Do You Ever Feel Like Tyler Durden?

This is like the most thoughtful question I've gotten about insomnia for a long time. In fact, when people belittle insomnia as a real thing, I ask them if they remember how "Fight Club" started. They tell me they have no idea what I'm talking about--twice, strangely--and I walk away because having the credit set to zero would help my life tremendously (those were a few Fight Club references, for the rest of you guys who didn't watch this movie somehow. Maybe you were studying abroad and saw a horrible translation of a movie title, like La Discoteca de Lucha or Hombre Lucharse, and then got sidetracked by some pretty incredible historical sights. Rilli tho, Spain is a pretty cool place to go that also has terrible translations of movie titles.)

Tyler Durden is a great example of what can happen when you don't sleep. You can create a cult, kill people by accident, and develop dissociative identity disorder (I'm late on getting my DSM V--this is still in there, right?) all over the course of a few months. As I'm writing this, I'm sublingually administering half an Ambien. If you've ever done this, you know that my bad-assery is definitely on par with Tyler Durden and you also probably never did it again. Putting Ambien (zolpidem tartrate) under your tongue and letting the solid pill dissolve, as the vagrant, now slightly viscous powder-saliva aims for your inconveniently placed bitter-receptor taste buds, is no easy feat. It's like putting a cube of pool-cue chalk in your mouth and waiting for it to sting...yes, it stings (why?). I could easily go on another tangent on pica and how I think anyone with pica is a freak (not at furry status, tho), but I've done that too many times.

Why sublingual administration? Because snorting is not an option, needles are horrifying (as much as sometimes mainlining Ambien seems like a good idea--at least to my Ambien self, who is coming out to play as we speak), and also...go hard or go home. Basically it works faster (they do this with some seizure meds too, except those are more like Communion wafers. OMG I love Communion wafers. They're THE BEST. You only get them at white-people churches tho bc honestly you know that's the cheap shit. Yet ANOTHER reason Latino churches are superior is that they give you straight up BREAD. Like you are AWARE you are eating the Body of Christ with the practical loaf they give you. All white churches care about is how short the homily is gonna be so that they can get the stale donuts downstairs [which the Church didn't even buy]. But their homilies suck anyway. Latino homilies are like [in Spanish] "Yo, it's early, but all the more reason to review some of the most fucked-up lives and situations we have in the Bible. Let's review this and look at our own lives and shut the fuck up and follow the Golden Rule.").

Now that I for no reason have given you this lesson in pills, back to Tyler Durden. Edward Norton was such a bitch in the movie that they didn't even give his character a name--only his alter. That's pretty fucked up, but I guess it's just demonstrative of THE MILLIONS OF NAMELESS INSOMNIACS ALL OVER. Also, just to reiterate, there's no such thing as productive insomnia, so I guess that's why they have to make Edward Norton a bitch.

Now that I'm thinking about it, Tyler Durden got a lot of shit done. He coordinated a worldwide phenomenon and convinced his followers to execute his plan. I now understand this movie in a whole new way--Tyler Durden is Edward Norton's Ambien self. Like why the fuck would you make a soap company unless you thought it was a good idea on Ambien? (No offense to my friend who actually made a soap company; I should probably buy some soap from you soon just for writing that. Unless it was an Ambien idea).

Sorry, everyone, I'm actually so blown away (unlike Edward Norton, somehow, which I never really understood because that was a real gun) by my realization that Tyler Durden is the Ambien self that I'm gonna try to go to sleep. Also because the Ambien dissolved. To answer the question, I guess I only slightly feel like Tyler Durden. Only slightly. Sleep, dear friends, you need it to avoid dissociation!

Is Cam'Ron Obsessed With Harry Potter?

Of course he is. Ridiculous question. Here's a verse he wrote in 2011:

The sorcerer’s home

I’m the source of the stone

Crack rocks home grown

I hold the wand

Eat bon bons

With Tom Toms

Genius of love

I’m a genius of hugs

I squash all the bugs

I gotta mean mug

I serve that caramel latte

That Cam latte

KILLA!

I make that starbuck

That money stuff

That money’s rough

Streets rough n stuff

I gotta lotta stuff

She gets a lotta stuffed

That Butterball

You know I ball

(SLIIIIIIMEEEE!)

I don’t roll with Hufflepuffs

I’m on that Muggle buff

That up and up

That 9 ¾ step

That magic cup

I cook it up

In my Pyrex Potter cup

She got that Ravenclaw

That Haven claw

She scratch n Sniff

I vault her quick

KILLA!

I serv n’ Snape

I slither in

That slippy slidey

Slip n spin

That skip it skin

I boy toy roy roy

Quidditch win

10 points for dementor

I’m da mentor

I’m talking Dumbledore

You dummy bore

Should hit the floor

I’ll get you more

I sort the hats

That fedora sombrero

I’m the top hat

Her bottom’s flat

I can’t do that

Ratatat expelliarme out the flat

KILLA!

