I have 3 prescriptions for sleeping pills. Ambien, Trazadone and Vistaril. As a long term chronic insomniac I feel I earned these pills through years of sleepless nights and the resultant depression, paranoia and psychotic giddiness.
Ambien is a nice little drug. Tiny white pill, puts me to sleep in about 30 minutes. Keeps me asleep for about 4-6 hours. Vistaril and Trazadone do not put me to sleep, but they keep me asleep once I get there. Taken together, an Ambien and Vistaril will put me into such a solid state of sleep for 12 hours or more. I cannot take the Vistaril if I have to work the next day, it’s impossible for me to be awake enough.
For the last 2 nights I’ve had to take the Ambien. I cannot explain to you what it feels like to finally sleep after so many restless nights. The sleep comes to you like deep warm pillows of fresh baked bread, conforting you, cradling you, holding you aloft.
While they say the pills are “non habit forming” I say they are wrong. I have a strict rule that no matter what, I do not take them more than 2 days in a row for I find myself on the second day literally CRAVING the sleep, the weight of drowsiness, the way one might crave an extra ripe mango or homemade ice cream.
This morning, as I was driving to work, I considered turning around, going home, and taking another Ambien. It wouldn’t hurt, would it? just one? just spend the day wrapped up and snoozing.
And that’s like the first sign of addiction, isn’t it? Just go ask Nancy Reagan! I was willing to forego my adult responsibilities in exchange for drug induced sleep.
Some people go out and drink every night of the week, others hide in dingy rooms and shoot up. I’m a sleep junkie.
My name is heather and I am addicted to sleep.
(ps Lenscrafters tried to charge me over $350 to replace just the lenses in 2 pairs of glasses. The people at Lenscrafters are fucking insane)

I could write about 2 things
1) an amusing story with sound effects involving: dogs, vomit, great arcs, hair, my toes, and a pig ear
2) David’s birthday
As much as I would like to tell you the dog vomit story, I will be kind and only share it with a few people. It’s very funny, but also extremely gross. So, on to David’s birthday.
On Monday David turned 33. For 3 months out of the year we are the same age, then I have my birthday and I am older than him again and I get to feel like a super pervert. Hot. (not as much as April and her boyfriend, that place is like perversion central!). Super.
David is way hard to buy for. The best rule I’ve come up with is get him either something edible or get him something practical and useful. Fine. So, the dogs got him a big thing of roasted peanuts, sour gummy worms and Jelly Bellies (I love to pretend like the dogs got him a present because it makes me sound like one of those women pushing middle age without children who is funneling all the maternal instinct into her pets…oh…wait…yeah, never mind). I got him a new cordless phone and the Trojan Pleasure Pack condom set (practical and useful!).
I wanted to take him out to dinner. Some place nice and quiet and not too expensive and not loud and full of hipsters and with good food. A long time ago I read a review of a place in my neighborhood that sounded perfect but I couldn’t remember the name of the place. So I tried looking it up. I knew it was something seemingly mundane like Lunch Box or TV Tray. I knew I wanted to go there. I spent the better aprt of the day utilizing my search skills and asking friends and digging everywhere. Finally, I dug deep enough and found it. Hot Plate! The place is called Hot Plate. The place also does breakfast, brunch and lunch but no dinner. So I worked really hard to find myself back where I started.
More and more research. Finally I settled on Broders for the After 8 Special. It was perfect, it was exactly what I was going for. Quiet, good food, romantic. AND the poor man’s Matthew Broderick sat us! It was uncanny how much he looked like a cheap clone of Ferris Bueller. I totally wanted to go “Bueller….Bueller….Bueller” at him, but I am aware that just because you think someone looks like a famous celebrity doesn’t mean they recognize this in themselves (I do not fucking look like John Denver). We also had the Bargain Basement Hurley at the table next to us. He was sunny but a little nervous and the chica he was with was way annoying.
I need to stop watching people when I eat.
Anyway, this is my big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to David. I am so thrilled to have him in my life, he is a constant source of comfort, amazement and joy.

I used to be little little little

My obsession with giant glasses started young! I am wearing my favorite overalls and my favorite mickey mouse shirt.


