Last week, my co-worker Melinda told me I should rent “The Crow” from Netflix since she had just watched it for the first time after many years and found it highly entertaining from the “wow - I’m now ‘x’ years older” vantage point.

The first thing I said when she asked me if I remembered it was, “It can’t rain all the time,” which is one of the cheesier “goth” lines used in the movie when The Crow reveals himself to be the re-born fiance of the young girl’s dead friend/sister figure.

We chuckled for a few minutes about things like the over-use of the music of that time period in the movie - for example, the Stone Temple Pilots’ song (it was called “Big Empty”, though most people probably think it’s called something like “Conversations Kill” since those are some of the more repetitive lyrics) and the way that crazy eye makeup caught on.

It arrived from Netflix today and it’s proving to be a perfect distraction. Really. I think I need to search the soundtrack songs since they jettison me right back to an unhappy part of my life - early high school years - but the songs are all eerily familiar. I could quote most lyrics from that Stone Temple Pilots song in my conversation with Melinda. My freak status was further cemented into the walls of surround cubicles.

I have, however, done a good deal of homework for my upcoming paper (more Library of Congress catalog research, downloading MARC records, finding templates to create a Dublin Core record - all kinds of fun nerdy library stuff) and have become totally frustrated because registration for summer and fall began last Monday, and I haven’t been able to search for classes OR register. The class searching thing was solved today - I got a response to my help ticket from IT. However, the registering thing is not working since all my attempts to use the class search thing were generating an invalid PIN message and too many invalid PIN messages lock you out of the system. There’s no way to get back in without speaking to a human being on campus, and they are there from 8-5. So I programmed an “alarm” in my cell phone along with the number for campus so I will remember to call tomorrow and take care of business.

Last night, I was getting increasingly upset and down on myself - which I still am, but a productive day at work does do a good deal for the self-esteem and ebbing the tide of deeper depression. So does talking to a friend at lunch (you know who you are, Krys!). In any event, to be able to fall asleep last night, I ended up taking two of my prescription sleeping pills and one of my leftover Percocet - about 30 minutes later I got really really dizzy and went to sleep promptly thereafter. I woke up at 6:00 this morning, then went back to bed until 7 a.m. I don’t want to do the same thing tonight, but considering that it’s 10:00, I’m wide awake and the only thing keeping me from sinking into a crappy pit of ick is homework and a cheesy movie, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Without taking my sleeping pills (no opiate chaser tonight, thank you very much) I will be sitting here, watching the movie, reading, doing crossword puzzles - anything possible to keep myself occupied until I’m SO tired that I just fall asleep. If I don’t engage in those distractions, I’ll be in bed, tossing and turning, crying and thinking and generally miserable until 3 or 4 in the morning, at which point I’ll just be really angry at myself and will eventually fall asleep, only to have an utter crap day tomorrow.

If I take the sleeping pills, I’ll still have to distract myself until they kick in, but one crossword puzzle should do it… and I’ll get dizzy and my eyelids will grow heavy and I will sleep. I think that might be the way to go.

I don’t want to become dependent upon them, or develop a “habit” - right now, I’m honestly using them only as needed. Before this past weekend, I hadn’t taken them in several weeks. Using them, say, one week out of a month isn’t tragic, especially since the doctor prescribes me enough to take one every night. I use them as sparingly as possible… it’s just good to know they’re there. Kind of like the can of soup I keep at my desk just in case I don’t have the money or desire for lunch.