Tag: sleep restriction therapy

Giving up Sleep Restriction Therapy in Favor of a Hillary Clinton Mask and Naked Yoga

So as you may recall, last week this neurologist put me on a very strict sleep restriction regimen, in the hopes of curing my insomnia. I was supposed to got to bed at 3am, and get up at 7am — and if I awoke during the night, and lay awake longer than 5 minutes, I was to get out of bed and go sit in another room until I was sleepy enough to go back to bed and fall asleep.

I am nothing if not dedicated, so even though I was already pretty worn out from the previous week of trying my own half-assed sleep restriction (2am-6am), I went at this balls out. Even though it was TORTURE, I somehow forced myself to stay awake until 3am the first night, before allowing myself to go to bed. (The paradox of insomnia is that I am SO SLEEPY, but when I fall asleep I wake after only one or two hours and then can’t get back to sleep.)

Now usually I am able to fall asleep right away when I first go to bed (it’s the STAYING asleep that’s hard). But the first night I tried this hardcore sleep restriction, I wasn’t able to fall asleep until around 5:30am!!! Then I had to get up at 7am, which meant I got a total of 1.5 hours of sleep that night. As per my regimen, immediately upon rising I went out in the backyard, exposing myself to bright sunlight (to supposedly reset my internal clock) and writing in this bullshit sleep diary I was supposed to keep, to track the hours I slept and my moods and whatnot.

Surprisingly, I felt fine that day — not really tired at all. I was able to stay awake all day (20 hours) until 3am again…and then that night, I was able to sleep about 2.5 hours total. (Woohoo.) The next day, I still felt fine — not too sleepy and able to go about my business without incident.

This business included a VERY weird photo shoot I was hired for — some guy wanted me to wear a Hillary Clinton mask, and a bunch of hats, over at Sunset Park. I met him at the park, and we sat in the picnic area amidst families and birthday parties while he shot close-ups of my face in various hats and the mask, all of which he had me pull halfway down my face so that only my mouth was showing. Then he had me make two expressions: a big, manic smile…and then a gaping-mouthed expression of shock. Over and over, these two expressions, in a succession of different hats. I don’t know if it was some kinda fetish or what — he wasn’t even using a real SLR camera, just a little point-and-shoot!

This went on for an hour, and finally one of the other people picnicking nearby bemusedly inquired if we minded him asking what we were doing. “I have NO IDEA,” I stated flatly (my fatigue made me less polite than I normally am), and the photographer muttered something about “for my portfolio.” Whatever!!! All I know is, I was panting into a sweaty Hillary Clinton mask on a park bench, trying not to fall asleep at 3:00 in the afternoon. SAD!

For the final shot, the photographer had me put on a knit burglar cap and pull it down over my entire face, but pulled taut in the back so that you could see the outline of my lips and nose…then he gave me $50 and sent me on my way. Then I went home and passed the fuck out (my therapy allowed one 20-minute nap per day, of which I made FULL FUCKIN’ USE!).

Anyway, that was like day 3 or so. The next couple of nights I was able to get about 3 hours sleep (amazing how I was SO FUCKING TIRED, but couldn’t even sleep a measly 4 hours straight through). But that’s when I started breaking down. On the third or fourth day (it’s all a hazy blur) I became SO FUCKING TIRED, it was TORTURE to try and stay awake til 3am. I tried to read or watch TV, but sitting on the couch made my eyelids start to droop. I tried standing up while watching TV, but I even nodded off while standing up!! The only way I could be sure of not nodding off was if I was walking, so I went for long walks around my shitty ghetto neighborhood in a desperate attempt to stay awake.

Now through all of this, my boyfriend Captain Crunch was very supportive. He went for walks with me, went out for drinks with me, talked to me, and kept my bizarre hours for the most part (I let him sleep in in the mornings). But there were a few nights when he was working, and couldn’t spend the night, and I had to figure out a way somehow to stay awake on my own.

