Insomnia Looks Like This

This is what insomnia looks like:
Red eyes. Dark room. Dim lighting from a computer screen (and a DVD player...because the basic trait of any good insomniac is a non-stop mind which equates with multi-tasking and over-stimulation). Extreme sleepiness. Dire frustration with the fact that sleep doesn't seem to be coming quickly. Ultimate stubbornness in a refusal to succumb to the doctor-prescribed sleeping pill. And this sound: "Grrrrrrrrrr."

Here are some not so fun facts I've discovered about insomnia while suffering from it:
1. Insomnia is 1.4 more times common in women than in men.
2. Approximately 30-50% of the general population has or does suffer from insomnia. 10% suffer from chronic insomnia.
3. There are three identified types of insomnia:
a. transient - lasts from days to weeks
b. acute or short-term - lasting weeks to months
c. chronic - lasts for years at a time (lucky, lucky me)
4. The incidence increases with age and is more common in people in lower socioeconomic groups, chronic alcoholics, and mental health patients. (draw your own conclusions)

New Report Reports

I love The Daily Beast. It gives me the Reader's Digest version of news events. And here's one from today:

AIDS Could Be History by 2018

A stunning new report out today says the virus that causes AIDS could be eliminated in a decade. The research, published in The Lancet and based on a mathematical model, shows the virus could be eradicated if people in countries with high infection rates were tested and treated regularly. But don’t get too excited: The AP cautions the study “is based on assumptions rather than data and is riddled with logistical problems.” Still, “It’s quite a startling result,” Charlie Gilks, an AIDS treatment expert at the World Health Organization and one of the paper’s authors, told AP. “In a relatively short amount of time, we could potentially knock the epidemic on its head.”


That's 10 years in an ideal world. 10 years of everything going right and everyone being responsible.

I once went 10 minutes in an ideal world. 10 minutes of everything going right and everyone being responsible (that is, of those people I ran into in those 10 minutes, which was only one). Yes, that's right. 10 whole minutes. During the first minute, we slept. In the second, we slept some more. In the third, we were still tired so we slept. It went on like this for seven more minutes: sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. Everything went right. Everyone was loving, caring, responsible, and selfless. And at the end of the 10 minutes do you know what happened?

We woke up.

Bellists and Bellism

I work for an amazing online magazine at iamthatgirl.com. The majority of the staff is young women, but each and every one of us on the staff would call ourselves bellists. Bellists live out the ideals of bellism, which is a movement dedicated to reconstructing society's definition of beauty. We at IATG do that by promoting other facets of a person; we encourage education, promote positive role models, and do a number of other things to inspire young women to DREAM BIG.

But here's the thing I notice...In a room full of female bellists (remember what that bellists work to redefine beauty), every one of them is beautiful. And I have to wonder why.

Every one of these women is also incredibly smart, probably more than the average girl in the coffee shop, and I wonder if those two characteristics mix well or successfully most of the time. I'd say they don't. Women, if beautiful, are not welcomed into boardrooms. They are either assumed (based on first glance) to lack the proper intelligence or they're considered a distraction for the men in that room. I think that's why many successful business women are plain-looking.

And isn't that exactly the fight of bellists? Not only to eradicate the need for all women to be physically beautiful so that they can walk into the local bar or local church social or whatever feeling confident of catching a man's eye but also to obliterate the construct that women who do happen to be physically appealing have nothing more to offer than their looks.

I've just finished reading a short essay on The Ugly Duckling (see my other blog for its text). The story has been prolonged for over a hundred years, contributing to a society's construction of image, and at a very early age nonetheless. I believe the world is fostering with bellists who are grown, and once we recognize ourselves, and gather together, we need to affect children and youth so that they can grow to be businessmen or businesswomen, a beautiful husband or a beautiful wife, without having to consider a glass ceiling based on their looks.

Fatty, fatty, fatty, fatty....

As Ross would say, "If you want to see a man gain weight and a woman stop shaving her legs, get 'em married." But what do you say when the man getting married has to be carried down the aisle in his bed--which he hasn't left in 6 years--due to his obesity?

Manuel Uribe, formerly the world's heaviest man (weighing in at 1230 lbs, though has since lost over 500 lbs) is now married. And though I should be wondering about who this woman is, if she inspired him to lose weight, etc. etc., I can't get past one curiosity.....How did the couple meet? I mean, unless they met prior to his bed rest, she would have had to chance upon Manuel while he was in bed. Would this be in his home? Or does he have people to carry his bed around to the local bar as though he were some form of ancient Egyptian royalty?

Hmmm....

Banana-Rama

I have long been known to eat more than my fair share of bananas. I eat them at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner, for snacks, with peanut butter, sliced, whatever. According to recent Japanese trends, this diet makes me thin.

Yep, the Morning Banana Diet is so HUGE in Japan that they can't keep bananas in stock. The diet's instructions include eating a banana for breakfast along with a glass of lukewarm water, eat normal meals for lunch an dinner, and be in bed before midnight.

The Japanese, obviously known for their obesity, may be onto something. Bananas are known to increase energy. (Now you can workout.) They can prevent depression, PMS, and anemia and they reduce high blood pressure (giving you better health). Add more sleep to the banana and you also get reduced stress, prevents cancer, bolsters your memory, and (GET THIS) makes you lose weight! Hmmm.....

Shall we sing along?

A beautiful bunch a'ripe banana
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Hide thee deadly black tarantula
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)

It's six foot, seven foot, eight foot, BUNCH!
(Daylight come and he wan' go home)
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot, BUNCH!

National Debt Clock

So you may have heard. The National Debt Clock in NYC's Time Square had to change its look last week. The debt has gotten so large that we have had to add a digit to the square that previously only held the dollar sign. It's hit $10.2 trillion.

Not to worry. There is a plan to remedy the situation.

The clock will be replaced next year to allow it to track up to a quadrillion dollars. I had to find a definition of that because I get a little loopy after trillions. A quadrillion is a 1 followed by 15 zeros.

This, of course, begs the question, what if we did this with our personal debt? Let's say I max out my credit card. No problem! Get a bigger card. Literally. Increase its dimensions as well as its funds. So what if it can't fit in your wallet? It's big and shiny and that's cool.

Parental Controls for your Car

I'm Ba-aaaaack. I know I've been MIA for awhile, now. But to be completely honest, it's only because I'm stupid enough to not only forget my password but also forget which of my emails I use for Blogspot. Get over it. I did.

So here's what you missed in the meantime: the SKIN project (which I had to have one of my writers at the magazine write on since I could not). Link here to that article. It's a really awesome but incredibly risky way to unite people through literature.

And now.....
the MyKey. This is a feature on upcoming Ford cars/trucks that limits the driver's speed to less than 80mph. It also allows for stereo volume limits an annoying noises to remind you that you aren't wearing a seatbelt.

Basically, it's a parent's dream and a teen's nightmare. But guess who usually buys the car?

The idea is a bit Big Brother for me to swallow. But, what with the new applications on your apple phone telling you where all your friends are at any given moment (and vice versa), the MyKey is surprising tame (and strangely geared toward safety rather than stalking capabilities).

Hmmm.