Category Archives: Music

MY INCLUSIVE BAND OF PAPIER MÂCHÉ MUSICIANS

This quartet is papier mâché, all women, but I tried to include as many different types of people as I could (so far)…of course not all peoples are represented, as that would be impossible with just four individuals. But starting with the pianist, we have a zaftig, older, white haired crone, with beige skin; the guitarist by contrast is tall and very slender, and dark of hue; the singer is Latina, and because of cancer and the treatments, she is missing a hand and her hair; finally we have the young prodigy drummer, a tiny Asian “jeune fille” who has to play drums that are sized to fit her. And in case you are in doubt, I made them all, each one, from materials I had on hand. 6” to 14” high

Nous Toutes Ensemble

PAPER MUSICIANS, 2 of 3

These musicians are made of paper or cloth mâché and some paper clay. The instruments are likewise paper mâché and paper clay, with a few embellishments on guitar. About 14” tall and 14” wide as group. Singer is third member still to come.

Another great song/video with translation

La vie est belle

Thomas Nassi

(translated by phoebe who takes all responsability for errors )

Mon banquier pense que j’aurais besoin que l’on m’aide

My banker thinks that I need someone to help me

Tandis que mon psy dit que j’aurais plutôt besoin qu’on m’aime

While my shrink says that I really need  someone to love me

Le temps qui passe nous mène toujours face à nous même

Time passing  leads us always face to face back to ourselves

Si ce n’est pas moi, qui résoudra mes problèmes?

If this isn’t me, what/who will solve my problems?

On m’a dit, tu te prends trop la tête

They told me You’re too much in your head

Essaye de mieux voir combien la vie est belle la vie t’ouvre les bras

Try harder to see how life is beautiful, life opens it arms to you

Je me suis dit, ah ça, la vie est belle

Je told myself oh yes, life is beautiful

Peut être pour toi qui vis comme dans un rêve vêtu d’or et de soie

Perhaps for you who live as if in a dream dressed in gold or silk

Ah ça, la vie est belle

Ah life is beautiful

Ah ça, la vie est belle

Maman me voyait devenir architecte ou médecin

Mommy saw me becoming an architect or doctor 

Je taffe à l’usine, mon boss me voit comme un vaut-rien

I work at a factory (where) my boss sees me as worthless

Papa m’a dit ce n’est pas un métier musicien

Daddy  tells me  that being a musician is no career

Laisse moi fermer les yeux au moins jusqu’à demain

Let me close my eyes at least till tomorrow

On m’a dit, tu te prends trop la tête

They tell me, You’re too much In your head

On m’a dit, tu te prends trop la tête

They tell me, you are too much in your head

Essaye de mieux voir combien la vie est belle, la vie t’ouvre les bras

Try harder to see how life is beautiful life opens it’s arms to you

Je me suis dit, ah ça, la vie est belle

I told myself ah that, yes, life is beautiful

Peut être pour toi qui vis comme dans un rêve vêtu d’or et de soie

Maybe for you who live as if in a dream dressed in gold or silk

Ah ça, la vie est belle

Ah ça, la vie est belle

Oh, that, life is beautiful

On m’a dit, tu te prends trop la tête

They tell me, you are too much in your head

Essaye de mieux voir combien la vie est belle, la vie t’ouvre les bras

Try harder to see how life is beautiful, how life opens it’s arms to you

Je me suis dit, ah ça, la vie est belle

I told myself how yeah’ life is beautiful

Peut être pour toi qui vis comme dans un rêve vêtu d’or et de soie

Maybe for you who live as if in a dream dressed in gold or silk

Ah ça, la vie est belle

Ah ça, la vie est belle

Song, in French with translation

Phoebe’s translation:

Ever since we were kids,

My friend, we struggled,

But now that we are men

I want to put the oars/ struggles behind us

If tears come to you

Come then, and give them to me

Gypsy men and women

This is what we were made for

 

Tiago, I have taken the time to write you

A song in a thousand smiles

Tiago I have put in the time to say it

But my friend, I will be here for the worst

 

Whoever makes fun of you

Also makes fun of me

In 20 years you will see

How we will laugh (about it)

If that turns into a fight

We will play it four-handed

Gypsies

God gives us fists (for this purpose)

 

Tiago, I have taken the time to write you

A song in a thousand smiles

Tiago I have put in the time to say it,

But my friend, I will be here for the worst.

 

My friend, Tiago.