The worst was Monday night. I started getting really sleepy around 10:30pm, so sleepy I started nodding off at my laptop. So I saddled up to take a loooooong, 2-3 hour walk around downtown Vegas. I figured to walk down to Fremont Street, which is always full of weirdos who might be able to distract me from my sleepy misery. I figured to stop at the Circle K on the way, and get some ice cream, in the hopes that the sugar would pep me up — after all, I needed to stay awake another 4.5 hours!

I remember standing in line at the Circle K, and everything was just swimming. My vision was getting kinda blurry from the exhaustion, and all the colors and stuff under the fluorescent lights were sort of fuzzy and warped. It was freaky! I got my ice cream and shuffled off into the night, but it was like one of those dreams where you’re trying to run away from something, but it’s like you’re stuck in quicksand — my legs were heavy and sluggish, and it was a windy night to boot, so the wind was conspiring against me to blow me back with every belabored step.

I somehow managed to slog along Las Vegas Blvd. toward Fremont Street, SO FUCKING TIRED that I swear I could have laid down right there on the sidewalk and passed out, roaches or no. I was THAT TIRED. At one point I stopped to lean on a parking meter and sob disconsolately…but I felt myself starting to nod off AGAIN, so I shoved off and soldiered on, determined to make it til 3am. By now it was 11:30 — 3.5 hours to go. GAH!!!

I shuffled resolutely on, but I’m here to yell you: I FELL ASLEEP WHILE I WAS WALKING. I didn’t think it could be done, but I actually nodded off while in motion. Scary! I was afraid I’d fall down and hit my head on the concrete or something, so I held my eyelids open like in A Clockwork Orange as I slogged on. I must have looked like a real fuckin’ freak!!!!!

Thankfully, once I got down to Fremont, I was looking at a half-demolished apartment building and some random guy came along and started chatting me up. I knew he was aiming to hit on me, but I was SO TIRED that I welcomed any diversion, and ended up walking along with him for about 30 min, talking about anything and everything under the sun, just to stay awake. (Talking to other people was pretty effective…I considered making a sign reading “PLEASE TALK TO ME” and then just standing around Fremont Street all night, chatting with drunk tourists to stay awake.)

Anyhoo, of course this guy wanted to know why I was walking around alone at night, so I finally told him the story before bidding him adieu and heading home. All in all it killed 30 more minutes, so now I only had to stay awake another 3 hours. Shuffle home as slowly as possible — kill another 20 minutes. Wash hair — 20 minutes. Apply a gallon of anti-acne cream in desperate attempt to repair ravaged face — 15 minutes. I swear, I was doing ANYTHING to stay awake. Torture!!!

SOMEHOW, I made it to 3am, and passed out in bed for a grand and glorious total of 3 hours. WTF! How could I be THAT tired, and still not sleep the full amount of allotted time?!?!?! I was starting to despair that this fucking treatment would never work — here it was Day FIVE, and I still wasn’t sleeping the full 4 hours. And I had to sleep the full 4 hours FOUR DAYS IN A ROW before even allowing myself to add an extra FIFTEEN MINUTES! At this rate, I wouldn’t be up to 6 hours for MONTHS — and I’d be insane by then!!!!

That next day was ROUGH. I was sooooo exhausted, I started to get sleepy around noon. I had to drive way out to the ‘burbs for a dentist appointment, and I almost fell asleep at the wheel. Then I had a photo shoot, which was the most miserable photo shoot of my life because I was a TOTAL ZOMBIE the entire time, and didn’t enjoy it one bit. Worse, because my immune system was worn down from lack of sleep, my yeast infection was still raging and my face was a broken-out DISASTER! My hair was dull and dry, and I just felt and looked like hell warmed over. BLECHHH!

That evening to I took a bath, and broke down sobbing and screaming on the phone to my mom. I was desperately tired, but felt like this was my ONLY HOPE for curing this fucking insomnia — nothing else has worked, and I was loath to puss out and give up. But I really felt like it was killing me! My mom of course freaked out and told me to quit the stupid sleep restriction — “It’s not worth it!” and I screamed at her like an insane banshee about how I HAD to do it, it was my only hope, etc. Sorry, Mom!!

