Originally posted on Fri 11/21/2008, 3:05 PM
It bears repeating I guess. A couple of entries ago, I insinuated that this week would be a socially-busy one and it has been just that…and more. I hadn’t yet recovered from Sunday when Karaoke Wednesday popped up (it was MAD FUN too), which created an exhausting ripple effect. I was so sleepy today that there were several moments throughout the day that I thought I was going to break down and cry. No joke, I was so sleepy that it almost made me cry! This was the kind of sleepy that I remember from my college years, when I didn’t even bother to go to sleep the night before class. I just showered (most times) and went straight to class the next morning. Living this lifestyle has it’s perks but it also has it’s pitfalls, one of which is the physical toll it takes on you. Because of the lack of rest, today I bore a striking resemblance to The Phantom of The Opera (the 1925 Lon Chaney silent movie version-not the glitzy Andrew Lloyd Webber version). That was okay I suppose. Like I stated, the unbridled carefree nightlife is not without it’s considerable drawbacks. The ironic part of being so sorrowfully & pitifully sleepy all work week, is that it’s almost impossible for me to sleep at night without medication. Ever since my Blood Blessing last year, I’ve been plagued by horrible insomnia. Ambien (generic) has been my very best friend since then. However, if you mix it with alcohol…well, let’s just say you should NEVER mix it with alcohol. In the recent past, after consuming the two together (Ambien & alcohol), I’d had whole conversations, e-mail exchanges and performed many complicated tasks that I have no memory of whatsoever. I’ve only been able to “recall” those lost moments by the few “amnesiatic” clues I’d left behind, from the day before or so. Periodically, while in my normal conscious state, I’d received an e-mail reply from someone I never recalled emailing in the first place. I’d go back to the email string to discover that I not only had an online exchange with them that I initiated, but that I was also grammatically correct, witty and spelled perfectly (better than usual). It was/is horrifyingly scary to lose huge blocks of time and actions like that. Frankly, that’s when I first started to fear that I could possibly be a werewolf or that I may have fully functioning multiple personalities (both of which I’ve not yet disproven). It got so bad that I stopped drinking alcohol (a considerable amount) when I knew I’d be taking prescription sleeping meds. The most recent relapse happened this week, the day after Karaoke Wednesday (yesterday). After playfully singing and drinking, I’d gotten home pretty late. I knew I had to get at least a couple of hours of good hard sleep to make it to work by 6AM, so I took a pill even though I hadn’t fully digested all that alcohol (rum & cokes were half price-by the way). I woke up with a small pair of surgical scissors in my bed. It wasn’t until I was getting ready for work the next morning that I even noticed the scissors. Right then, I thanked God that I didn’t poke myself in the eye with them as I slept. That morning at work, my big toe was hurting a little more than usual. For a while, I dismissed it as a harmless trick my mind was playing on me since I’d admitted in my last blog entry that I kinda liked the pain connected to my big (left) toe. As the morning wore on though, my toe just didn’t feel right. So after sitting at my desk for a while, I took off my shoe and removed my knee hi and saw that I’d cut off nearly half of my toenail! WTF!? It looks like a dipped my big toe raw red meat and then let a coyote naw on it for about an hour. Even though I’d showered and scrubbed my feet that morning (without realizing at that time), I still had scores of dried blood in my toe crevices, I still do. Y’all, I kid you not, my toe is a straight mess. When I got home from work yesterday, I saw the 2nd pair of scissors on my nightstand (I usually use 2 different pair for those hard to reach areas). That means that I’d performed minor surgery on myself while ‘under the influence’ and had enough sense to put one pair of scissors away before I went to bed. Almost at that exact second, sis called me to ask if I wanted her to make an appointment to get my nails and feet done (she was already at the salon). I gingerly replied that I only wanted my nails done, not my feet but I didn’t tell her why. When I got there, she was getting her feet done and asked why I didn’t want mine done too. Well, I had to confess and show her my sloppy surgical handy work. She was stunned and told me that she was going to make an appointment to see a podiatrist right away. I asked her not to just yet but she probably will anyway. I’m hoping things will heal up on their own and that “the ugly” will just go away. Honestly, I’m pretty proud of my size 11s. To me, they’re cute as feet go but not now though. I have a highly anticipated party Saturday night that I’d dare not wear open-toed shoes to. My toes are..were…one of my best physical features. That’s life I guess. Though I don’t specifically remember making this mess of myself, I can just imagine me, with my masculine ‘pain is for wimps’ attitude, digging and cutting deeper and deeper. I would post a picture of it if I wasn’t so embarrassed and y’all know, I’m not easily embarrassed. Today at work though, while thinking about writing this, I wasn’t too embarrassed to show one of my co-workers what I’d done. After seeing my toe, she cringed and said, “Girl, what the heck did you do?!” Then I proceeded to tell her the whole story. I hate even looking at it because it reminds me that some things, while controlled by me, are a little out of my (conscious) control, like getting angry or emotionally hurt. Not cool, not cool at all. That’s probably one of the worst feelings in the world to me. In fact, it’s what I hate most about having surgery/general anesthesia. Pain is nothing, pain is a small and insignificant thing to me but the lost time is terrifying. One minute you’re up talking and making sense, then all of a sudden, you blink your eyes once and you’re all bandaged up and in some place you don’t remember going to. What happened when I was out? Were the surgeons fondling me or making fun of my cartoonish facial features? If they were, it’s kinda my fault because I’m the one that decided to have surgery. I could’ve just lived with my ailment, no matter how painful or annoying…at least it’d all be within my own control (except the pain). It reminds me of how uncooked I still am life-wise. And while I’ve improved a lot, I’m still so far from being the person I want to be. I dunno, I guess in a weird way it’s good because those feelings/ lost moments make me try harder. It makes me want to be more fair, caring and loving. Besides karma is a bitch! I sincerely believe that the bad things you do, even on a subconscious level, will come back to haunt you. And since I don’t think I’ve horribly offended or murdered anyone in my “altered state”, I might be a decent human being on a subconscious level too. It’s good to know that I don’t seem to have any dark demons that need expressing or release from my normal personality (I use the term ‘normal’ loosely here). If I could just stay away from sharp objects while on my “sleep trip” I can hold on to my 9 and ½ remaining toenails. Thank goodness it’s boot season.
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