(Repeated)

 

The girlfriend who leaves

And will never return

It’s about time for us to see each other, yes,

And talk about you

If your heart is broken

Bring it here now

Gypsies,

We are good repairmen.

 

Tiago, I have taken the time to write you

A song in a thousand smiles

Tiago I have put in the time to say it,

But Tiago my friend…

Tiago, I have taken the time to write you

A song in a thousand smiles

Tiago I have put in the time to say it

But my friend I will be here for the worst.

 

Tiago

 

Artistic Enticements From Marie Abanga!

Wow! Thats all i can say! One lovely, gutsy, charming lady and my friend. Marie A. Abanga from Cameroon. Brava!!!

Find her blog here: https://marieabanga.wordpress.com marie abanga’s blog

“This little light of mine, am gonna let it shine…

This little love of mine, am gonna let it flow…

This little life of mine, am gonna live it full …

Let it shine, let it flow, live it full…

This little laugh of mine, am gonna laugh it loud…

This little smile of mine, am gonna smile it broad…

This little frown of mine, am gonna frown it all

Laugh it loud, smile it broad, frown it all…

This little dream of mine, am gonna dream it real…

This little tale of mine, am gonna tell it all…

This little cheer of mime, am gonna share it all…

Dream it real, tell it all, share it all…

And when all is said, am gonna say it still…

And when all is done, am gonna do it still…

And when all is lost. Am gonna find it still…

Say it still, do it still, find it still…

And when my light goes dim, am gonna grateful go…

And when my turn is up, am gonna graceful go…

And when my life is nought, am gonna let it go…

Let it go, let it go, let it go”

by Marie A Abanga

 

 

Rashid Taha: French Algerian Protest Singer/Songwriter Says “Bonjour”!

* Thanks and a hug to my new and dear friend in Iraq, Sami, for my introduction to some wonderful new music, from the one who wears glasses and has a big grin:  8D

Lyrics of “Bonjour”:

Hello Kitty, Bonjour violente femme

Bonjour Grace Kelly, Bonjour madame

Hello Superman, Bonjour solitaire

Bonjour tous les jours tout l’envers

[…]

Ola l’amour, Bonjour la fontaine

Bonjour le dernier, Bonjour la graine

Bonjour sur les fesses, Bonjour la neige

Ola le systeme, Bonjour le revers

[…]

Hello Kitty, Bonjour violente femme

Bonjour Grace Kelly, Bonjour madame

Ola l’amour, Bonjour la fontaine

Bonjour le dernier, Bonjour la graine

[…]

Bonjour, Bonjour, Bonjour, Bonjour, Bonjour…

Hello Kitty, Bonjour violent femme

[…]

Bonjour Grace Kelly, Bonjour madame

[…]

Hello Superman, Bonjour solitaire

[…]

Bonjour tous les jours, tout l’envers

[…]

Ola l’amour, Bonjour la fontaine

[…]

Ola le systme, Bonjour le revers…

By the way, the following is Google’s English version, for which I take absolument aucun credit! i.e. I take no credit for it whatsoever…)

“Hello Hello violent woman

Grace Kelly, Hello Hello Mrs.

Superman, lonely Hello

Hello every day to all

[…]

Ola love, the fountain

Hello Hello last Hello

Hello seed on the buttocks,

Hello snow Ola the system,

the reverse Hi

[…]

Hello Kitty, Hello Hello violent woman

Grace Kelly, Mrs.

Ola Hello love, the fountain Hello

Hello latter Hello seed

[…]

Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello …

Hello Kitty, Hello violent woman

[…]

Grace Kelly Hello, Bonjour madame

[…]

Hello Superman, lonely Hello

[…]

Hello every day, all to

[.. .]

Ola love Hello fountain

[…]

Ola system, Hello setback”

From original article in RFI Musique 2009

________________

Rachid Taha says “bonjour”

A protest singer never dies

 

http://www.rfimusique.com/musiqueen/articles/119/article_8289.asp

Paris

09/11/2009 –

Globe-trotting rocker Rachid Taha has been flying back and forth between Paris and New York, making his eighth album with Bowie’s old producer Mark Plati. Bonjour is an album full of sparky guitars and positive vibes, the fruit of a spontaneous collaboration with Louise Attaque frontman Gaëtan Roussel. Taha, who plays L’Olympia in Paris on 10 November, talks to RFI Musique about the genesis of his new album and his thoughts on the government’s immigration policies.


