the ambien diaries

So while I was studying abroad in France, I got prescribed ambien. I took it off and on for the next few months, but decided to stop after one night where I dressed up in a costume, took pictures, started a blog (to this day I haven't been able to remember its name or find it), and later ended up wandering my building, presumably still in costume, only to find myself at one point in the basement laundry room. 

Here are some of the journal entries I wrote while under the influence:

France, 2004
I'm going to play and write on a random topic. Bed green where I sleep I don't like this game I want to talk about the fact that I am bringing my ativan to school tomorrow and am not going to be stressed and gain wait and its all one day really that just merges into another and tomorrow I'll be leaving, today I have the whole day- my last full day in Rennes is now- to reflect. Tabor graduation. UGH. No time to get cool.

France, 2004
Wow so I was really high on ambien writing my last entry. It's now two o'clock in the morning and I'm leaving Rennes today, getting on a plane tomorrow! I can't believe it and I'm so tired and oh no the ambien is kicking in again I wish there wasn't such a thing as sleep . Tomorrow I have to get to the post office and pack my cosmetics and give my host family their present and then I'm leaving! I can't believe I'm out of here but how am I going to transport my bags? And are they under 32 kg? Is the scale lying to me? I'm so scared that they'll have too much stuff and I don't trust that scale. Today I was just trying to get everything done, trying to survive through the day, handed things in 83 on math re-test! SOUP diet and talking with Sarah, being anti-social, souvenir shopping, later Negociations and Happy Bar with Courtney, Pam, Jen can't believe it's over- literally can't believe it. So sleep deprived. The room is moving think I should crawl into bed. But I hate bed.

want home bed not bus 51 bed not Holiday Inn bed just want to be home!

New Hampshire, 2004

The ambien is taking over? It literally started filling my mind with dreams and is trying to pull me in- I love it. I will definitely need to be getting some more was there a conversation about that today- or how I need to leave France wow here you go here is my train of thought I hope you know that right now I'm concentrating on what I'm writing I find that normally I am quite a good writer but ok I see what's happening and go through so many trains of thoughts that finish long before I finished writing we should do that up and I feel bad because see I forgot again- through this journal I can figure out this drug. You can still think and concentrate but only in a limited area. Then is it the beast. I don't even know what I was going to say. I'm really trying to write a normal journal entry with strains of throught what also happens is you stop, get a preview type thing for a dream, and go back. I feel like someone in an e-mail cafe explaining to his friend back how this works- I can't wait to read back over again

no Italians and SLEEP
Love, Liz

New Hampshire, 2004

I just love writing in my journal after I've taken my ambien. With it I feel like I could learn a lot about the world, about dreams about spirituality, but this is a bad thing because I think its eventually going to turn me to drugs. Not just normal drugs, other ones- weird ways to find out more about life, the way things come together, the way we know when some things are right and others aren't coincidence? No such thing, I say. Maybe the ambien has past its prime and stopped working, I can tell I'm still high but not that much but when I re-read this tonight I won't be laughing but tomorrow I will want to find that link because right now I'm thinking normally, can research, can analyze.

New Hampshire, 2004

This is all crazy. The night before my graduation! I'm bursting with thoughts this is like Christmas but 10x more. I feel feverish. I want to be there now. Why is this such a huge deal to me? Cuz it's fun- fun fun fun. I've figure out the secret to life which is to take ambien. HAH! I can't express these complex ideas- like Carolyyn- I just wanted to hear that song that walk like a man song, on a ski lift up into the jungle, the jungle that is the graduation. This HAS to make sense tomorrow, it's so simple. I need to leave to get on the ski lift but right now I need to make sure I have all my equipment for combatting those jungle animals at the top. I've done my research (past journals, etc.) prepared myself physically, undergone months of training, and here I GO! I am doing experiment.

BYE!

New Hampshire, 2004

i could write in my diary just to be funny. I'm so mad at myself for getting fat again and today the Pink outrage was the equivalent to confession on Christmas Eve

analogy: Valentine's Day

this part of my brain

should be used for
choreographing my

life it's like mad libs

you know what you're

talking about as long as you

go along and then you

start to fall asleep writing each sentence

and forget- all i can

think of is cornrows ladies

in Tenerife it's like I'm

dreaming about them

but in here too so they can

show me like sirens they want to

lure me away but when

I stop writing I won't be

able to record from inside
this world so I can't stop

and then, my friends, it gets into diagrams...

I especially like how it concludes on Britney Spears. So the moral of the story is, for a good, or really baffling, time, take ambien! Just don't expect to get much sleep.