Wednesday, 14th of April 2010 at 12:57:23 AM 
I'll lie here for just a minute...
OR, make an excuse and WIN A PRIZE.
My comfort zone lies between eyes open and eyes closed.
My real challenge these next five weeks is finding a way to live a real life like a Real Girl: somnumbulance, bloody stigmata, psoriatic arthritis, and all.
Remember when I mentioned going for my Stelara injection two weeks ago? Well, I went there in my drug-addled daze, thinking it WAS the day for my shot, but that Wednesday was only the three-week mark. The office staff was cordially surprised to see me there. Stelara has had some cognitive side effects, you could say. And get this, I sincerely thought I was doing a lot BETTER that day.
Last Wednesday was the correct day, but when I arrived, we found that the specialty pharmacy had forgotten to send my Stelara. So four days ago it arrived FOR REAL and I was injected and have been sleep-walking ever since.
Headache cat will kill for apririn. Hurry.
I am just so tired and the headache is epic in its proportions. I am sure that won’t last. The same thing happened for about two weeks after the first shot. And I got better. OVER TIME.
My current challenge is to stay awake. Or not. The way my brain manages sleep is all whacked out. I want to sleep all day, which I refuse to do. One mustn’t give in to these things.
However, when I DO go to bed in the evening, I fall into a bright, waking drowse where I rarely go all the way into the darkling, cocooned slumber of the blessed. It’s the like the sleep-handling part of my brain has forgotten how to do its job and I bob around on the surface of consciousness like a cork.
Oh yeah, I was listening to every word you sa...*blank stare*
My waking time is dreamy and tired. I put the milk into the cupboard after pouring a glass, I lose track of what my friends and family say to me…in the middle of the conversation. I’ve spent a great part of the past few weeks in my pajamas. Whoops, just had a little nap there. Curled up on the sofa under a blanket may not be the best place to write this. The Internet told me that these side effects subside with subsequent injections. You KNOW I always believe the Internet.
Joss offered to make an explanatory post for me, perhaps entitled “Gray is in a Coma,” so I could sit in a dim house with my eyes at half mast another week.
But I got this IDEA, and now I am trying to stay awake long enough to share it with you.
This is the official “YOU ARE EXCUSED” post. All who are simply unable to join in the big “I Dare You” this week are encouraged to post their excuses. I will judge them for pathos, gore, and originality.
My personal favorite will receive a copy of the Mayo Clinic Diet plus the accompanying notebook. (The very ones they sent me for FREE when I was worried they wouldn’t be published in time for our first challenge. We are very GREENISHLY recycling it. *virtue*)
Your excuse (and hopefully mine) is only good for ONE WEEK.
Your HOMEWORK in this week is to read everyone’s posts and become inspired to do something awesome next week.
Next week we’ll be climbing El Capitan, landscaping our back gardens, or writing novels. RIGHT?
Final exams are making me teh crazy.
Sleep when your body says it’s prepared to! That’s not giving in, it’s cooperating with your poor sick body, which is a Good Idea.
Go on, I dare you to.
My sister was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer this week. She is 39 and has two young kids, ages 11 and 8. We’re waiting for the pathology reports to see what stage the cancer is, but any way around it, it’s not good.
So, that’s my excuse this week. Just doing the day to day is taking all my energy, and even then I need a nap every day. Why does stress have to be so stinkin’ exhausting??!!??
My excuse is Sean Penn.
I used to give blood semi-regularly then, less than two years ago, I donated a kidney to my sister. Since relinquishing that sucker resulted in a year plus of depression, anxiety, anger and other PTSD-ish symptoms – therapy and whatnot – PLUS a lifetime of compromised kidney function and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and kidney failure (neither of which they bothered to tell me about beforehand), I spend most of my time saying: Yeah.. No, you do not have a ‘spare’ to an otherwise unknowing public and media. One major organ is enough; I leave the blood donating to others now.
I work as a freelance copyeditor as a SIDE JOB to my insanely-demanding-but-I-love-it job as Director of Education for 5 nonprofit associations. I have monstrously dense academic philosophy text that’s 400 pages that I’m supposed to have finished editing by “mid-April” (or tomorrow in normal people’s language). I’m on page 131. So that’s my excuse. Thank GOD for ambiguous deadlines like “mid-April” – I can push “mid-April” out to next week without feeling like a failure.
Gray,
I don’t want to be entered into the drawing, I just wanted to tell you I am thinking BIG BRIGHT HEALTHY THOUGHTS for you. I hope this period of zzzzzzzzzzz will be over soon.
Mine sounds so minor compared to other people’s issues they have to deal with, I feel like a wimp. But, I am the co-chair for planning and implementing the after prom (alcohol and drug free of course!) party for our high school: Midnight to 3:30 a.m. We’ve been turned down for nearly everything that was used in the past, so we are re-inventing the wheel this year. My brain is used up completely on this project, I’ve even started dreaming about it now.
I, too, feel like my excuse is very, very, small. But, we are making a huge decision for our family right now. It would involve moving. My mind is so occupied with this decision that I dream about it too, Mama Bear.
My excuse is that I am already way out of my comfort zone! I am the discomfort QUEEN. Discomfort seems to be the theme for 2010. Because we all love bulleted lists (what, you mean you don’t admire their organizational perfection?):
- I have moved from my bougie, semi-suburban 2-bedroom flat with a garage to a weensy garret in Crackhead Central. I climb a ladder to get into bed and share a bathroom with my neighbors.
- I’ve started my own reading series, with (am I psychotic?!) MONTHLY performances. No sooner do we complete a performance than we gotta start designing posters, reviewing submissions, finding musicians etc. for the next. Speaking of, I am now VERY late on sending out the press release for the next one. And I also gotta write my piece! But I’d rather comment here. So there.
- Copyediting a friend’s HUGE manuscript, due, um, “mid-April”. I’m interpreting that deadline in about the same way JenA is.
- Have been asked to be another friend’s booking agent. When I replied that I know nothing about being a booking agent, he said “I know.” Naturally, I’m going to say yes.
- Oh yeah. After almost 10 years of marriage, I’m now single.
- And when I needed to buy a new couch? I went for the pretty kind, but not the kind you can sink into and watch TV for five hours. Plus there’s no TV anymore. LITERAL discomfort, and I LOVE it.
Yeah, okay, that’s probably all against the rules. You wanted excuses, and I’m, um, is gloating too strong a word? Reveling, maybe. I’ve been where all of you are hanging, though, so consider this a reminder that Things Will Get Better.
Even if you’re stepping over puddles of vomit to get to work.