RFI Musique: Why such a simple, naïve album title like Bonjour?
Rachid Taha: I called my album Bonjour – “hello” – because people have more or less stopped going round saying “hello” to one another. Even when they do say “hello”, it’s a purely functional greeting, it rarely comes from the heart. People in France are always rushing up to kiss one another on the cheek, but it’s a purely formal gesture that lacks any real depth or generosity. What I’m trying to do is reinstate “bonjour” to its rightful status, make the exchange of “hellos” a gesture full of warmth and human kindness. I want “hellos” to last and to mean something, like when you say “hello” in Africa and you take the time to talk about what’s going on in the village, what’s happening with friends and people you’ve loved who’ve disappeared, what’s going on with the kids…

How did you come up with the idea of working with Gaëtan Roussel?
I was having a few drinks in a bar in Ménilmontant! And I got to thinking about the song Bonjour. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I asked Gaëtan if he’d write a French version of the song while I wrote one in Arabic. At the end of the day, I preferred his version so we kept that and I added my lyrics. Everything happened so smoothly that I thought “OK, maybe we should take this collaboration a bit further now?” It was a question of feeling really, the right vibe passed between us and that’s how Gaëtan ended up acting as a sort of producer on the album.

Do you think Gaëtan Roussel added a new edge to your sound?
Yes, he did and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to work with him in the first place. I spent many years collaborating with Steve Hillage and then I felt the need to change tack and move on to something different. I loved the work Gaëtan did for Alain Bashung and that’s basically what I wanted from him. I was looking to him to inject a breath of fresh air, a lightness of touch, a bit of a country vibe. I wanted Bonjour to sound a bit like the sort of folk album made by Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley or Ry Cooder. I’m a big Ry Cooder fan!

You recorded part of your new album in New York with Mark Plati who took care of mixing and arrangements. What did he add to your sound?
Mark’s worked with a lot of people over the years like David Bowie, Alain Bashung and Les Rita Mitsouko… I’d say he introduced a bit of an urban rock feel on certain tracks. It was thanks to Gaëtan that we ended up in the studio with Mark and it was a brilliant experience. I’m really into the idea of travelling and exchanging ideas with people. I believe you have to reach out and look elsewhere if you want to vary your sound. I’m not into the idea of putting out the same album over and over again. Music’s like food in that respect – I’d never dream of eating the same thing every day. I don’t want to make myself sick or turn anyone else’s stomach by churning out the same old thing time after time!

On This is an Arabian Song, you and Bruno Maman sing “N’oublie jamais”(Never forget.) Never forget what?
Never forget the world’s problems. Never forget wars, genocide, poverty, misery, never forget the past… I’m not into the idea of nostalgia but I think it’s important to take responsibility for the world. You have to take responsibility for your behaviour towards others. And you have to be aware of the past. It’s only by reaching down to your roots that you can stand tall like a tree.

Where do you stand on the current debate about French national identity launched by the French immigration minister Eric Besson?
It takes me back 25 years, back to the time I recorded Douce France… The thing is the young generation are much more tolerant now than they were in the eighties. Everyone’s got Moroccan, Algerian, Portuguese and Senegalese friends these days. Why does a minister like Besson have to go round stoking up old hatreds if he isn’t trying to win National Front votes before the next election? Funnily enough it was Besson who revived the idea of DNA testing to crack down on immigration. That man is not living in the real world or he wouldn’t come up with such hypocritical solutions. And to think he was once a Socialist!

Bonjour

Rachid Taha Bonjour (Barclay) 2009
In concert at L’Olympia, Paris, 10 November 2009.


Fleur  de la Haye

Translation : Julie  Street

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Don’t Worry, Be Happy, and Dance, Cry, Hum along!

 

If this doesn’t make you happy, I am very sorry…I myself despite a massive migraine and fears of vascular bleeds found mysefl directing a virtual orchestra in the midst of my pain and by the end, PooF! magically it was GONE! Miracle of miracles!

8D

MICHAEL E. BALKUNAS, MD: LISTEN TO THIS RAP – YOU MUTHA FUCKA!

