...A Certain Ambience 2...

A while ago I mentioned my fears in trying Ambien. Well...this week my insomnia proved so bad I decided to embrace a "screw the consequences" attitude (not normally my thing) and brave all the horror stories I've heard about it.

My safety measures to ensure I didn't end up doing something crazy (like calling my old high school crush in the middle of the night having somehow remembered the phone number or driving to Wisconsin non-stop) involved two things: a) cutting the 10 mg dose in half and b) only taking the pill after I was tucked carefully in bed with a glass of water.

From all I had researched, it seemed to me that people who had problems were taking Ambien way before they intended to go to sleep. They miscalculated how quickly the pill would work and thus fell into a kind of trance...or so it seemed.

So I took the Ambien while watching a "Fringe" repeat (oddly enough, during a moment where Walter was praising the effects of LSD.)

Woah!!! The effects (for me) were overwhelmingly immediate and strong....heavy limbs, the conviction that someone else was in the room with me ("We've got to make sure Betty is alright!" someone said) and vivid (vivid!!) horrible dreams. Plus, I woke up with a raging headache...

Still, I've got to say...except for the headaches, I want to try it again...kind of like when a roller coaster scares you, but you immediately want to get back on it again. I don't feel groggy at all today and I slept through the entire night (something that I don't think I have ever ever done in my adult life.)

Next time around, though, I hope for vivid, vivid dreams that are much more pleasant.

Reading the March issue of Q music magazine I'm stopped in my tracks by this amazing photo of Madonna on page 15. It's not so much her physical appearance. I mean Madonna is a striking woman and all that, but I find the looks she often gets on her face far more fascinating.

She really could care less whether you like her or not and she never ever seems uncertain about anything. I wouldn't mind having a little more conviction in everything I do! Life seems so so delicate and on the verge of changing every second.

Voltaire once said: "Doubt is unpleasant, but certainty is absurd," so maybe a little bit of not being sure can be good? :)

Good Reads

Been so busy reading and listening to music and enjoying nice weather I haven't blogged in a while :)  If you're on Good Reads and would like a new book friend, just let me know. Thanks!:)

goodreads.com/zombiegirllovesmusic

 

We Others: New & Selected Stories 

Steven Millhauser

This is an absolutely stunning collection of stories, especially "Tales of Darkness and The Unknown: Vol. XIV: The White Glove" (or more simply, "The White Glove.") It's not just the impressive, understated style but the underlying emotions and the beauty of what Steven Millhauser has to say.

"The White Glove" is a perfect example of Millhauser's wonderful writing and the story pulled me in right from the start:

"In senior year of high school I became friends with Emily Hohn. It happened quickly: one day she was that quiet girl in English class, the next we were friends. She passed in and out of my attention over the last year or so, and it was if I suddenly turned my head in her direction. I liked her calmness, her unruffled sense of herself, her way of standing as if she could feel the ground under her feet."

When I first read the opening pages of "The White Glove" I felt a little shaken and not just because of Steven Millhauser's awesome talent. 

I was struck by a few eerie similarities between his story and an experience (minus the depth of the friendship in this story) I had in high school and it reminded me of the main reason I love books so much: no matter how isolated and unique you feel the things that have happened to you are, there is always someone else who has experienced the same emotions, if not the same situation...

The Walking Dead

Last night's episode (as with almost every one) was amazing, but little did I know that Lori (whom I normally find very irritating) would be so  magnetic and comforting. The actress who plays her (Sarah Wayne Callies) is as thin as a rail and her personality as sharp as a blade, but last night she was...almost, well, almost kind.

In keeping with the ever present theme of survival in a post-apocalyptic world, "18 Miles Out" attacked Beth's problem with vigor and raw honesty. Having witnessed her mother's zombie "death," long after her actual death offscreen, Beth slips into a catatonic state and doesn't talk to anyone for days. When she's finally ready to speak, all she can talk about is suicide.

"I can't promise that everything will get better but we can make what we have now alright." Lori, desperate to reassure her, to prevent Beth from hurting herself, speaks with a quiet passion she's not often known for and though other characters also rush to try and help Beth (her sister Maggie and the lone gunwoman Andrea who lost her own sister to zombies) ultimately Beth herself takes matters into her own hands when it comes to her fate.

It is a magnificent episode and that line ("I can't promise that everything will get better but we can make what we have now alright.") still haunts me. It's probably one of the most hopeful sentences ever uttered by anyone on The Walking Dead from the last person you'd expect to say it...