The Weekend So Far

Well, six people from Charleston trekked to Huntington yesterday for the second meeting of their Scrabble club. Funny thing, though...aside from one dedicated player (who has driven here to Charleston to play) and one newer, but very skilled, player...no one else from Huntington showed up. Not even...umm...the director. It appears that just maybe the last meeting's strong showing was a fluke, a lot of the director's friends showing up at his request, etc.

Still, we had a great time in a really cool environment. We snacked on mostly vegetarian food (which was delicious) and had some very non-vegan cappuccino drinks and milkshakes. I ended up 2-1 with a pretty decent point spread and, you know, as long as I don't just do really, really bad...I'm happy just to play. Based on this experience, and the need for the occasional backup director here in Charleston, I've decided to take the NSA Director's Test. Passing this test will not just make me more of a Miss Smarty Pants, it will qualify me to conduct or officiate, so to speak, both club meetings and tournaments.

Since Eric is away with the Army Reserves on drills this weekend, the rest of the evening found me at home, playing Scrabulous on Facebook, goofing around on the Internets, and researching exciting things like wallpaper. Before I knew it, though, it seemed like it was just about bedtime.

So without Ambien, I can't maintain an acceptable amount of sleep. Before I started taking it, I had a hard time falling asleep, would sleep restlessly, and would wake up every morning about 4:30 and not be able to go back to sleep. Now my routine is to take it about 10:30 or 11:00 and go to bed about 45 minutes later, when it really kicks in. I do have what's known as Ambien Amnesia which means I have almost no memory of conversations and events while Ambien is in my system. One sort of funny part of this side effect is my tendency to send somewhat off-the-wall or nonsensical e-mail to people while I'm Ambien. It's a good thing I'm not the angry drunk type, so the e-mails usually don't have any malicious content. The most troublesome, but less common, problem is what I call "breaking through" the Ambien. When this happens, I somehow move past the medication's sleep inducement and stay up nearly all night with no real sense of the passing of time. This has only happened a few times but, yes, it happened last night. One minute I was getting ready to wrap up the last of my Scrabulous moves before the ridiculousness set in and, the next thing I knew, it was 4:00 a.m. I sent an e-mail to someone at 3:00 a.m., the evidence of which is in my OutBox. Other than that, I think I played more Scrabulous.

So much for my crazy-chick-who-totally-pulls-off-the-acting-normal thing. Today will continue to be one seriously tired day. I'm glad Eric will be home tonight so he can supervise and make sure I actually go to sleep at some point.