Topic of the Week: Insomnia-- Ambien Be the Death of Me

I almost gave up on sleep around six am to write this. Last night was one of those rare nights (which are getting more common thanks to the acupuncture and Chinese medicine) where I fell asleep like a normal human being. But then I woke up at 5 am to pee and my mind started going. I wasn't even worrying about things, just having random thoughts. That's usually how it goes. I didn't fall back to sleep until Scott's alarm was going off at 7. Slept a couple hours and now here I am, tired as usual.

But despite this, I will not go back to using Ambien or any sleep medication on a regular basis. If I absolutely have to get a full night's sleep and be totally functional early in the morning (ie, if I have an event to attend or a deadline to meet), then I will take a pill. Otherwise, no more. I think after you read this, you'll understand why.

As I mentioned the first time I took Ambien, I was 18, on winter break from college. My friend Tai had been prescribed some. She spent the night and asked me if I wanted to try it. She told me she got a good night's sleep and also had some funny hallucinations if she resisted the urge to go to sleep for a little while. I'm not gonna lie, I was 18, I was all about experimenting substances, so I thought it sounded like an adventure.

When Tai and I woke up the morning after a very restful Ambien-induced sleep we both remembered vaguely something about an obsession with a Devo CD and making nests for little people. We sat up, glanced around the room and saw that indeed, we'd raided my laundry hamper and made nest-like shapes out of t-shirts and pants. And the Devo CD was sitting out. (The one time I did acid, I also became obsessed with the Devo CD, I really don't know what the deal is.. something about the cover, pictured above?) We laughed, totally amused that we'd sleep-nest-built. I'm sure the people on Ambien who sleep-eat and sleep-drive aren't nearly as amused by those sorts of side effects, but when you are 18 and just doing goofy shit, it's funny.

More importantly, I hadn't slept so soundly since I was a little kid. I immediately called my doctor and asked for an Ambien prescription, which she eagerly gave to me. Yesterday, I documented the way every doctor I dealt with until my current physician, felt that I could take Ambien forever without any problems. Maybe those commercials with the cute little puppies waking up on them say only take for a couple weeks at the time, but apparently that is not what the drug company is telling the physicians. Ambien was always made out to me to be completely safe, non-habit-forming, no side effects.

The only side effects I had were the occasional hallucination when I resisted the urge to go to sleep. Unlike so many people have reported, I always remembered what I did while on Ambien. My ex boyfriend and I watched dogs row boats across our ceiling and had the oddest of conversations. Like I said I was young and thought that kind of thing was fun, so I was sad when my tolerance for Ambien went up and I no longer had hallucinations/nonsensical conversations before bed.

I was also a heavy drinker at the time and I've gotta say that I'm lucky that Ambien was not the old sleeping meds of yore because no doubt I'd be dead from getting drunk and taking Ambien. Sometimes I do wonder how I lived through it. But it was my solution for when the Ambien stopped working as well-- it still worked great if I was plastered. There was only one time that I had a serious problem with drug/alcohol/drug interactions.

If you read IWBYJR, you may remember a scene where Emily does coke, drinks wine and takes some pills to come down, then she has a wild hallucination about tiny people in space helmets stacking furniture on her chest and she feels like she is going to suffocate? Yeah, that was actually one of my real life Ambien hallucinations. I didn't do coke, I did a form of speed that they use to treat ADD. Some college friends had told me if you took it, you could get really drunk without puking. I thought that was a great idea (god, I was so stupid), so I did it, but then realized it prevented me from passing out at the end of the night, which was one of the things I liked best about drinking (booze was all about self-medicating for me back then). So I took a couple Ambien.... Like I said, I'm surprised I'm still here. Those space people almost suffocated me to death.

Another part in IWBYJR that came from real life a little bit, is there is a character toward the end of the book, Finn Leahy, who was in a terrible accident and is addicted to pain meds as a result. He tries to resist taking the pain meds every night, but eventually is heard, rolling over, pouring pills from the plastic bottle into his hand.

That came straight from my experience as well, except it wasn't pain meds, it was Ambien. I spent the first three years I was on Ambien, thinking it was this miracle drug. Then there was a year where I was mixed about taking it. Then I spent the last six years trying to quit taking it. I cribbed a line from the Velvet Underground's song Heroin ("Heroin be the death of me...") on purpose because kicking Ambien was like kicking heroin for me.

