sleep

Day 48: Death by Saliva

| Aspergers Girls

I awoke in the early hours of the morn hacking like a hairball-ridden feline with my throat aflame. I’d apparently choked on my own saliva and was still mostly asleep, pacing the bedroom floor while gasping for air. My throat was parched from what had to have been an up chuck of bile.

Out of breath and slit-eyed, I made my way upstairs, and sat in the cold living room under the light of a singular lamp, contemplating my death. LV (see my lingo button) was wide awake, panting and pacing in a pure state of panic, entirely convinced that at any moment the co-conspirators of spit and throat would rebel and squeeze the last breath from me.  Sir Brain refused to ever sleep again. Crazy Frog started counting on his webbed digits all the ways a human could feasible expire. Elephant headed out to the forest. Phantom was weeping in the dark. And OCFlea was in his element, strumming on his ukulele and serenading Death.

Little Me, I passed out on the couch while bargaining with the gods.

Saliva Choking Info. Found Online: “I would be interested to know if you are Overweight. The symptoms that you are describing sound very much like obstructive sleep apnea, which is more common in people who are overweight. In this increasingly common disorder, the soft tissue in the back of your throat relaxes while you sleep, and then it falls into the airway.”   

Oh! JOY! Time to find me a muzzle. 

This morning, I looked in the bathroom mirror, and I swear my chin is gone. Vanished. Took off with the night. And I have a taste in my mouth like some Keebler elves were up late lacquering my teeth with pond slime. My chest hurts from choking, and still from that nut that caught in my throat from that frozen-cheesecake incident a couple of weeks back. My legs, and basically every part of my body, ache from starting back up with my evil (Eeee-V-aalll) exercise regime. Oh, yes, and my headache came back like black magic, right when the Dean of Education called me last night.

The Dean is heading to China. She gave me a quick ring-a-ding before she left her office for the week. I will get reimbursed thousands of dollars, it seems. Her advice, to set the final part of the plan in motion, was to write a very short, ambiguous email explaining to the VP of the university that I had to withdraw from the college because of my disability. (For university auditing purposes)

Oh boy, did Elephant barge out from nowhere. All of the sudden anger, which I can only assume had been held hostage in the dark of the haunted woods with Phantom, came barging out full-force, trumpets and all.

Elephant had a thing or two to say to the dean. And Elephant actually sounded quite intelligent during the process.  First off Elephant reminded the dean, who I have to say was kind in her manner, that I would not lie, that I was not leaving the university because I had Aspergers! In truth I was leaving because of the way the professors treated me. And that in my last Master’s Program, I had had no trouble whatsoever with the professors, and was in fact supported! (What a concept.)

After Elephant’s romp, the dean was rather quiet. When she spoke again, she still said the same thing: A brief email would be best.

Within a few more minutes, Elephant got to the bottom of the situation. (Now I’m picturing butts. Sorry. Can’t help myself. But I’m stopping Crazy Frog from posting cute butt photos.)

Elephant discovered that the dean had no qualms about anything that Elephant had said. In fact she agreed. With some careful questioning, Elephant came to realize the dean wanted me to write a brief email to assure I’d receive my tuition back. The brevity would avoid the potential of my tuition reimbursement request going into the long, drawn out appeal process. The dean also concurred, quite nicely, that after I had the money in hand, I might consider sending a letter to the VP explaining the truth of the events.

Bravo! One step closer to putting this university behind me! (Butt images again…)

Crazy Frog is ever so thankful to have his precious i-Mac computer back today. Seems he’s become quite the computer snob.

My post was super short yesterday, by my standards. Wouldn’t you know, it turns out that people who read blogs like short posts! Now I have to go back to review my Blog 101 Rules again, and develop a working list of the unspoken norms and etiquette of blogging. It appears, through the act of blogging, I have stumbled upon a cyber society with its own set of virtual rules and expectations.

I’ll be hosting a sit down with the Geek Posse at high noon, to acknowledge our quirky-cute, uniqueness and our right to be however we wish to be in any society, cybernetic or not. Though, I predict the whole meeting will turn into a Matrix  (virtual reality) debate, where Crazy Frog searches out the boundaries of his existence, and theorizes he is existing in some simulated world anyhow. Regarding their existence, I imagine I’ll have to console LV and Sir Brain with dark organic truffle chocolate, yet again.

And then by sundown, I’ll inevitably find myself gasping in the night with no chin. Such is the story of my life.

The Muppet Matrix. For all my fellow Geek Posse Folks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrotZDDsTE


Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Thirty-Two: Myttin da!

| Aspergers Girls

Attention folks. I’m using my teacher voice here, and then I will be checking for understanding, and administrating a pop quiz. If you have not read many prior posts, you might want to press the LINGO BUTTON. Repeat back what I said, to avoid further confusion. Thank you and onward!

Side Note: I will be venturing deeper into the realm of my Aspie mind and touching base on more serious issues soon (as in someday), but at the moment, Crazy Frog is buffering me from the insanity that has surrounded me in the last few weeks. So, stay with, if you can, until Crazy Frog retreats some, and we can get down to more serious business. Or not.