Ronald Weasley

Ronald McDonald

Ya mo be there

Michael McDonald

I’ll wrap your snacks

Show up at the drive thru

Castle no hassle

Just hustles and tassles

Hogwarts

Drugmarts

I run botany class

I plant plants

And she pant pants

Can’t breathe

And she got no pants

Just a note pad

And a tote bag

and I bag n toke

I’ll give her a token

Back to Azkaban

That’s killa’s plan

KILLA CAM

What's the Best Part of Being an Insomniac?

Every now and then, I like to peep my traffic sources (Whaddup, Germany and Russia?! Thanks for reading!) and keyword searches that lead people to Ask An Insomniac (AAI). (Whatever--it's not a book, but I wanted to add the italics for DRAMATIZATION. Plus, I'm that not-tired tired that is sadly familiar to many of us. The proud, the few, the AWAKE ALL THE FUCKING TIME, DEAR SLEEP WAVES ALPHA THROUGH DELTA AND PHARMA, PLEASE HELP US .)

I came upon this today:

This is a sampling of some of the things that people search to get to this weird, weird blog. Big up all the real insomniacs who were too tired to spell or use proper punctuation (boxed in green). "Tounge," ". o," "insomniax," and "comborbities," I salute you. (Also hoping there isn't a Club Insomniax that I haven't been to yet.) Especially you, comborbities. Because--ask your doctor--but you may have comorbid insomnia and dyslexia. But this is a safe place, especially if you bring up Cuban sandwiches (!!!!!).

But this leads to today's question, "What's the best part of being an insomniac?"
I would like to assume that this is from a fellow insomniac, as I imagine him/her/ze crawling Grudge-style to the computer after days without sleep and hallucinating patterns the likes of which Tim Gunn is probably telling you suck, whilst secretly plotting to sell them to the sleeping masses (My longest stretch with NO sleep was 36 hours--the patterns are real, son. Well, in that they're not real, but they are).

OK, so perhaps I've already given you one idea for what the best part of being an insomniac is...if you work in fashion. Please send me freebies if I have inspired you, thanks.

So that's my assumption, worst-case scenario is that we're like in the danger hours during which shingles or encephalitis or IFIDONTFINDMYPILLOWINTHISROOMFULLOF...PILLOWS? occur. Equally bad is if it's someone who doesn't really have insomnia but is trying to coopt the struggle. That's right guys, there are insomnia hipsters out there, and they aim to diminish our experience.

People think it's cool to have insomnia. People think insomnia is not a real thing. Put these two widespread thoughts about insomnia out there, and you have a trendy, non-illness illness. :/

To the people who want to co-opt "productive insomnia" as an identity/struggle, your real struggle is not sounding full of shit to actual insomniacs while having to hope that a pack of insomniacs doesn't come for dat ass at 5:30am while you're "not sleeping productively" in your fucking den of lies.  

I've mentioned "productive insomnia" before and how anyone who tells you they have it is mid-manic episode (altho it could easily be drug-induced insomnia), but I've heard it again from people I know damn well have no trouble sleeping. No one has productive diabetes, no one has productive chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and no one has productive insomnia. 

(Who curses Sir Walter Raleigh aside from someone who hasn't slept?! Think about it)

This begs the question, "What illnesses have productive aspects?" Going back to diabetes, perhaps being in studies for medications that work or being in focus groups to better quality of life may be productive. Same goes for COPD. So, as we can see the "productive" aspects are merely byproducts of an illness with which one has to contend and to treat. Insomnia is also an illness. If I happen to draw something during an hour I can't sleep, it doesn't mean I'm being productive--it means I'm avoiding the effects of the illness. But chances are I have work the next day. So if you think that one hour of shitty drawing at 4 am is productive, just wait till the next 18 hours of my not doing shieeettt.

Wait till the very productive discussion that goes like this:

Coworker (in slow motion, from my perspective): "Gooooood mornnnnning, how are yoooouuuuu?"

Me: "Is. it. the. morning? I ju--"

Coworker (I'm catching on, her voice has picked up in speed): "Haha, you're so funny. It's only Tuesday, silly!"

Me: "Tuesday? Wait, were we here yesterday?"

Coworker: "No, you called me and asked me to tell the boss to tell her you were gonna be out. Something about the couch was talking to you and you couldn't 'handle it right now' and also you think you should use 2B pencils on Oscar Wilde, but maybe markers could give you the flexibility in color that you were looking for; you read me a hypothetical to-do list for city council members and asked me if there was anything I should add; you told me that Jimmy Fallon should stop frowning at all his guests and read me your letter to NBC; and you asked if I'd be interested in a coup d'etat."

Me: "Thanks. Do you want something from Starbucks?"

That's how productive my insomnia gets, people. It's all fun and games until you have to explain the coup situation to human resources.

One of my brands of insomnia means that I cannot get to sleep. Think "I'm So Tired" by The Beatles. Or "How Soon Is Now" (if I'm listening to it while I'm tired...I am human and I need to be REM'd...just like everybody else sleeps...)

Every insomniac is different, so any positives you can find are just that--positives. Let me know what some of yours are! Sometimes there's pleasure in knowing I'm the only person awake, but if I have to do a cost-benefit ratio, it never looks so good on the benefit side.

"See, I've already waited too long...and my hope is gone...." (=some nights. Once it hits 4 am, I know that night is a wrap)