshit plan of action — a sleep diary where I’m supposed to record my sleep patterns for the next 2 weeks, then report back to him. He said he’d work something out with me if I don’t have insurance, so we’ll see. Meanwhile, I’m going to be VERY tired, and have to be careful driving and stuff…which sucks ass, because how the fuck am I supposed to stay up 20 hours a day if I can’t GO anywhere?! Arrgh!

So last night was the first night I tried it. This was right after the whole pharmacy magic pill rigamarole, so I got home around 1:30 and killed time til my 3am bedtime. But when I got in bed, I wasn’t allowed to smoke my “medicine,” so guess what? I DIDN’T SLEEP! I think I may have briefly dozed off very lightly, but I looked at the clock and it was 3:36… and I was wide awake. They say you’re supposed to GET UP out of bed if that happens, and go into another room until you’re sleepy again, so that your brain learns to associate your bed with sleeping only, not with tossing & turning. So I got up and sat in my darkened office for awhile. I tried listening to my relaxation mp3, but it didn’t help this time. I tried getting back in bed with the relaxation thing on, which also failed. Finally I got back up and went in to sit on my living room couch, figuring I might get sleepy there, since every time the Cap’n  and I try to watch The Wire I fall asleep…and after awhile that finally worked. Around 5am I crawled back into my bed, and slept for about 90 minutes. That was IT! I am typing this on 90 minutes of sleep…don’t ask me how I’m doing it, and don’t ask me how I’m supposed to stay awake another 15 hours :-/

The worst part of all this is, it’s going to put a serious damper on my relationship with Captain Crunch!!! The sleep doc said I shouldn’t sleep in the same bed with him until I get my sleep back…and who the fuck knows how long THAT’s gonna take!!!! WTF!!!! It freaks me out because I really, really like this guy, and I like sleeping with him…that is, IF I could sleep. I’m afraid he’ll get tired of my bizarre fucking sleeping patterns — he tried to humor me when I was doing the 2am-8am thing, but THIS is beyond anyone’s capabilities. Oh well, I guess we’ll see what happens. If only I hadn’t eaten that fucking Ecstasy — that shit is POISON! I can’t believe all these dumb-ass bean-eaters frying their brains on a regular basis with that shit.

Speaking of Burning Man, another shitty thing that happened to me this week was, some stupid chick rear-ended my truck after work one night when I was on my way to Captain C’s house (hmm, maybe it’s a sign I shouldn’t go up there anymore). So now I had to deal with insurance hassles, but on the plus side I got a shiny new bumper for my truck. The bummer is, I lost my “WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN RARELY MAKE HISTORY” bumper sticker. But whatever; it was kinda corny anyway.

The funny thing was, when I took it into the body shop, I was wearing a bikini since I was on my way to the lake with Captain Crunch to go paddleboarding. The body shop guys thought that was pretty cool (my attire), and we joked about it…and then when I went to pick up my truck the next day, they were like, “Hey, you went to Burning Man?!?!?!” I was like, “Yeah…why do you ask?!” As soon as I said it, I realized how they knew — I have this thing hanging up on my passenger-side visor from Burning Man last year that is a laminated Genital ID Card, with a picture of my vagina and some information about me on the side. (Some stupid camp was making them, basically an excuse for them to photograph twats all day long. Don’t let ANYONE tell you Burning Man isn’t just about sex, drugs and booze — IT IS!)

When I realized the body shop guys had all seen my vag, we all shared a hearty laff…but whatever, it’s not like everyone with a computer hasn’t seen it anyway. What’s the big fuckin’ deal? It’s just skin and hairs, nothing more.

One last thing. As mentioned, I went paddleboarding out at Lake Las Vegas, a pretentious man-made lake surrounded by multi-million dollar homes, peopled by the likes of Sally Dingdong and the Sultan of Brunei. The funny thing is, the lake water is basically treated wastewater from Vegas…so all those rich dumbasses are floating around in a puddle of our shit. Take that, 1%!!!

I had never been paddleboarding before, and I was totally afraid I would suck at it, since I’m TOTALLY uncoordinated and a total klutz…but as it happens, I did all right and didn’t fall into the wastewater once! (Paddleboarding is basically standing on a giant surfboard, paddling around with a canoe oar.) It was really fun and really nice out there. We spent the day hanging out in the fake Italian village on the south shore, and then cruised into Boulder City for the night, where we stayed in one of those run-down old-timey motels like in the movie Leaving Las Vegas, where Nic Cage is an alkie and Elisabeth Shue is a hooker, and they go down there to drink and wallow in each other’s misery. Fun! We basically did the same thing, only without the misery — we had a damn good time! We shut down all the bars in that square ass town, and then had breakfast the next morning at this overrated “dive” coffee shop that’s been on the travel channel or some shit, but in my personal opinion is way overrated.

And then we came home to Vegas…me to my long, lonely nights full of empty sleepless hours. If you see a random zombie stumbling around town at 2am, holla — it’ll doubtless be me, wandering around Vegas in my desperate quest to stay awake, and then to sleep. Wish me luck!

Oh and one other thing. We had a dog show at the neighborhood park down the street from my house…and my dog Stubby took top prize!!! He is now the official Mascot of the Huntridge Neighborhood, LOL! I’ll admit, I went all “Tantrums & Tiaras” on his ass, berating him like poor little JonBenet Ramsey for not performing well enough… but he still won, despite not giving a shit and despite having long-ass toenails and shedding like a motherfucker. I have to go get him groomed before they do his big photo shoot…after all, I myself know a thing or two about photo shoots! Yay, Stubbs!!!

Oh, and one OTHER thing: if you like these latex glove photos, feel free to deposit some cash in my PayPal account (email me for details) so I can go buy the matching panties and the matching dress! I’ll lube ’em up nice and shiny for ya, and do another photo shoot just for you! xxx!