In the news

Well, I'll have to start posting again, now that restless legs are the talk of the town. But not right now.

Young Grandpa Shaky

There's something a bit humbling about waiting in line at Walgreens to get a giant 100-count bottle of capsules. They look at me like I'm picking up something for grandpa.
No, just me. Although lately I've been feeling more grandpa-like. The Gabapentin dries me out, so I want to drink a lot of water before bed to balance things out. This is, of course, a bad idea.
It's worse if I want to have some beer or wine before bed. Then I want to drink even more water so I'm not hung over. And I get to have some fun with the drug's dizzying side effects.
I've yet to reach 30, and already I can't drink caffeine in the afternoon (a cup at 2 p.m. yesterday kept me up until about 2 a.m.) and I can't drink alcohol in the evening.
I'm ready to retire.

Back in the States

I'm back in the country and back on the blog, now that it's clear people are reading this.
I had a brief restless-leg drug scare crossing the Canadian border yesterday. I brought nine capsules of Gabapentin (three days' supply) with me to Vancouver in a small pill case with the label peeled off. There was also some powder in there left over from when I was between doses and splitting capsules.
A big snow in Vancouver (where it never snows) had brought things to less than a crawl, and (because it never snows) no one plows or knows how to drive. We were almost expecting to be pulled over and searched to cap off the perfect four-hour border crossing. And that's what happened.
I was inside the check station waiting for them to search the car. And waiting for them to come back asking about the white powder in the unmarked pill container. But they never did.
We got out of there, but the drive was no less treacherous. Indeed, there was nowhere to stop the car for the next five hours or so. Again, no plowing -- and nowhere you could pull over and use the bathroom without getting stuck in the snow. It took several hours just to get through Bellevue.
After driving 12 hours with the steering wheel in a death grip, it was nice to sleep in my own bed again. Well, I mean, to lie down for a while in my own bed and then go upstairs and shake myself to sleep in a cold bed in The Hotel Room.

Is it Tuesday yet?

My Mondays off are quickly becoming less fun than my workdays, sadly enough. Today it was the nightmare of my own making -- I lost the only key to the cellar, which is the only access to our crawl space. The only access, of course, except through one of the foundation vents. So today I spent my day off wriggling on my belly through fiberglass, dirt and spiders to finally pop out in the little cellar.
Along the way, I peeked at the heating ducts (I kind of had to in order to crawl over them). I thought we had basically been pumping heat into the ground by not having the ducts sealed and insulated. Little did I know we were literally pumping heat in the ground. One of the ducts isn't really connected to anything, just blowing heat out, some of which accidentally makes it into the disconnected duct. That explains why 68 degrees just isn't so toasty.
I spent the rest of the day trying to get a new deadbolt to fit on the old cellar door lock I had to remove. And now I'm picking at the fiberglass left in my skin. Fun day.

Back in business

It's been a long time, but then again, I can't blog at work anymore -- not even during lunch. Our email is being monitored and it would be wise to assume everything else is.
That said, this is much slower at home with dial-up. But to get back to the heart of this blog, my restless legs drug (Gabapentin) doesn't seem to be helping much lately. I haven't slept a full night downstairs (except for last night, strangely) for quite a while.
Maybe when I'm less tense at work I'll sleep better.
Oh, P.S. -- Why does the Blogger spell check get hung up on the word "blog"?

Down on the drug

Well. Today's the start of my scheduled turn-over-a-new-leaf, rededicate-myself, be-more-productive period. It's tempered a little bit by my fatigue and lowered ego. A competitor's newspaper dedicated two reporters to a story I did Saturday, and got quite a bit more stuff than I had. Which I can make excuses for, but in the end, I didn't dig as much as I should have.
I'm also disappointed with the Gabapentin. I don't really feel drugged at bedtime anymore, but then again, I don't really feel much of an effect. Last night I was shaky to beat the band. So while I usually wake up from a weekend -- if not refreshed, at least not exhausted -- today I woke up feeling like I had just had a long, tired week.
So I start the week exhausted and without the burning drive to excel I had on my well-rested day off. Ah well. Such is fall. Not great colors, but nice smells and feelings. Reminiscence. Romance. And melancholy.

It's murder, I tell you

I have to cover a murder today. No fun. At least I got some sleep.
I can either say that the new dosage of Gabapentin works half the time or that it works with half a bottle of champagne (left over from the wedding). Either way, last night wasn't so bad.