I have an addictive personality, no doubt. Nowadays my internet addiction is really the worst of it, but between 14 and 21, I went through phases with different drugs and alcohol, though oddly, I would do them a lot and then just stop. I also quit smoking with relative ease (though when I picked it up again for a couple weeks after my friend died last summer that was probably tougher than when I quit after smoking for six years). Cutting on the other hand.... cutting was damn hard to quit and Ambien was the worst of all.

The thing that was most frustrating about Ambien was that virtually every doctor I saw swore to me that it was non-habit-forming and that I could just stop whenever I wanted. The sleep study told me, "There will be a little kickback."

I said, "You mean, withdrawal."

He said, "No a little kickback. Your sleep might be rough for a couple days while your body adjusts."

No, asshole, trust me, you mean W-I-T-H-D-R-A-W-A-L.

For years I would try something that would really get my sleep better and I'd lower the dose of the Ambien. I did this with hypnosis, with another kind of medication, with meditation. But ultimately on those nights I tried to go without Ambien completely, I'd have a Finn Leahy moment. Around 3 or 4 in the morning, I'd roll onto my side with a sigh, try to quietly shake pills out of bottle, and try not to hate myself as I swallowed them.

As I mentioned yesterday, when I decided to try acupuncture, I knew I'd have to go off of Ambien cold turkey.

Scott and I had been watching Celebrity Rehab around the time we did it, which I shouldn't have done because as I lay in bed awake all I could think about was the D-List celebs sweating through heroin and alcohol detox, not sleeping much like me. I'd turn and look at my clock and whimper louder each time an hour passed. 3 am, 4 am, 5 am, 6 am. I'd wake Scott up, sobbing, "I have to get up for work in an hour, how am I gonna do this? I feel like a junkie. I feel like a fucking junkie!"

The week that I kicked Ambien, I literally slept about 2 to 3 hours TOTAL. Not each night. Total, that whole week. Fuck you, doctor douche who called this "a little kickback." I always thought it was some cover story when Eminem went to rehab "for Ambien addiction" but I see now that it was totally plausible.

After my week of no sleep, my body finally crashed. Then the acupuncture started to work.

Until June 26th, 2008, I got the worst news I've ever received in my life. My friend Marcel was killed in a motorcycle accident. A lot of people sleep when they are depressed. Not me. I lay there, feeling completely empty, like life is so devoid of meaning. I drift off for an hour or two then I would wake up, feeling like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. Sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. Ambien was the only way I could rest. I knew this. And I had my first book coming out and I had to somehow be functional and pretend to be happy in spite of the grief. So yeah, Ambien, cigarettes. I was in a bad bad place.

I stayed on Ambien for about a month and a half. When I came home from tour, I knew it was time to kick again. It only took a couple days this time. Maybe because I'd used Ambien the way it was intended, for a short period of time. But still there was withdrawal. To say it is non-habit-forming if you only use it for a few weeks is a lie. And I still haven't gotten back to the place where I was thanks to acupuncture before Marcel's death. Hopefully it's coming though. And even if it's not. No more Ambien. No more drugs.

I'm not gonna tell people what to do when it comes to insomnia but I am going to advise you VERY STRONGLY not to rely on medication of any kind, particularly Ambien. But seriously, the other are just as bad. They are hell on your body (especially any kind of painkiller PM, taking unneccessary painkiller is so so so bad for you) and they are habit-forming, physically and especially psychologically. I suggest trying herbal and homeopathic stuff if you don't have money for the alternative treatments I'm going to be detailing Thursday and Friday of this week. Also a glass of red wine (like one glass, not like half a box of Franzia like I did in college) doesn't seem bad to me.... But yeah, I don't know. I wish had more solutions.

Topic of the Week: Insomnia-- My Life As A Zombie

This week is National Sleep Awareness Week, so I decided to make insomnia the topic of the week on my blog. I haven't done a topic of the week before, but insomnia seemed like a good thing to start with. If you know me or having been reading my blog for a while or following me on twitter, no doubt you've heard me complain about my insomnia. And I keep saying, "Someday I'll write a blog about it." Actually, I could probably write a memoir about it... though I'd like to resolve the insomnia problem so I'd have an ending for that book. For now, topic of the week will do as it will give me a few days to get in depth about my history of sleep-deprivation.

Today, let's start with an overview. We'll get into discussions about Ambien, hypnosis, and acupuncture later this week.