We should have known early on I was prone to fucking up my hair. The day before our appointment at the Sears Photo Studios I took scissors to my hair and my sister’s. Luckily, they were able to cover up the hack job I did on her hair…mine, not so much. Years later, when I was in my mid twenties, I did the same exact thing to my bangs. History is a cycle we are doomed to repeat because the gods are mirthful.

Hooray for Santa! You’ll note that I am wearing my awesome yellow pants with the SUPER AWESOME Ronald McDonald iron on face! People often ask me, “heather, why are you such a pervert? You seem like such a nice person.” All I have to do is show them this photo and it all becomes crystal clear.

My sister in her totally cool polyester dress! Cool story about that dress…It used to be mine and I loved wearing, i thought I was so pretty in it. I was also a daydreamer and dilly-dallier, i was often late for school. Finally, the principal got mad at me for being late all the time and put me into In School Suspension. Basically, you’re locked into a small room by the office and you have to work on your school work all day. They bring you your lunch and you are not allowed to go to recess. Well, during the course of my first day in ISS no one told me what to do if I had to pee. So I held it as long as I could and eventually peed myself. I was wearing that dress. When the office ladies discovered what happened there was a lot of tut-tutting and the janitor was called and I stood there feeling deeply ashamed as I watched the guy clean my pee off the chair. I was made to stand in my wet dress all day. mmmm polyester and childhood trauma.

Holy crap….more pictures

There are no words. Seriously. I can only apologize. Where do I begin? with the perm? the clothes? the chrysler? if I recall correctly, that was a little jumper like dress. I’m sure I was wearing black flats and white socks with it because I was that kind of girl.

More perm madness and by the looks of it, this perm is…FRESH! Check out the acid washed jeans and the baggy t-shirt. I’d give anything to know what product I was hyping on that t-shirt. I have no idea why we were at the airport in the photo.

High school, 11th grade homecoming dance, Jason. Aw Jason. He’s the fucker that stole my Harvard sweatshirt. Asshole. When I think about my dating life and the relationships I have held I sometimes think of him and feel lucky. Not lucky in the sense that I was lucky to date him, but lucky in the sense that I was smart enough to see what a dick he was. He was so damned charming. He oooooooozed charm, it was way seductive, but he was an asshole and had I stayed with him I’m sure they would have made a Lifetime Original Movie about us. As it was, we dated off and on throughout high school, much to the chagrin of my parents who knew he was trouble. Um, also, white flats! Who the fuck wears white flats with a seafoam green dress?

Just another shot of the amazing mullet featured in a previous post. That’s some wicked mullet action. Jesus, I feel lucky knowing nothing happened with this dude either.

Here it is, my late 80’s/early 90’s shame. Check out my supremely architected hair and glasses with lenses giant enough to fit the hubble space telescope.

Here I am at 15…possibly 16, at my younger sister’s birthday. Notice my swank Harvard sweatshirt (which I soon gave to a boy I thought I would love forever and broke up with weeks later. I never got the sweatshirt back). I was so proud of that hair. It took so much work. I swear I am responsible for much of the chemical pollution in the upper midwest. I used all kinds of crazy chemical madness in my hair.

Here I am at 17, hair shorter, not quite as big but still heavily laden with all manner of shellacs, mousses and gels. My sister, 2 years younger, has already surpassed me in height. She’s there (in the blue) with her high school boyfriend. They set me up on a date with a friend of thiers. I honestly don’t remember his name. One would think you would not forget a mullet of such amazingness….and yet… Also, I remember the first time I saw this picture after the dance. I wept quietly for hours hating myself for being so damned fat. I was prepared to never ever be seen by the world again. Now I look at that photo and wish I was down to the size.

mmmm giant glasses. The height difference between up is becoming even more obvious. What you can’t really make out in this photo is that I am wearing a pair of patterned green silk ‘hammer pants’. Okay, they weren’t quite hammer pants, they did not have the long, draggy crotch or anything just that same sort of style. I always wanted to be elegant as a teen. Can’t you tell?

Longer hair, more giant glasses, baggy betty boop shirt. Amazing. Luckily, the 90’s happened and we turned away from ceiling scraping bangs and elaborate curling iron gymnastics, on the other hand, for no reason apparent to anyone, I still have a ton of mousse and hairspray in my hair.

My sister emailed these pictures to me the other day, they make me laugh. Man, sometimes I miss how self conscious I was back then. I worked and worked and worked on being pretty. Now I’m just wondering if it is important that my clothes match.