Okay so here is another rap lyric. I suggest that you try to play it on an apple or iphone/ipad device as people have said that these won’t play with Internet Explorer. Perhaps because they are created through Garage Band and with ITunes? Anyhow good luck! (This is a TRUE STORY about what happened in the New Britain General Hospital in May 2014, Hospital of Central Connecticut…NOTHING IS IMAGINED OR MADE UP IN fact things were much worse even than this song describes….) If these end up being popular enough, I will redo them with a good microphone and perhaps a video…

DR. MICHAEL E. BALKUNAS, SHRUNKEN-HEAD MUTHAFUCKA RAP

Doctor Balkunas, you think you can fuck with me?

Doctor Balkunas, you think you can punish me?

Doctor Balkunas you head shrunken mofucker

G’wan, have another headfucking think on it, mofo…
They brought me by ambulance, silent and broken

Terrified, mute, and on an “involuntary”

Not even speaking and mentally ill

I could make no choices, every word unspoken.

Do you know what it means when I say I was mute,

when I could not speak and words did not work

and the world was too loud and my head was too full

and there was no bridge and no hand to pull

me out from that in-between. Even security

wasn’t there to protect me, only nurses and from me

and even the first nurse who coldly appraised me

grabbed my one book and then took my phone and fled

as if she were plotting to fuck with my head

because she had only to ask me and take it politely,

and promise to take care of things, and do it nicely.

Such fierce flames of outrage surged in me, and anger!

So not even thinking, I went running after her

wanting just to reach her and grab my book back from her

Little did I know the reaction if I touched her.

Mike Balkunas, you thought you could fuck with me?

Mike Balkunas, you thought you could punish me?

Mike Balkunas, you thought you could shit on me?

Mikey, you mofo, have a new headshrinking think on it.

Quicker than quicker everyone was sicked on me,

from the aides to the orderlies, even the nurses.

Burly armed guards went piling up hard on me,

and the worst of the worst was patients made versus me

a 100-pound 60-year old lady of five foot three

upset that my two last possessions were snatched from me

without any reason or rhyme in the world really

by the usual criminal in the ER, the head RN

who knew I was powerless alone in that warren

of ER rooms, so she had me dragged me to seclusion.

where I had to bare-knuckle the dark in confusion

battling anguish and fear, with the voices’ profusion.

So to get someone to come in and hear my screaming

I pulled all my clothing off, for clothes had no meaning.

Mike Balkunas, you think you can fuck with me?

Mike Balkunas, you think you punish with impunity?

Mike Balkunas, you really think you can shit on me?

G’wan, Mofo, Have another headshrinking think, now, Mikey…

I screamed from the base of my lungs for an hour

but was utterly ignored by all who had power

to relent or release me. I hadn’t a notion

of what else to do, to get help or attention

or have them return to the room, but to start

hitting my head and even tearing apart

things I could throw, chair, clothes and chart.

Then came the goon squad of six beefy men

who easily brought me facedown on the floor again

I screamed and I struggled but it did me no good,

if you fight them they justify all that they would.

Much better to lie still and let them abuse you

and get discharged and hope against hope you can sue.

The ER in peril from the dangers I posed

such a monster as me, poorly muscled, unclothed,

they wanted me, mute, completely shut up.

so they rammed three injectables into my butt.

Mike Balkunas, honey, you thought you could fuck with me?

Mike Balkunas, sweetie, you believed you could punish me?

Mike Balkunas, sweetheart, you thought you could shit on me?

Aw, little boy, Balkie, do your headshrinking mofo thing with it…

Mikey? Mikey? Mofo…I’ll bet you won’t forget me for a lo-o-o-ooong time, will you?

Ha ha ha!

I wish to god I could forget you. You mofo. You mother fucker. Let this rap song be a lesson to you, not to fuck with poets and writers or you’ll get written into a history you might rather be forgotten.

Doctor Michael Balkunas, dare you fuck with me now?

Doctor Michael Balkunas, dare you punish me now?

Doctor Michael Balkunas, you head shrunken muthafucka

Mofo, Mikey go fuck another headshrinker and think on it.

Mental Patient Anti-Psychiatry Rap

AAC FILE (MIGHT PLAY WITH INTERNET EXPLORER

TRY ON IPHONE OR IPAD OR APPLE …DOES NOT WORK ON INTERNET EXPLORER…Okay, this may not please everyone and it isn’t exactly ready for Primetime, but if you can’t hear the lyrics (and in any rap song it is difficult to catch all of them the first time, you can read them along below…Enjoy?? Or at least you  will understand, if you are familiar with Wagblog, where I am coming from. Please let me know if this file does NOT play for any reason.

Mental Patient Rap

by P.Wagg

CHORUS:

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab.