My life as a zombie began at thirteen. I’m not talking about the kind of zombies I blogged about over at Amanda Ashby's blog/cyber launch party last week. My brains didn’t get munched or anything. I’ve just felt like a zombie since the fall of 1992 because that’s when my insomnia started.

Approximately 70 million Americans have either chronic or intermittent sleep problems. We have busy lives and more to worry about every day. Worrying was the main thing that kept me awake at first. My first major bout of insomnia came the night before eighth grade started. My best friend had moved away over the summer and all I could think about was how I’d have an even harder time fitting in than before. I’d worry, get up for a drink of water, worry some more, toss, turn, realize I had to pee because of the water, and then the cycle would begin again. It lasted all night. I think I fell asleep an hour before my alarm clock went off.

This is still the pattern of my worst nights (though now I keep water beside my bed and try not to drink much of it to avoid the peeing). Those nights I get an hour or two of sleep. My best nights involve tossing and turning for a couple hours, falling into a light sleep for a while, waking up, and repeating the whole process. I get six or seven hours of sleep on my best nights, except for once every week or two when I totally crash and get a solid nine hours.

I’ve tried just about every “fix” imaginable over the years. I started with "good sleep hygiene," which admittedly I've never been all that great at. It seems impossible to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every single day. As a teen, my bedroom was my haven so I did everything there, though now I'm better about that. I also indulged in caffeine and nicotine a lot as a teen, though I don't now, other than my morning tea. And try not to worry in bed... ha ha! But I tried my best and when that failed, I started medicating.

First, my mom suggested Benedryl, the allergy med with side effects that make you sleepy. She's worked the night shift as a nurse for years and it always worked for her. Not me. Unisom and all the over the counter crap didn't work either. I didn't fall asleep any faster and when I did, I felt totally groggy and hungover. By junior year of high school, I was dealing with depression and the fall out of the abusive relationship, so I was prescribed low doses of anti-depressants to help with my sleep troubles. Those didn't work. So my doctor suggested herbal remedies. Valerian helped a little bit for a while, but then it stopped. My first semester of college, I took the extremely unhealthy approach of drinking till I passed out. When I came home for winter break, my friend Tai told me about a pill she'd been prescribed called Ambien—the drug that is now famous for sleep-driving and sleep-eating incidents.

Ambien deserves its own blog entry so we'll talk about my first experience with it tomorrow. But it was the first thing that worked solidly and on January 9, 1998 when I was eighteen years old,I went to my doctor and requested a prescription. At the time, doctors seemed to think it was a miracle pill, no nasty drug hangovers like sleeping pills of yore, and I was told repeatedly, “It’s non-habit-forming!” My doctor didn't blink at continually refilling my prescription and slowly uping the dosage from 10 mg to 15 mg to 20 mg. Sometimes she supplimented the Ambien with other drugs like Sonata and Lunesta. Those would work for awhile than stop. Ambien continued to work as along as I upped the doseage. Right after September 11th, 2001, when I imagine a lot of Americans were filled with anxiety, I was taking 30 to 35 mg of Ambien a night. No one was concerned about this except my mother, who'd been uncomfortable with the thought of me taking sleeping pills and/or anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds all along.

When I had a sleep study done in spring of 2002, the doctor asked me, “But why do you want to stop taking Ambien? You could take it forever and it would never hurt you.”

I replied, “Because it’s expensive and when I turn 23 this summer I won’t have my mom's insurance coverage anymore. That's why we are doing the sleep study.” (I was in grad school at the time and was about to have really crappy student insurance.)

The overnight sleep study at Evanston Northwestern Hospital was a last ditch effort to resolve my sleep problems before the insurance ran out. It cost well over a grand, but fortunately insurance covered it. Otherwise I would have been really pissed because, guess what, they discovered nothing. I didn't have sleep apnea or restless legs. I had general insomnia. Their only solution was medication. They actually had the nerve to recommend that I go on an extremely expensive (three times the amount of Ambien, which I already couldn't afford) anti-seizure medication that had the side effects of sleepiness. My mom, fortunately, put her foot down. She would later be vindicated when paging through one of my brother's law magazines years laters and finding out about a class action suit involving that drug.

Desperate, I tried hypnosis. Again, this deserves it's own blog post, but the results were, I got down to 5 mg of Ambien, but wasn't able to sleep soundly without it. My psychologist had recommended the hypnotist and when that failed, he found a psychiatrist doing studies on different sleep meds.

