unisumbitch.

We're now back to a more minimal posting style as well, relegating elaboration to a back-burner strategy while continuing to mix metaphors like a bull in a proverbial china shop (two-finger salute emoticon goes here).

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Unfortunately, we're still titling posts as if we've got time to elaborate on things. Unisom, for example. I'll get to the actual research portion of it eventually, because it's important, but in a nutshell...

Back in 2003 or so, my chronic insomnia was increasingly demanding a non-alcohol-based resolution, and I started taking Unisom every night. It worked: I slept. But my mood every morning could be classified as somewhere between uncharacteristically irritable and irrationally short-tempered.

For a long time I thought that this was because we'd just been through a devastating 2 years, and Mara and I were at each other's throats, and I was at my wits' end. As time passed and I started putting myself back together, I attributed my general bad mood during these years to social/relationship/financial trauma plus too much drinking and smoking weed.

At some point in early 2006, I discovered melatonin, which though less reliable, was a much better influence on my psyche: I could get by with less sleep than with Unisom, and I generally woke up in a good mood. Sometimes, though, melatonin wouldn't work, and I'd take some Unisom, and the next day I'd notice a bit of that bad mood hangover thing happening.

Just recently, now that I'm not drinking or smoking much at all at the moment, it's becoming clear that Unisom has an absolutely terrible effect on my mind. I took one Sunday night because I hadn't been sleeping especially well, and all day Monday I felt mean, unpleasant, lethargic, pessimistic, short-tempered...in other words, like 2003-2005. Mara said, "Wow, this is...familiar." Monday night and last night, melatonin, and I'm back to normal.

So, I'm putting this up here so that it's Googlable, and so that if anyone else out there is trying to figure out if Unisom is fucking up their mind, they might find someone to compare notes with.

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The photo above is to remind me to call Jen and Ken. This photo is Mara and Ken at the beach in Bergen back in July 2007. I like whatever it looks like Mara is doing. Kenny usually looks quite a bit happier than this.

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Hit the gym today for the first time in 2008, congratulations you fuckwit. Eaten:

Breakfast: 1 Valess schnitzel w/ ketchup (200kcal).
Snack: 150 gr kibbeling, (400kcal).
Beverages: 1 soy cappucino from Tampopo (200kcal). 3 cups coffee. 1 kombucha drink (100kcal).
Snack: 1 piece of lite Emmenthaler cheese, melted (70kcal).
Dinner: delicious leftover cauliflower (eh...300kcal?).
Dinner: 4 or 5 bites of slightly disappointing red-braised tofu from my new Chinese cookbook (hmm...200kcal?).
Late Night: no eating after dinner. Wow!

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Yeah, about the tofu. In America, they used to have this PSA or cartoon or something that warned kids (and parents!) about the dangers of leaving pans on the stove with their handles pointing out. You know, because this makes it verrrry easy to be walking by the stove, not really paying attention, and inadvertently bump into one of the pot handles, or wok handles as the case may be, and upend the entire boiling, bubbling mass onto the kitchen floor and/or your own self. I didn't do this, but someone else in my apartment did.

The few bites of it I had before it hit the floor were ok, not awesome, making that the second recipe from my new Chinese cookbook that was just ok, not awesome. Bummer.

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So, my analysis of the day's eating: fat content a bit high. Cheese content a bit high. Sugar levels acceptable.

Don't worry, I don't think I'll do this consumption catalogue every day. Just until I remember what it's like to eat less than 2000 calories a day again.

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Minimal posting style? Pfft.

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