Thursday, August 4, 2011

Awake... at 2:30AM

Not unusual for me as of late but it is probably unusual given the 20mg of Ambien coursing its way through my bloodstream. I can really feel its odd effects. Everything is kind of dreamy. I haven't actually had a full blown out "sleepwalking" incident that you hear about on the commercials. Usually what I do is specifically what they tell you to do when you can't sleep. If you're not asleep within 20 minutes, get up and do something relaxing and quiet for 10-15 minutes and return to bed. Yeah, don't do that if you take ambien but since I'm a chronic and life long insomniac I've been taking ambien for years and years and have built up quite a tolerance. So I can take 20mg (like tonight), not be asleep in 20 minutes, and following the old advice I would get up and do something.

The very first thing I did was some gardening. In the house my husband and I had upstate there was a huge brick fireplace that we liked to leave going all winter long at a roaring crack. The empty wood rack was outside behind our garage and was no longer level. I'd taken my ambien got into bed and couldn't sleep. Sat on the couch. I guess at some point I got up, cleared away the old mulch, leveled the stone tiles the rack sat on and replaced the old mulch with a layer of fresh mulch on top. I woke up with very dirty fingernails and no memory of doing this.

When we moved back down to Long Island, I was still taking the drug. One night I couldn't sleep and decided to sit in my studio. At one point I decided to break out my largest brushes... my most vibrant colors and paint a floral mural on the guest room wall. A large white lily (now masked by the headboard) and a huge sunflower. I also scribbled Baha'i symbols and bits of scripture around the wall and painted a Qiblih line on the ceiling. I had been reading some of the writings of Baha'u'llah's before bed.

Another time I thought it would be best to organize my craft items in the basement. (Scary part here!) Drove our cars into the driveway to get them out of the garage leaving the driver's side door open on my husband's car and (it's a manual) was in neutral. My SUV was in park and all doors were closed. I then used a wheeling cart to move a dresser into the basement from the garage and began rigorously organizing my craft supplies.

The most recent event was after we had gone to dinner at my parent's house. My mother, a retired hairdresser, was lamenting the state of my permanent wave. It had grown out and was not looking fresh. She insisted it "just needed a trim." So unable to fall asleep, I got up, went to the bathroom just to shave a little off. And ended up with something looking layered and shoulder length... but oddly even and bouncy.

So I probably shouldn't continue taking this medication right? Wrong I do still take it. The problem doesn't really occur when I'm in bed. The problem happens if I get up and start doing random crap.... like I'm doing now. I was reading Richard Schmid's Alla Prima: Everything I know about painting. He mentions a few artists I wasn't familiar with so I figured I'd get up and look at some pictures.

No harm in that. Yet.

Look at the pictures and go back to bed kelly. Stop typing. STOP. no I mean it. now.

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