They say fake it till you make it, so I take it, take it, take it,

Careening through a maze of rules that make me wanna break shit.

Sanity won’t save me, nor all the pills they gave me.

Their remedy’s my enemy, so we mad go fucking crazy.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

VERSE 1:

I remember being locked in, tied down, drugged up,

nurses in control of me, rushing me, coercing me.

Worse than their forcing me was all the pills they pushed on me

then Thorazine or Stelazine jammed into my ass cheeks.

Abuse was inexcusable. Psychiatric orderlies

cuffed my wrists and ankles to a bed when I refused them.

Bruising me, mis-using me — and black and blues-ing me,

A/C cold as ice; retaliation taken twice.

Tied down, naked, there, I shit myself but who cared?

Just another everyday mental patient nightmare.

CHORUS:

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

They say fake it till you make it, so I take it, take it, take it,

Careening through a maze of rules that make me wanna break shit.

Sanity won’t save me, nor all the pills they gave me.

Their remedy’s my enemy, we mad go fucking crazy.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

VERSE 2:

As bad as leather cuff restraints their isolation cell was hell.

so supermax it made me faint, don’t tell me they meant it well.

No one should have dumped me there, hearing voices, terrified

they stripped my clothing off then left me locked alone inside.

and told me that they had the right to keep me there both day and night

or as long as it would take, for me to learn from their mistakes

I might never get out, never get out, never get out, never get out–

but I started freaking out. I shouted, “I will not bow down

to those with nothing more to do than cause me pain, you cowards, you

you have no heart, you’re inhumane. You torture me to entertain.

CHORUS:

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab.

They say fake it till you make it, so I take it, take it, take it,

Careening through a maze of rules that make me wanna break shit.

Sanity won’t save me, nor all the pills they gave me.

Their remedy’s my enemy, so we mad go fucking crazy.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

Verse 3:

Let’s sing ring around the posey-o: “Hospital Guantanamo!”

Isolation, prison SHU, and mental patients just like me who

traumatized and tortured just go c-c-c-crazy, too.

Abuse is S.O.P. from doctors of psychiatry,

Pusher docs who love to dish out electro-shock therapy

and chemical lobotomies, but it’s all about their money.

Crocks of shit! You’re so wack. You psycho-quacks, you pricks

sized us up and tricked us. But didn’t we wise up quick?

We won’t take no more horseshit, we won’t take no more crap

Take your fucking psycho-meds and ram them up your —-!

CHORUS:

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

They say fake it till you make it, so I take it, take it, take it,

Careening through a maze of rules that make me wanna break shit.

Sanity won’t save me, nor all the pills they gave me.

Their remedy’s my enemy, so we mad go fucking crazy

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

Oh, you know, you know, yes I know you know,

that I ain’t nothing, never been nothing, never been nothing…

I’ve never been nothing, except a lonely nomad

in the white-coated doctors of psychiatry lab

Spoken CODA:

PT:“I want outta here.”

RN: “Uh uh, not so fast. We’ve got your ass for fifteen days.”

PT: “Fifteen days?! No way, José. You can’t keep me here. I want a lawyer!”

RN: “Doctor, we need to calm her pronto. She’s disturbing the whole unit.”

MD: “I agree. Give her 20mg, IM Haldol, stat.”

PT: “What do you want? What’s going on?! No no! Don’t touch me…Wait!

He-e-e-elp! Help me! Please somebody! Help! Help me…!”

Jason DeRulo: New portrait

Jason DeRulo, painted with fantastic CARAN D’ACHE Lumiere pencils, among the most expensive yet worth every penny. smooth and incredibly buttery color that just swipes on…Yet  hard enough to keep a point and not crumble under pressure.

Just make sure you sharpen each pencil by hand as you don’t want to waste a smidgen of these valuable tools!

Jason Derulo
Jason DeRulo = my art photo isn’t the best but it gives you an goodish idea of the portrait..(colorized from B&W and reversed so the left is right etc.)

I have loaded a DeRulo music vide (lyrics) to go with my portrait, but who knows how long it will remain playable. ANy opinions on portrait welcome. I had to imagine the colors from a B&W photo, then imagine Derulo again, having reversed the orientation horizontally so his left becomes his right  etc.

(Now it might not look like him at all, taken from the mirror reversal of the photo.) Enjoy song for as long as I can keep it here. (since embed buttons exist, I have to assume it is okay to “borrow” these vids.

