And now a word from our sponsor...

A couple months ago, I finally broke down and talked to my doctor about my insomnia. It's plagued me my entire life. I have middle insomnia, I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot get back to sleep, at least for 3 or 4 hours. Some nights, I just didn't sleep at all. I don't feel comfortable taking sleeping pills. I'm afraid that I won't wake up if my daughter cries, or even worse, I'll wake up and be loopy. Plus, the list of side effects from those things make me wonder what the point is. What good is an 8 hour coma if you feel like hell the next day? My doctor suggested I try Cymbalta, a new fangled anti-depressant. On it's list of side affects, I found a new addition to my vocabulary, "Somnolence". I spent a couple weeks nodding off, constantly yawning, and feeling like I had been drugged by some frat boy. (Let's face it, we all know frat boys are all rapists.) After about 3 weeks, I started sleeping the most glorious, wonderful, sound sleep. I smile more, I laugh more, I read alot more, I enjoy my life, much, much more.

The real reason I'm writing this, is that I want to tell you about my dreams. I have been having the most vivid, bizare, funny dreams. I often remember them too. Last night in particular, I had one that made me giggle when I woke up.

I was being interviewed by O.J. Simpson. He was wearing an outdated, pinstripe, three piece suit, a blue shirt, yellow tie and reading glasses. The office we were in, kind of felt "shrinky". I was even reclining on a leather couch. O.J. had a yellow memo pad and seemed to be writing absent mindedly.
"Why do you like pickles?" he asked.
I just gave him a weird squinty look which he exchanged for a raised eyebrow from over his reading glasses.
"Tell me about your mother." he demanded.
"She's in Bulgaria" I replied. I totally pulled that out of my ass. I guess I just wanted to see if he could tell I was lying.
Orenthal (all the cool kids call him Orenthal) kept writing on the memo pad. "Why did you kill Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman?" he asked without even looking up from his memo pad. "Seriously?" I yelled with an indignant laugh.
He gave me that look again from over his glasses.
"Shouldn't you be playing golf somewhere?" I asked, conveying my annoyance with his unprofessional projection. Why are shrinks always doing that? They always seem to project their own issues on their patients. -Hence, the pickle question.
Orenthal gave me that icy, over the glasses, raised eyebrow look a few seconds two long, then looked down at his memo pad and wrote some more.
I could only guess what he was writing. "Subject shows, aggressive, evasive responses to questions. She is uncooperative, and is displaying anti-social tendencies." Funny stuff coming from a murderer.
"Tell me, what does a guy in Brentwood need with a ski mask anyway?" I asked, thinking I'd take him off guard. "I mean, who wears those anyway. I've never seen anyone racing down a black diamond, looking like a bank robber or psychotic killer." ....."No offense." I added after he gave me that look again.
At this point, the room felt a little tense. I could feel my face turning red as I stared at my shoes. It was the shoes that got me. Well, actually, it was my socks. I was wearing black patent leather Mary-Janes and frilly, little girl ankle socks. That's when I realized I was dressed like a Japanese school girl. No wonder Orenthal kept giving me that look. I'm a little old for this look, if you know what I mean.
I sat up and leaned on his desk, playing with my pigtails. "I have a present for you." I said smiling.
I handed Orenthal a neatly wrapped box.
He gave me that look again for a second, sighed and shook his head as he opened the gift.
"They don't fit." he said, holding up a leather glove that he had tried to stuff his arthritic fingers into.
"Of course they don't." I said with a wink.

That's when I woke up.

Cymbalta.

Better living through chemistry.