After having the doctor's office call me to reschedule the day before my appointment last week, I had to abandon the thought of seeing him this past Thursday. Instead, I went this afternoon.

It was productive, such as it is.

I revealed how I'd been Ambien's bitch for too long and that I wanted to stop taking it. He said that he's heard a lot of such claims from Ambien patients who have been taking the stuff for more than one year (I'm a month shy of my fourth year of being on it). I told him that it was getting dangerous and, combined with my PTSD, that I should stop taking Ambien because it's really been dragging on me. So I was switched to Lunesta, 6mg per day (normal high dose for Lunesta is 3mg/day). I also got scrips for Seroquel to help with the PTSD, an increase in my Lexapro dosage, from 20mg/day to 40mg/day. And most importantly I'm now taking Adderall again. After Katrina, what with all the PTSD jibblies around, I found it (and I'm still finding it) extremely difficult to concentrate and be productive. Frankly, I'm amazed I haven't been fired from my job yet. But now that I have some speed (Adderall 30mg/day), maybe I can regain a level or two of lost productivity on my work.

I decided before the appointment that I wasn't really suicidal anymore -- my outbursts from last week were due to my disappointment and feeling helpless about the power that Ambien had over me for so long. And now that Ambien is no longer in my life, I feel remarkedably better.

So, yeah. Ambien isn't too good for me, given my history with it. But I'm not going to denounce all Ambien users, no, of course not -- if it works like it's supposed to for you, keep taking it! But if you find yourself going through a prescription of Ambien in less than a week, I'd advise you to seek help, because if you're anything like me, Ambien is a ticking time bomb which could blow up (or at least crash) your car, get you divorced, get your sprogs taken away, lose your job, etc. Get help before it's too late. Or at least I think you should if your predilition for the effects that Ambien brings is as strong as mine was, which is to say, very strong, addiction strong.

Now, I can only hope that I can pull my career out of my ass before it's too late.

Since I've got that bitter parasuicidal groove thing going on lately (see my previous entry for further details), I've been listening to accordingly parasuicidal music. Here's a playlist for you to assemble and use to accompany your despair:

01. Concrete Blonde - Tomorrow, Wendy
02. Xymox - Imagination
03. Lycia - Everything is cold
04. Joy Division - Isolation
05. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms
06. This Mortal Coil - Holocaust
07. Cranes - September
08. Hayden - Bullet
09. Spiritualized - Broken heart
10. Ben Folds Five - Brick
11. REM - Everybody hurts
12. The Autumns - Suicide at Strell Park

Still, I'm sure this is just a phase of mine; my mind's own preparation for turning 30. I see my shrink on Thursday. I just hope he can actually help instead of giving me different drugs to develop addictions to.

Hey, hey, good-bye
Tomorrow, Wendy is going to die

So I went to see Ex-Voto (bland, standard goth metal; oddly enough the lead singer was wearing corpse paint) and The Birthday Massacre (happy fun pseudogoth pseudometal) on Sunday night. TBM rocked the hizzouse, yo.



Above: Michael and Chibi (right) on stage.

Ben was there, too, along with some of his university friends, who where all nice and friendly. Good to see him again; seems we run into each other only at concerts, 'cos the last time I saw him was at the VNV Nation show last May. And also, the new Howlin' Wolf is a really nice place. The pre-Katrina one was a total piss-stained dive. The new one is comparable to, say, One-Eyed Jacks, only a little bigger and with a bigger bar. The new place is roughly across Peters Street from where the old place was.

And yes, the pictures don't lie. Chibi, TBM's lead singer, is quite hot. If she were president she'd be Baberham Lincoln. I hope someone can talk her into becoming a SuicideGirl. Mmm... naked Chibi.

Finally, if you'd rather not read about me delving into parasuicidal navel-gazing, then don't read this. (Yes, it was written by me.) However, if you care about me even a little, please read it and give me your thoughts.

Hour and a half left til I'm off work. As per usual these days, I hunger for sleep, where I can dream and experience actual freedom and superpowers and other things you might read about in the homoerotic, masculist superhero comic books aimed at adolescent boys from the 1950s to present. The only differences are actual sensations and a decided lack of homoeroticism and masculism. Well, that and not being printed on newsprint and happening only in my superconscious, but still. You get the point.

Hey, look! It's my primary World of Warcraft character, live in real time! Well, real time as of yesterday.

I cleaned my apartment this evening, and despite this I've been feeling pretty blah lately. I think it might be time for a shake-up; a psychiatry appointment and ideally some different meds. Hopefully new meds that I won't get addicted to, because part of my blahness lately has come from my addictions to Ambien and Xanax. Well, that, and being sex-starved, but being sex-starved is a little easier to deal with than having no drugs when your body is craving them. C'mon, you know you wanna knock boots with a World of Warcraft player who rarely leaves his apartment. Mmyep.

Also, does anyone know where online I can get a PDF of an L4 tax form? I need to turn one in by tomorrow and I can't seem to find one. I found the W4 form I needed easily enough, but it seems the L4 is either very esoteric or goes by a more bureaucratic designation that the W4. You'd think that work would provide copies of both, but apparently since I'm in the office only when no one else is, I get left out in the cold when it comes to these things.

