(I Need a) Caffeine Bomb...

Do not adjust your set.

Plese also disrgard ayn tpyos/

In the words of Kerry Katona (please bellow in an indignant Warrington accent): "I'm nor jrunk! Ish my medcayshun!".

You see, to all intents and purposes, Prozac is a marvellous thing. I have spent most of the Autumn travelling for work, flying to and from such exotic locations as Odessa, Istanbul and Liverpool. This time last year I couldn't have gone to the shop up the road without a full medical escort and intravenous gin.

However, the one side-effect I do suffer with is insomnia. Oh, hang on - and when I do sleep I have vivid, intense, exhausting dreams. You try feeling rested when you've spent your sleeping hours variously captaining gigantic cruise ships, shoplifting from Habitat and trying to get off with all the Kings of Leon at the same time. It's not easy, let me tell you.

So anyway. We both (me and the Other Half) grew tired of me waking us up shrieking and flailing four times a night, of me waking him up because, well, I was awake, and of both being awake from 6am every Saturday due to me being all wobbly from yet another full-length night horror featuring my mother.

I went back to the GP yesterday and querulously asked whether there was anything he could prescribe in the short term to help me sleep. Oh, yes! There was!

Ladies and gentlemen, may I proudly present Nozinan. Jealous, kids? Wish you too could treat simple insomnia with a powerful anti-psychotic which is also used as a painkiller in palliative care for patients with late-stage cancer? Want to run the gauntlet of various terrifying* side-effects? Ha! You should be so lucky!

I started them last night. I took 12.5mg at 9pm, and by 9.25 was in a sort of waking coma** - it's like being really, really stoned but without the paranoia and munchies. I slept like the dead and woke up this morning feeling like I'd been run over by a marshmallow steamroller. I arrived at my desk and showed my boss my eyes - he was rather impressed that my pupils were different sizes. I was completely off my gourd until around lunchtime.

Of course, this has raised serious concerns with me and I don't know what to do for the best.

Should I carry on taking them or start selling them?


* The one that bothers me the most is the threat of unwanted and persistent erections. Brr. Like I don't have enough to worry about.

** Seriously though - the maximum daily dosage for the treatment of schizophrenia is 1000mg. Talk about your chemical cosh....

I've sort of fused Flashdance with MC Hammer shit.

A while ago, there were two men and four women in my department.

It was a strange and difficult time. A time in which, if a woman made a sensible business decision, it would be roundly ignored until one of the men decided it was their decision after all and the idea would be immediately implemented.

We soon realised our problem. We didn’t have penises! Men can’t hear a business conversation if someone without a penis is talking!

The obvious solution was to go to Ann Summers* and buy a packet of cardboard penis headbands, as hilariously disported on hen nights across this fair land. I have one, my manager has one, my assistants both had one. If we wanted to be heard we would put our Cock Hat on to ensure that we were taken seriously.

Fast-forward four months. One of the male managers left, so the Cock Hats were relegated to the sidelines.

One of my assistants left a little while ago - her replacement started today.

Imagine his surprise when he opened the bottom drawer of his new desk and saw a giant, vivid cardboard penis squinting back at him.

I don’t suppose it helps much that he’s gay. Now I am faced with a new assistant who thinks that misplaced homophobic humour is to be foisted upon him at any given opportunity.

I am David Brent.

* The Patron Saint of Nylon

Eh?

So anyway, a colleague wandered past my desk today and cheerily opined that I look just like (and I quote) a "Rasta Man".

Um, thanks? Not quite the look I was going for and I'm still puzzled as to how a thirty-five year old white girl, even one with dreadlocks, manages to achieve it?

People. Meh.

And yes, I will post properly soon but there's all manner of things happening at the moment and I am struggling to find the time. I know. Welcome to my pity party.

Urk.

Word to the wise, ladies and gentlemen.....

Never work with Norwegians.

More specifically, don't engage them in conversation while you're eating.

You're welcome.

Things that make me itch..

In a record-breaking display of constistency, Middling Person (for she is now eight-and-half and not Small any more) has headlice.

Again.

For the third (third!) time in six weeks.

Now, I know headlice are an occupational hazard when you spend your time amongst thirty-odd weird-smelling kids from homes with varying degress of hygiene but please? If your child is itchy and scratching and you can see their hair moving in a miniature Mexican wave from across the living room? Check their hair! Try treating the headlice! That way, it won't cost me eight quid a fortnight to continously murder the little six-legged horrors every time they crawl back across into Middling Person's hair during a particularly close-run wordsearch, or something.

When I was at school the Nit Nurse would loom large in the classroom every three weeks, bearing the Sacred Bowl of Dettol and a bitey metal comb. Scalps would be scraped and the first hint of organic life would result in immediate, humiliating suspension with a stern admonishment to your parents not to let you within forty feet of another person until you were deemed to be Clean.

Never did me any harm. Etc.

In other news, it seems that some American's don't want to vote Obama because his name sounds a bit like "Osama". For the sake of political balance I would like to point out to Republican supporters that "McCain" rhymes with "aeroplane", and that, friends and neighbours, is what the evil Muslims used to bring down the Twin Towers.

So think on. Not so clear-cut now, is it?