Would love your opinion.

BW

Pam

PS am very very sleepy so not entirely sure I am uploading anything that makes sense. If not, forgive me. I will do better after a nap!

SING IT OUT LOUD AND BE HAPPY!

YAAY, Jason Mraz!!!!!

I fell in love with this next song, maybe it was the beat, the lyrics, or just the fact that I think Ingrid Michaelson is the cat’s meow, right up there with Mraz and, yes, Bruno Mars (!). Yes, I know, the lyrics can seem depressing, but if you are the “You” in this song, you will never fall and never be alone…Anyhow, I love this next song, depressing or not…

I’ll bet if you felt down before Mraz’s “I’M YOURS,” you felt or will feel better for hearing it. It is surely better than any benzo and if ADs work for you, well, all I can say is a jolt of Jason Mraz and Michaelson’s “EVERYBODY” (see at bottom) would be a quicker and whole lot safer than messing with your serotonin and norepinephrine levels just because Big Pharma wants your money and claims the AD’s work as they say they do. Trust me. (No, why would you trust me???? You shouldn’t trust me, I know nothing except what I read, and I don’t read all that much, due to my vision problems…)

Still, I can’t help but wonder if music played a bigger role in treatment of depression and even of schizophrenia, whether people wouldn’t get better a lot faster, or at least learn to calm themselves reliably and find a way to talk about what is going on rather than taking pills to render them oblivious. Music alone might be enough to put things back together again…Music and sleep, which knits up the raveled sleeve of many a care in this world, “balm of hurt minds” and as Shakespeare knew well, the lack of which can spell danger even for the hardiest soul.

But if we get our sleep via benzos or some other drug that knocks us out, are we really getting brain rest, or just body rest? Moreover, will we regret listening to the docs who prescribed nightly benzodiazapines after we find out we have developed either acute amnesia or its much more tragic cousin, Alzheimer’s Disease? I wonder. I wonder…How much will we choose to blame ourselves for not knowing better, and how much will we dare blame any doctor, who after all and after “primum non nocere” (First do no harm…) right? just how much will we dare to blame the doctors who told us the stuff was okay, not dangerous, and certainly better than suffering from insomnia.

Listen, insomnia is  a drag, and I have suffered enough of it for, well, I won’t say “for a lifetime” because that would mean I’d had enough, and I haven’t. But I don’t like not sleeping, not one bit. Sometimes I take Benadryl to sleep at night because i’ve been sold that same bill of goods that says, “Okay, it is OTC and therefore  must be essentially harmless.” It helps me to get to sleep yes, and sometimes even to stay asleep, though with narcolepsy it is hard to know whether or not any sleep will be properly restorative, natural or “unnatural”.

That said, Benadryl, as I am reminded every time I feel like pigging out after a night when I took 50mg…is an antihistamine, and anti-histaminic drugs (like Zyprexa) have this unfortunate side effect of inducing weight gain. So I won’t take Benadryl very often. Otherwise my appetite goes way overboard and I feel that same “eat! eat! eat!” anxiety that has nothing to do with food per se, and everything to do with yet another drug’s untoward side effects.

So what do I do in order to sleep? Well, first, I try not to worry about it…because that way disaster lies. If I can’t fall asleep easily, and with narcolepsy I should be out like a light within 4 minutes, but if that 4 minutes drags on into 7 or 10 minutes or more, I have learned to get up and do something else. I try mightily not to worry about not sleeping because it won’t do me any good. It will only make me more anxious.

So sometimes I get up and do art for a couple of hours. Or write, which in my case is far from a soporific activity. If I really am desperate to sleep, as I sometimes feel (though in my life, on disability, really everything can wait, and be postponed, if I can’t drive the next day due to lack of sleep. No one is going to need me for anything that can’t bide its time. ) Really are any of us indispensible? Maybe as a mother or parent you feel you are. But if you get snappy and  do things you wouldn’t ordinarily because you force yourself to perform on too little sleep, who are you serving — say it honestly? Wouldn’t your family be better served by your deciding to take care of yourself and sleep in, or take a nap instead of doing whatever it was you promised them you would do?

Well, enough for the evening. I am sick of lecturing and indeed I should be, because NO ONE listens to lectures, and diatribes. No one. So instead, I’ll shut up. Why not listen to “Everybody” by Ingrid Michaelson instead!

LOVE to EVERYONE,

pam