After my pity party, I broke down and took a 20-minute nap — even though it was already 10pm, and I had already taken my one allotted 20-minute nap at 3pm. I was SIMPLY TOO TIRED not to. I felt better after that, and went out to do some grocery shopping. Captain Crunch was coming over, and I wanted to stock up on vodka so we could get wasted and forget our troubles (he had a bad day that day, too). But because I live in the ghetto, none of the grocery stores carry liquor — just wine and beer (they’re afraid of getting robbed, I guess)!!! I stumbled around Smith’s in a sleepy haze before going home empty-handed (well, I did buy some fruit and Greek yogurt and Lara bars and health food stuff…just no vodka). Captain C and I were forced to swill gin & tonics as we commiserated about our shitty days…but it was IMMENSELY therapeutic, and I felt a lot better.

That night, I gave up. Captain C told me the same as my mom — the restriction thing doesn’t seem to be working, so give up and just sleep when you want to sleep. I was really reluctant to give up, because the 5 days I’d already gone were so hard-won — but the idea of SLEEPING IN was so seductive that I did — I totally pussed out. For the first time, I slept the entire 4 hours straight — but then I pussed out and snoozed an extra two hours in bed, for a total of 6 hours.

The next morning I was depressed and disappointed in myself…but GOD, I felt SO much better. It felt like I had emerged from a foggy funk, and for the first time in days I was able to enjoy myself. So now, I’ve basically abandoned the idea of sleep restriction therapy — all the doctors say it’s the most effective anti-insomnia treatment, but by god I don’t know how people do it. They say it’s the hardest six weeks of your life — but I had no idea it would be THAT FUCKING HARD! In my darkest hour, I remember trying to Google personal accounts of people who had tried it successfully (I wanted to read others’ tips on ways to stay awake when exhausted, and to see how long it took them to see results, etc)…but there were NONE! I could not find ONE first-person testimonial from someone who had suffered through sleep restriction therapy. Probably because it’s too fucking hard to adhere to!

Anyway, once I gave up on sleep restriction therapy, I went back to my old shitty ways of sleeping 3-4 hours plus another 4 hours of dozing…but guess what? It wasn’t as bad as what I’d just been through!!! And right away, as soon as I started sleeping again, the hijinks started back up: I did a really, really awesome body paint photo shoot with Michael Maze and this super-cool father-daughter team one day (pics coming sooooon!) and then another day I went to a naked yoga class!

Let me tell you about it! The class was held at the Erotic Heritage Museum — one of the COOLEST museums I’ve ever been to, and it’s right here in Vegas! Two stories of really well done exhibits and displays relating to the history of sex and pornography — fabulous! I’ve long been a fan of that museum and of all the cool-ass people who work there, and it was really great to be able to strip naked and do yoga with a bunch of other like-minded weirdos there. We all rolled out our yoga mats and went to town under the aegis of this beautiful blonde yoga goddess, who was also naked, but in a very progressive, matter-of-fact way. It was GREAT!!! No one was perving on anyone, we were all just focusing on our postures and what not. There were probably 15 people in the class — fat, skinny, toned, flabby, pierced and dreadlocked and bald and boring. The guy in front of me had a Prince Albert piercing, but I honestly only noticed it once, because I was so focused on my yoga moves! Seriously!!! It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, and I’ve done a lot of cool things!

Now speaking of yoga, on a final note, I read online about this certain discipline of yoga called Yoga Nidra, which means something like Corpse Yoga and is used to treat soldiers with PTSD…and insomniacs! Apparently, it uses breathing techniques to put you into delta-wave sleep while meditating or something like that…and is supposedly VERY BENEFICIAL for high-strung types like me. I looked online to see about taking a class here in Vegas…but alas, I couldn’t find anywhere that offers it 🙁 D’OH!!! If you know of one, please let me know…I need help!!!

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Zombie With a Yeast Infection!

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!