Second day with a full Zopiclone dose in the morning, and still no radical effects, although I am not normally quite this tired at just before 8 PM.

But then I did just eat a big bowl of rice, and that is a heavy carb laden meal, and those have been known to make a person need a bit of a lay-down. So who knows.

So far, though, the drug’s effects are pretty mild. Pleasant, though. After taking it, I get this slowly growing feeling of warmth and relaxation spreading through my body. It is not entirely unlike my favorite part of being drunk, when you are just loose and relaxed and everything seems just fine and dandy from where you are sitting.

The only even slightly odd side effect so far is that I get this curiously warm feeling in my feel, like I have come in from the cold and propped my feet up before the fire and they are just about to the point where the warmth stops feeling good and starts to hurt a little bit.

Next time, in the interests of science, I will be sure to take my socks off before I take the pill, and see if that has a noticeable effect. I suspect that it is something simple to do with circulation. Perhaps the drug increases blood flow to the extremities, and what I am feeling is simply my usually semi-deprived cold feet getting a much needed circulation boost.

Otherwise, the drug just makes me somewhat drowsier, but not in any heavy, overwhelming way. Just a gentle hand on the shoulder pushing you ever so politely towards bed. Fine by me, although again, part of me was apparently looking for a little excitement out of this drug.

And after Doctor Costin’s dire warnings about the side effects and needing to lie down right after I take it even though the effects are supposed to kick in slowly over an hour, and then my own ill-conceived research into the drug on Wikipedia, who can blame me? It all suggested that this was some kind of heavy duty drug that was going to knock me on my ass and that I should be well and prepared for before I let it take me to town and back.

Instead, I get the effect from it that most people get from those over the counter sleep aids, which historically have done absolutely nothing for me but make it very irritatingly hard to wake up when the time comes. Talk about having the wrong end of the stick. I don’t want to make it even harder to get out of bed because I am still tired. I want to be refreshed and alert when I get there.

Regular over the counter sleep aids just make things worse.

Whereas the Zopiclone, so far, just mellows me out and makes me feel warm and relaxed, and that does indeed make it somewhat easier to get to sleep. I do not get much reading done before I go to sleep, which is no big deal. Sure, reading before sleep is a habit I have had since I was a preschooler reading from our enormous compendium of children’s literature.

I was raised by books, television, and video games. More or less.

But what the hell, I can read less if it means sleeping more. I still read in the bathroom, after all, and who knows, a better rested and relaxed me might just have it together enough to actually schedule times to read what I want to read.

That would be a radical innovation in life organization for little old free-form me, and they say that the ability to conceive, set, and attain goals is a key practice for recovery from depression, so that would be a good thing.

But I dunno. Just thinking about it makes me roll my eyes and groan “Boring!”, so clearly, any increase in organization in my life would require considerable amounts of conference and understanding with my inner child and the rest of the committee.

The idea of an organized, schedule, measured, precise, and completely predictable life just makes me wanna roll over and puke. So dull and rigid and lifeless! Where is the esprit, the elan, the joie de vivre? I may not be some kind of freewheeling free spirit looking to suck the marrow out of life, but I still find the very prospect of that sort of hyper-controlled life to be one that gives me the same sort of feeling I get when peering over a very steep drop : nausea, dizziness, and the feeling that it is trying to suck me in.

But clearly, one can take that shit too far. Surely I could make my life a little more organized without it meaning the death of my vital inner self? I like to think of myself as at least somewhat practical and sensible. After all, when you have nobody to rely on but yourself, you always suffer the consequences of your own actions, and so you are always performing without a net.

And for me, at least, performing without a net makes me extremely cautious. Because you can only fall to your screaming horrible death once, ya know.

But a part of me deeply wants to be released from the tyranny of that iron caution. Part of me just wants to do whatever seems right (or fun) at the time and not worry about the consequences until they happen. It wants to just turn itself free, to run and jump and frolic and play and just plain enjoy being alive. I have never done that in my life, even when I was a little kid.

Even as a little kid, I was far too sensible and intelligent for my own good. I grew up in the icy realm of thought, which is great for theoretical knowledge but sucks raw turds when it comes to adding experience to your soul and helping it grow.

So I guess I should change.

Don’t count on it, though.