This doctor was the first to be upfront and honest with me: Western medicine has no idea how to treat general insomnia, which he told me was what I had. We talked about my history of depression and how it started around the same time as my insomnia when I was 13. He admitted that the insomnia could have caused the depression or vice versa. But now that I was depression-free, obviously the insomnia was it's own beast. How did we treat said beast? You guessed it, with more drugs! Fortunately, since I had crappy insurance, he treated me for free, as part of his research. I was also given sample drugs. There was the new longer-lasting Sonata and the new Rozerem, which he was very hopeful would work with me. It didn't. Not as well as Ambien at least. We also tried some different anti-seizure meds, which worked to get my Ambien dose down, but never got me completely free. 

Desperate because Ambien was so expensive, I tried some older sleep meds on the recommendation of both the psychiatrist and my regular doc. Halcion (which I just found out when googling it to check its spelling, Jeffery Dahmer used to sedate his victims) caused side effects similar to the horrible comedown I had the one time I did acid. And I admitted this to my mother when I woke her up, freaking out over my racing heart, dry mouth and weird hallucinations. Restoril gave me a drug hangover that left me feeling as strung out as I felt on codeine when I got my wisdom teeth out. Last but not least, was chloral hydrate... you know the stuff you pour in someone's drink when you are "slipping them a mickey." Well, that didn't work on me at all except by upsetting my stomach the next day.

Ultimately I just continued to charge Ambien on my credit card until I got a real job with real insurance.... and of course right around then is when Ambien finally went generic. Sigh.

But I did have to change doctors when I got my real insurance, since I needed someone who accepted HMO. My mom was pretty glad I had to switch since she felt my doctor had really let us down by letting my Ambien use go on for so long. When I talked to my new doctor, she wrote me an Ambien script, but advised acupuncture, saying "Really, Western Medicine doesn't do shit for insomnia." She actually swore. This is why I like her.

Before I tried acupuncture, I tried meditation. 2007, I made it my New Years resolution to get off of Ambien. After all, I'm very picky about what goes into my body. You know, I'm vegan and I quit smoking because I didn't like being slave to something that was bad for me and Ambien really felt like the same thing. My pilates instructor was kind enough to make me some recordings of meditations she did when going through cancer treatment. As usual, they worked sometimes better than others, but never as good as the Ambien. My resolution failed that year, so I bid on acupuncture treatment at a silent auction for a charity organization that Christmas. 

I won and scheduled my appointment for soon after New Years 2008, swearing again that this would be my year to get off the stupid sleep meds. Acupuncture will also get it's own blog, but right away I knew I liked it, but I need to find a practitioner closer to home. Fortunately my pilates teacher knew someone and she turned out to be perfect. Of course we both agreed that I needed to be off the Ambien for the acupucture and herbal remedies to work.

At that point, I’d been taking Ambien for ten years. The sleep study doctor among others swore to me that I wouldn’t experience withdrawal when I stopped taking it, “just a little kickback.” That “little kickback” actually translated to no sleep for almost an entire week. I’m not even exaggerating. 

But acupuncture worked. I was sleeping like a normal person for almost a month. Then a good friend was killed in a motorcycle accident last June and I haven’t slept the same since. My acupuncturist has been trying to get me back on track, but I'm still struggling. I'm proud to be off of Ambien (though I have a supply of it for really stressful nights or times when I have to get up and be functional super early). It helped to quit my 9 to 5 and be able to go to bed during the time that my body dictates, which is more like 2 am to 10 am than 11 pm to 7 am like the workaday world dictates. And I'm still holding out hope that one night I’ll lay down, drift off effortlessly, and stay asleep all night and it will keep happening night after night, week after week. 

So tomorrow, I'll tell you more about my struggles specifically with Ambien. I really do think that drug is evil and believe that if I'd combined therapy with acupuncture back when I was 18, I might be sleeping normally now.

But what about you? Are you the one in ten of who struggles as hard to sleep as I do? Or are you the one in three who gets less than six hours of sleep each night during the work week? (You need seven to nine! You may think you don't, but seriously, medically, that is what your body needs. Period.) Or do you drift right off like my fiance who I'm terribly jealous of?

Jennifer Banash Winner and Zombie Party!!!