I have a ticket for this show later this month. And weeeee.

Well, here I am back at the office, finally. Prior to this week I'd been working from home since August 31 -- the day I arrived in Nashville during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And so right now I'm sitting in a $200 office chair on the 10th floor of Poydras Centre in downtown New Orleans, which is, as far as I can tell, devoid of any other people except for late-night janitors and a shoestring security staff.

I brought my laptop to work with me so I could fuck around on teh intarweb while I update my office workstation, which has gone unused since the day Katrina hit.

Here's a picture of my workstation/time-waster/desk/etc:



The screen on the left is the monitor for my Linux box, which is in the process of being upgraded to OpenSuSE 10, which hadn't been available at the time I last used this box. (I think it came out sometime in October.)

In the middle is my bottle o' Coke and a bag of Zapp's Salsa Santa Fe potato chips. To the right is my trusty laptop, an HP Pavilion ze2000.

To go along with all this is my new work schedule, which started this week: 9:00pm to 7:00am, Tuesday through Friday. Ugh. 10 hour days, not so good. But at least it gives me three-day weekends every week, which means I can waste even more of my life playing World of Warcraft than before.

Also (unrelatedly), you should go lavish Sophie with praise for her astounding beauty and debonair charm. You know, like, just because she's the bestest suicidegirl ever.

Anyway, work is completely deadsville tonight, so I'm going outside (onto the 11th floor balcony overlooking Lafayette Square, no less) to have a smoke or two whle I wait for OpenSuSE to finish installing.

As a World of Warcraft player and devoted LOTR fanboy, I couldn't help but find this funny:

http://fellowcraft.ytmnd.com/

Frodo: quest is red 2 me lol
Frodo, Gandalf: wtf???
Sam: LFG
Merry: wut quest u gyz on
Frodo: its ?? elite dotn aggro plz
Aragorn: u nubs wunt me to run u thru tihs quets???
Merry: wtf we not getting any xp now
Frodo: wtf???
Frodo: ur drawing aggro u fucking nubs!!1
Sam: omg this group sux
Frodo: ned heal plz
Arwen: preist here
Sam: give fort buff
Arwen: carrot on a stick lol
Frodo: where the fp in tihs town???
Frodo: LFM
Legolas: illl come
Gimli: u need tank?
Boromir: i get plate drops kk?
Sam: i think hes a ninja
Frodo: ok head 2 instance guyz
Frodo: heres instance door anyone have key?
Gandalf: omg i left mine in teh bank >.<
Frodo: ...
Pippin: lol u noob, i rmembered mine
Frodo: HLEP I AGGROD 1
Boromir: dont fight u nubs just run in teh instance
Legolas: lol made it
Pippin: i juts aggroed mre
Gimli: U FUKING NOOB
Boromir: who has ss??
Sam: 2 many run 4 it lol
Gandalf: heal plz
Frodo: use mana sheild!!113`
Aragorn: lol cant rez him he fel 2 far
Sam: my armors red
Aragorn: wacth out horde!!1
Boromir: /spit
Boromir: help tehy ganking me
Lurtz: [Orcish] kek
Aragorn: owned lol
Boromir: rez plz
Frodo: worsts group ever im juts gonna solo bye guyz
Sam: no wait plllllllz i need xp!!!!!!111
Sam: [Breathe]
Frodo: whatever nub im putting it onmaster looter then
Gollum: LFG

I am HOME! In NEW ORLEANS!

I think I speak for all who evacuated the hurricanes when I say FUCKING FINALLY!





Anyway. Check out my freezer. Mmm, freeze-dried maggots:



Anyway. I lucked out by a rather huge degree. Check out
my fridge (the brown streaky things are bits of rotted
veggies):

So it's another one of those stupid holidays in America. It means nothing to me; I don't celebrate any holidays at all, or my birthday. This has been a major point of contention amongst people I've known and my family, but I steadfastly refuse to take part in any holiday at all. Some reasons:

&bull; Consumerism sucks
&bull; Americana sucks
&bull; Tradition sucks
&bull; Being different is good
&bull; I'm contrarian by nature

I don't visit my family for any holiday, not even xmas (my least-favourite holiday). I visit at other times of the year instead of when I'm expected to.

I just wish there was a larger anti-holiday movement in the US than there is now. I mean, how many people have you ever met that don't get into holidays at all? Probably not too many.

Also:

I'm going to see Tegan & Sara in Nashville on Tuesday (Nov 29). I have two extra tickets that I've offered to Quinne, but I dunno if she wants them or not. So if you want them, let me know before Tuesday. They're free.

Only two more weeks in Nashville before I can go home!

I just hope, what with a lot of stuff still closed down, that living in NO is much the same as it was before the fucking storms.

Also, I've got a mug of chamomile tea, with sugar in the raw, and I've been smoking discards until I can get up later today to pick up some more

And now, since I can hardly type or read at the moment, due to the Ambien, I think it's ptobably time for for me to go to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

I shouldn't be saying this, but for the past two weeks I've been trying to get out of relationship that doesn't make me feel good and what's more I just wish she'd pick up my hint. *sigh*

The contents of this post were made by Ambien stupor.

O RLY?