Important disclosures

1. That new chocolatey Kellogg's cereal was made for people like me. Although, they really should add the word "moderation" somewhere in the slogan: It won't undo your whole day, because people who eat chocolate for breakfast are the same people who will finish off the whole box in a drunken chocolate stupor at midnight, and if you eat the whole box at midnight, it actually does undo your whole day.

2. Ambien went generic last week, and I was at the pharmacy 10 seconds later. I know people who have counted pennies for years because with or without insurance, the drug is $3 a pill and requires a savings plan. (And speaking of expensive medicine, what's with $94 dollar allergy medicine, geez!)
   
   Well, friends and mom. The days of hoarding and splitting and burying and saving and taking only half-a-pill a night are over! Ambien for everyone! I took a whole pill last night for the first time in months and enjoyed a glorious morning of reading through all the crazy comments and messages I left on people's blogs last night. I especially like the one where I pretended to have been in a coma for 40 years and just found out I was actually 79 and that my friends and I had been distance-learning friends for over 50 years.
   
   What a good 8 hours of refreshing sleep! If you come stay with me, you'll find a mini bottle of shampoo/conditioner and two complimentary ambien on your pillow. Just don't be surprised to find a bunch of little cornflakes and chocolate pieces in the bed when you wake up.

3. My brother graduated high-school yesterday. Not the 20 year old, the 18 year old. Gosh, it seems like only yesterday I was bringing him a box of drug-free party favors for his sweet sixteenth in rehab. We're still working on the 20 year-old. My dad says he only has 6 hours left to finish, but that he keeps leaving school after an hour-and-a-half every morning to come home and eat a bowl of cereal. My dad thinks he just leaves to get high. I think he has discovered Chocolately Kellogg's cereal and can't stop. It happens to the best of us. Boonjy: there will be plenty of chocolate cereal after you graduate high school. Ambien, too. What? What's Ambien? Oh, that's a LEGAL drug. What's legal? Umm...look it up.

4. I am going to Belize in September for 10 days, and hopefully in January for 6 months to teach. My friend told me yesterday she thinks I am going to catch "the bug" (traveling bug) and not want to come home. I just really hope I don't catch the tarantula bug or the lice bug. I am actually terrified of those two bugs and have spent endless hours on the internet trying to find herbal and natural smells and treatments to repel those bugs. If you have any suggestions, please. Tell me. Also, I was hoping to pick up fluency in Spanish there, but I recently found out they actually speak Creole on the coast, and Spanish on the Guatemalan border, but the villages were founded by British Hondurans, so they speak British English. Who knows what I'll come back speaking. Probably it will just be a weird dialect of hissing, from the tarantulas.

5. I have a smoke detector that kept beeping at me, so I took out the batteries--I know, I know, totally dangerous. I meant to grab some at the store, but it's been about 3 weeks. Now that stupid detector is hanging from the ceiling by a red and black wire, and it has a little tray sticking out (where the battery goes) with a bright orange sticker on it. Also, there are those two little lights on the surface that are supposed to light up and flash when the detector is working, but since there are no batteries, they are just dark. So now, every time I go to bed or wake up and I am in that sleepy stage where I am not totally awake or totally asleep I jump out of bed and almost scream because it looks like a weird animal is hanging from my ceiling sticking its tongue out at me. I'm serious. And plus, the bridesmaid dress from my brothers wedding is hanging on my bedroom door, so sometimes there is an animal hanging from the ceiling AND a headless woman floating in my doorway. Just thought you should know.

6. I made an appointment with a dermatologist yesterday, which is a big deal because it involved calling my insurance company to FIND a dermatologist and explaining to a receptionist that, no, I didn't have an actual problem right now, per se, but that 3 generations of men in my family died of melanoma and that my dad was given 60 days to live when he got it at 26. I turned 26 last week, and read an article in Allure that said a if you have a first degree family member with melanoma, your chances of getting it are over 90%. I'd say that's a problem that needs so preventative care, wouldn't you? She agreed. I see my first dermatologist on Friday, for a full body exam. Yikes. FULL body exam, wink wink.

Well, I think that's enough for now. I had to stay home sick today, if you're wondering where I found the inspiration for these important disclosures. I was totally bored.