I figure one medium-sized chocolate-chip cookie (130 calories of gooey, pure heaven), that I devoured at 5:00 in the evening yesterday, is equal to the loss of thirty-five minutes of sleep.  I had three cookies. Plus my earplugs are defective; that, or my husband, having returned from his leisure business trip, picked up a multiple-of-two on his visit to Arizona, and attached said multiple to his snore factor. Regardless, I couldn’t sleep last night.

And I had chocolate-induced dreams, where I think, if I remember correctly, I was some sort of Star Trek Borg (cybernetically enhanced beings who assimilate other races into their group and devour everything in their path) hooked up to the genius-stream of the all-knowing Google God.

My husband’s snoring sound ZZZ-Zzzz-ZZzzz-hn-oink-GGggoofffh-Ppwwbhww- zZZzzzZZ was the source of the Borg’s power. Right now LV theorizes she can use Borg and Star Trek as search engine terms for this blog, and pick up some more traffic. Attract people to the Geek Posse (Lingo), like those cool characters from The Big Bang Theory television show. Currently, the Big Bang Theory is LV’s and Sir Brain’s salivating-worthy fascination.

Did I mention it’s 5:00 in the morning! I’m thinking Sir Brain is up because of the upcoming IEP meeting (Individual Education Plan) for my middle son at his school this afternoon; that and the fact that LV had this running dialogue (hamping) about our life-forces dependency on my internal organs, and how at any second our heart could decide to give up, or even explode. Sir Brain wasn’t totally freaked out, until LV added the whole aneurism (brain explosion) probability to the equation. That’s when Sir Brain packed two rectangular-1950’s-style suitcases and stood up on his toothpicks legs and said, “I’m out of here.” Until LV explained that he was the brain and couldn’t leave. Which bothered Sir Brain to no end, as he didn’t understand how he wasn’t a separate entity beyond a body organ. LV and Sir Brain are still debating on that one.

I wrestled with the thought of staying in bed, until LV brought me back on the hamster-wheel, and reviewed repeatedly, (think copy machine spitting out 1000 copies), the fact that I didn’t show up to my afternoon college course yesterday.

Thus, I rose with puffy, slit-eyes, appearing as if I’d been born and raised on a planet without sunlight. I mounted the stairs, walking like a zombie, while listening to LV chatter it up, in her California, valley-girl dialect, about how I don’t have to be from another planet, because I live in a little town in Washington State, which is primarily absent of sunlight.

And now I’m here typing, while LV goes over with Sir Brain, (who is frantic about exploding), about how yesterday was the first day in my (count them) 7.5 years of college that I missed a class. I haven’t missed a class (not big into rule breaking), since that time I was a freshman and broke down in front of the professor babbling and bawling like a Fool (picturing tarot card), because I needed to go to my beloved Nano’s funeral that was two-hundred miles away, and I wouldn’t be back in time for the next week’s class. That was in 1986!

So, understandably, LV and Sir Brain are a wee bit perplexed about me basically playing hooky from school. Although, they are quite aware that we have left the university but can’t withdraw officially yet, because we’re waiting (and waiting) to hear back from the authorities that be, to see if I have to spill the beans about how I was woefully treated, before I can get my tuition, (the equivalent of two-month’s mortgage) reimbursed. I’m thinking it’s not too early for a glass of wine or a horse tranquilizer. What’s your opinion?

I had something I was thinking about typing about when I was tossing in bed this morning, but the thought is beyond me now. Prophet in my Pocket is still in his 18th century pajamas and nightcap, attempting to sleep. LV is in la-la land wanting to travel with Sir Brain and his suitcases off on some tangent. And I’m thinking I’d like to take a ride on Elephant and get the heck out of Dodge. (Which I now know the meaning of, thanks to one of Brain’s prior followings of string.)

Thank my lucky stars. I just ran to the phone and received an automated message: Do to icy roads there will be a two hour late start at school.

Crazy Frog just woke up with a jolt. He’s a morning frog. Wide awake. He arose to tell me he is super excited about going back to sleep. He found a song! Almost three million people have seen it! It’s a perfect video: it’s weird, talks about sleeping, and the guy walks like a borg! The first one Crazy Frog found.

I’m not going to let Crazy Frog edit this prose or rouse me any further, as I’m taking Prophet in my Pocket’s cue, and crawling back in bed. “Don’t wake me, I plan on sleeping” (song lyrics). Oh, before I go. One thing that made me laugh this morning, besides the processing of my own brain:

When I was looking up ideas for snore sounds (because I don’t really have a life), I found this article about this lady’s husband who is a chronic snorer. And this novice lady author, she’s rambling on and on, going way off tangent; and then right in the middle of the article she writes, “…and my husband, he’s had lots of wives.” And I stop. Backspace. Reread. Chuckle. Reread again. And pause frozen, completely unable to read the rest of the article, because I’m thinking this chick definitely has Aspergers.

Crazy Frog does how a softer side. He found this. Make Yourself Sleep in 40 Sec. (Don’t show this to children.) Thanks Crazy Frog! You Boob!

Spastic-Colon (my dog) just busted out her doggy-door and is barking at the sunrise. Now she’s back. Must add her to the lingo dictionary, after I get some shut-eye. Which is odd when you think about it, because our eyes never shut—they just get covered in a flap of skin.  Ironically, my alarm clock just went off in the other room. Time to wake up! Myttin da! (That’s Cornish for good morning.)