What a lovely way to start a Friday: I have a winner to announce! The winner of Jennifer Banash's IN TOO DEEP is Diana Dang from blogger. Diana, please email me at stephanie at stephaniekuehnert dot com with your mailing address!

Now, in case you hadn't heard, Amanda Ashby's new book ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEWBURY HIGH is coming out very, very soon. And she is hosting an amazing zombie-themed cyber party on her blog. You can find out who all is coming by watching this:

Today, I posted a guest blog there, along with my lovely critique partner, Vanessa Barneveld (remember that name. She doesn't have a book contract yet, but I am convinced she will very soon and you all will love her as much as I do.) So go read my zombie blog and leave a comment to be entered to win a signed copy of IWBYJR. And while you are there read Vanessa's (who is giving out some delicious sounding chocolate cookies) and everyone else's!

Enjoy your weekend and be on the look out for zombies!

Win Lunch with me from Time Out Chicago and looking for lyrics!

Time Out Chicago is running a contest this week to win lunch with me at a South Loop restaurant.  They are doing this because I will be part of the Columbia College Chicago Story Week Festival of Writers March 15th through 20th.

If you can't read the contest details above (which you probably can't because I had a nightmare of a time getting the PDF to a jpg), just go to timeoutchicago.com/getthis for all of the details. 

All you have to do to enter is visit the Story Week Festival of Writer's website and find out when and where my event is. Then plug in that answer at timeoutchicago.com/getthis. You have to enter between now and 8 pm CST on March 4th. Now, note they aren't flying me some place to have lunch (I wish!), so you should only enter if you are in the Chicago area or can easily get here to have lunch with me in the South Loop.

Okay, now I have a strange request. In BALLADS OF SUBURBIA, different character write their "ballad," basically the story of the most important moment in their life. For my character Stacey, it's about realizing that both of her parents are pretty much incapable of raising her and that she has to take care of herself. So she starts dating a ton of boys and winds up getting pregnant (Don't worry I'm not ruining anything for you by telling you this. You know Stacey had a teenage pregnancy from pretty much page 1 of the book). Everyone opens their "ballad" with a song lyric. Right now Stacey's is a Jane's Addiction lyric:

"It's up to me now

My daddy has gone away"

I'm not sure this is perfect. Mostly because the song "Had a Dad" that this is from is actually about there not being a god. It's not a literal, my dad let me down song. Maybe I'll end up using it anyway, but maybe, just maybe there is a better lyric out there. There are some qualifications though:

1. It cannot be more than two lines long. This is because of fair-use laws. 

2. It has to be a song that came out before April of 1995. Stacey is not psychic. She cannot use lyrics from songs that were written after she wrote her "ballad."

3. It has to suit Stacey. Stacey is not a punk like most of my characters. She would listen to mainstream alternative rock from the late 80s/early 90s (ie. Jane's Addiction, Faith No More, Nirvana), heavier classic rock because of her mom (ie. Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, also stuff like Fleetwood Mac), she also had a hair metal phase (Poison, GNR, Bon Jovi, etc) and a hippie phase (though, god help me, I will not quote the Grateful Dead in my book. I considered it, but I just dislike them way too much. So I don't know, Beatles or Doors instead of the Dead please)

4. It has to describe the situation I describe above. ie thinking your parents are failures, can't take care of you, so you date lots of boys looking for one to take care of you and get knocked up and forced to grow up too soon. It doesn't have to cover all these things. That would be one hell of a song, but perhaps it covers one of these aspects or a general feeling of it.

And I would need ideas by Sunday at the latest. The copyedits go back on Monday and if you guys or my critique partners or me don't come up with something, I'm sticking with the Jane's Addiction I guess.

The "Inspired By" Contest Entries!!!!

Well, the "Inspired By" contest definitely didn't garner as many entries as I'd hoped (I love seeing people's creative sides and hearing playlists/mix cds so I guess I was being a little greedy and hoped to see a ton), but it got some absolutely amazing entries. I'm so glad that I put in the rules that the winner would be determined by votes on my blog because I could not choose between these kick-ass entries!

So here is how this is gonna work. I'm posting all the entries in both categories: Fan Art and Soundtracks. Voting will be open for two weeks. I will announce the winner on March 10th. You vote by simply leaving a blog comment. Choose one entry from the Fan Art category and one entry from the Soundtrack category. If you entered, of course you can vote for your own. If you are passionate about seeing a particular entry win (like maybe your own), feel free to send your friends over to vote as well. Even though I didn't get a ton of entries, I hope there will be a ton of voting because these people's hard work deserves to be seen by many! If you are one of those people who needs to see the rules/prizes for the contest before determining winners, you can find them here.

