Couch 247: Choose Cheese!

The nights I sleep best are the nights I remember to use this alongside my Nothing Much Happens podcast.

I like it because it tends to put me to sleep without the weirdness of tired body, wide awake mind that Rescue Remedy etc seem to have.

I began listening to a podcast this afternoon that said elevated cortisol levels due to stress (or grief) can contribute to waking in the night or being unable to stay asleep.

It was odd having my brain explained to me.

Thats interesting about the cortisol. I was a late night fretter since i was a little girl. Ambien changed my life when i was 50-ish - i finally fell asleep quickly!

None of the 3 of those people I hired ever were all that interested in dreams. I do get repeating nightmares which can be a pain - they are usually about trying to save someone and there are obstacles like fire, giant volcano schisms, tornados, etc and I can hear the person calling for me to help them and I just can't get to them. After both my mother and my person died - I had a lot dreams where they were alive and it was so jarring to wake up and remember they were not - particularly when the dream recognized they had been dead and were now alive again -the death had just been a fake -they never really died but were doing various secret things that required them to look dead (too much conan doyle apparently).
Cannabis is the only thing that I have used that really helps with sleep. I have never tried prescription drugs because I don't want to be at the mercy of an md or big pharma.

I had my brain explained to me too this week! I saw my psychiatrist and he explained that dopamine is the chemical which is linked to salience. Dopamine is also the chemical which is raised during periods of psychosis/delusion. He explained that this is why I (and others of course) are making meaning out of otherwise meaningless events or aspects of life - ascribing salience by seeing patterns, receiving messages etc. I found it very interesting and it was a relief to have something of my experience explained to me. He was surprisingly non-wankerish about it which is a feat for these fellows.

I just brought home a piece of lemon curd cheesecake. omg it is sooo good.

I learned from my pdoc that Lithium has been shown to heal trauma in the brain. I've already told her I want to try Lithium. I also read that Lithium combined with Ketamine helps treatment resistant depression. Lithium Might Enable Ketamine's Antidepressant Activity | Psychology Today

I loooove lemon curd.

i don't think i'd ever had it before. it was so delicious.

has anybody ever played around with character.ai? it's a "neural language model chatbot service". i've been playing with it this afternoon. people create "characters" and then publish them on there, and anybody can chat with the characters. I found a Tarot reader one and asked it some general-type questions (not gonna give any specific details to a bot!) and it's kinda cool. kinda scary too that a chat bot can converse like a human.

Then i shouldnt tell you you can get it by the jar in the baking aisle. Or sometimes by the jelly.

Lemon curd is pretty easy to make -
How to Make Lemon Curd (5 Ingredients) - Sally's Baking Addiction

I made cranberry curd for thanksgiving

no you should not hahaha! actually i've seen it before i just didn't really know what it was or that it was so good.

That was quick, I barely had a chance to wait for it, ha ha. Thank you, I will check out the link.

Tonight I am making some sweet potato ice cream with 3 different types of sweet potato: japanese sweet potato, purple yam, and regular orange sweet potato. The bases ( sweet potato -one container of each type of potato- with banana, pineapple, and some light coconut milk) was tasty going in - can't wait for it to freeze so I can try it.

Those sound tasty.

I hope they are = I think the flavor will be fine but wondering about the texture. The flavor was good going in and although the freezing will mute some of the sweetness from the banana/pineapple - I think it will still be good. I was given a ninja creami for christmas so I am starting to try it out. The purple and orange look the most striking but the japanese one is really the best tasting - I was surprised at how sweet it is just by roasting it, but the other two are also good.

Ive heard good things about the japanese sweet potato.

sounds interesting!

The ice cream sounds delicious- at first I was trying to imagine the color with purple and orange mixed together then re-read they are separate. And now I want to try cranberry curd. Sounds delicious.

The cranberry curd was from the nyt cooking column. I don't have a link that doesn't require a subscription.

I heard a phrase just now on a podcast that I'm adopting "The math was not mathin'" Love it!

Saw this and thought of you guys.

https://x.com/SomaKazima/status/1768...207972494?s=20

It's a tiktok thing. I have a 11 year age gap between my youngest sister. I learn all of the new lingo from her. She was saying this around two years ago because I remember teasing her with it too.

This is why i hope they outlaw tiktok!!! How annoying is that little richard???!!! Nobody cares what he thinks! Hes not funny! Im not drunk! Hes not cute enough to take up that much of my time!!! Maybe i really am a lesbian...

I haven't ever been to the ticktok site - or is it an app? I don't have it either. I wouldn't outlaw it - but as much as I dislike a good number of things - I don't want most of the outlawed. There are only a few things I would actually outlaw.