Okay, I am posting this in the order I received them, not the order I prefer them. I seriously couldn't choose. That's why I'm leaving the hardwork up to you, dear blog readers.

Fan Art Category:

Ritsuka's entry:

Close up on the letters (click here for an even closer look):
This is Ritsuka's Artist's Statement, explaining her photographs: There are four pieces of paper in the photo, and all of them say something different. One has Emily's song on it. Louder. Harder. Faster. Another has the lyrics to Sleater-Kinney's I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone scrawled on it.
And the last two . . . The last two are letters written by Emily and Louisa. 

I took the picture in my own musical haven, I wanted to give the impression that it was where Emily had be sitting so of course I chose that spot.

Jonathon's Entry:

Jonathon's Artist's Statement for his t-shirt logo design:  I was inspired by the significance of Emily's mother's records in the novel as well as the Sleater-Kinney song, hence the 45 adapters.

Paul's Entry:

Paul's is an alternate book cover for IWBYJR.

Liviania's entry:

Liviania's artist statement about her t-shirt logo design: As I read the book, I paid attention to the character of the band and the first thing that really hit me was how much Emily and Regan wanted to own their sexuality. They didn't always since that's how the world rolls, but they were fierce and wanted it. I was also thinking about functionality - a logo needs to be printed cheaply. Therefore, I started doodling feminine silhouettes as I read. But none of them really took control for me. They were just the same thing you could see as a window cling on some loser's car. As my silhouettes became more stylized I found a shape I liked: a dressmaker's form.

It reduces the female body completely to an object. But it's an object that's been used by women for women. Plus, some of the curves reminded me of the curves of a guitar. Then came the problem of lettering. I knew I wanted block letters but had trouble finding an orientation I liked. What I chose has the letters running out of the form - the personality of "She Laughs" is too big to stay within the lines.

I wanted bright colors and to limit myself to 4 since that's a standard printing number. I had a triangular highlighter perfect for the job. I imagine the design being as is on a black background or with the form filled in black on a white background. The final product is a bit more flat than I wanted (I may try again), but overall I think I got it pretty close to my concept.

Now onto the next category...

Soundtrack Category:

Kay's Soundtrack: Click on the link to see a YouTube video of the song if you are not familiar with it.

Civet - All I Want  This song reminds me of Emily and Regan's friendship.

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - Bad Reputation  Another Emily and Regan song; if there's ever an IWBYJR movie, they should TOTALLY do a montage of Emily and Regan strolling around Carlisle, with this song as a background.

The Runaways - Hollywood Dream  Yet again, Emily and Regan. Maybe not Hollywood dreams as much as rockstar dreams, but the lyrics kind of relate to that: "Daddy says I'm much too good for the neighbourhood."

New Found Glory - Truth of My Youth Kind of how I think Emily, Regan and Tom (and maybe every kid that ever went to River's Edge) felt about Carlisle.

HorrorPops - Freaks in Uniform  "A zombified closed community, a brainwashed breed of hypocrisy!" - another tribute to the town stuck in the past, lol.

Rancid - Unwritten Rules  To me, this song sums up the passion and NEED to play music, for She Laughs.

HorrorPops - Trapped  Kind of what I imagine Emily was thinking when she first met Johnny.

Rancid - Injury  And an Emily/Johnny break up song.

HorrorPops - Undefeated  "My band, my friends, my life, my pride, what keeps me undefeated" - Emily's rehab song after the travelling year.

Civet - You Don't Know Me  Emily and She Laughs vs. Johnny and My Gorgeous Letdown.

Garbage - Cherry Lips  A song for Michael and Louisa: "This life can turn a good girl bad - she was the sweetest thing you ever had."

Alkaline Trio - Maybe I'll Catch Fire  This song makes me think of some of the things Louisa thought in her years of solitude: "And maybe I'll catch fire, something warm to hold me - something pure to burn away the darkness that hides inside my mind; all that evil shit's not hard to find."

Blondie - The Dream's Lost on Me  A survivor song for Emily.

Lucile's Soundtrack:

Justine's Soundtrack:

So there you have it. The nice thing is that due to the low number of entries, everyone who entered will get some sort of prize, but your votes will determine who gets what. 

Please comment and pick one in each category.

Fan Art: Ritsuka, Jonathon, Paul, or Liviania

Soundtrack: Kay, Lucile, or Justine

GCC Presents: Jennifer Banash

I'm excited to do another interview and giveaway this week (remember to comment on WWRW to win a signed Civet CD) because Jennifer Banash is here on her Girlfriends Cyber Circuit tour!

Before we get to that I want to remind you of one important thing. Today is technically the last day to enter the "Inspired By" contest. Since I'm a procrastinator and my beloved fiance is an even worse procrastinator, I'm gonna give you procrastinators one last chance and say get your entry in by Sunday night because Monday is when I'll be posting the entries on my blog for voting! Details can be found here, my darlings!

Now let's meet Jennifer Banash and talk about IN TOO DEEP, the next book in her fabulous ELITE series! Here's what the book is all about

If you don’t belong here— you just don’t belong…

The Bramford building’s newest resident and small-town transplant Casey McCloy is adapting to life in the Big Apple and loving it. She’s got the look, the attitude, and a delish new boyfriend, Drew Van Allen. But she’s starting to have second thoughts as to whether the “New York” Casey is the real Casey. And she’s not so sure she likes herself much anymore. She’s not the only one.

Madison Macallister has always had her Manolo Blahniks firmly planted on the top rung of the social ladder—until that corn-fed cow Casey stole Drew away from her and made her look the fool. So what if Madison wasn’t exactly dating Drew at the time? She wanted him. And everyone knows that Madison gets what she wants, like Drew—and a little revenge.

Praise For THE ELITE series, and IN TOO DEEP:

“The Elite is Pretty in Pink for the millennium generation.”
—Romance Reviews Today

What's a Normal, Illinois girl to do when she enters the world of New York City's rich and bitchy? Hold tight, because this is one drama-filled ride."
--Melissa Walker, author of Violet on the Runway.

"In Too Deep is a seductive read."
—Innovative: A Word for the WriTeen Blog

“Fans of the drama, romance, gossip, and privileged lifestyle depicted in Gossip Girl and Blue Bloods will be drawn to In Too Deep... In Too Deep continues to showcase the glitzy and glamorous lifestyle of New York City’s privileged teens...Banash’s Elite series continues to rock above the rest.”
—The Compulsive Reader Blog

“As you know, life in the posh and drama-filled Upper East Side is never easy! Hold onto your Hermes scarves and Coach handbags, the Bram Clan is back for more action and drama!”
—The Book Vault Blog

“Banash is fabulous at creating relatable characters in over-the-top situations.”
—In Bed With Books Blog

Now let's meet Jennifer!


Jennifer Banash attended high school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and currently lives in Southern California with her Beagle, Sigmund, and her vast designer shoe collection. She is the author of THE ELITE series, published by Berkley Jam. Watch for the third installment of THE ELITE, SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE, coming in July 09! Visit her website at  http://www.theelitebooks.com

Jennifer has been awesome enough to answer my usual questions for the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit:

Please list five songs that would be on the soundtrack to your book and explain how they relate to your story or characters.

Jennifer: M-83's Kim and Jesse would be the soundtrack to not only the book itself, but would be the song featured in the movie trailer if ITD was ever a film. Their CD, Saturdays=Youth is like a 21st century soundtrack to Pretty in Pink. It's fantastic.

New Order's Age of Consent. Come on--it's New Order! This song was so intrinsic to MY youth, and really brings back what it felt like to be a teen for me so vividly whenever I play it.

It's Never Over by Kate Walsh. This is very much Casey's song to Drew. It's the track that she listens to over in over in bed at night when she can't sleep.

Sour Cherry by The Kills is really representative of Madison to me--even though she wouldn't have the slightest idea who they are!

Crushed by the Cocteau Twins. This is THE song of heartbreak, as far as I'm concerned. I don't CARE that I don't know WHAT the singer is actually saying! it perfectly captures the feeling of having a crush on someone unattainable, and getting your heart stomped on--the beauty and sadness of it all. Sigh.

Name some of your main character's favorite musicians or bands.

Jennifer: Drew really likes the band M-83. He's actually borderline obsessed with them. Madison doesn't really like music at all per se, and thinks that pop music is especially stupid. Phoebe likes obscure French bands like The Plastecines, and her favorite song ever is Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot's Bonnie and Clyde. Her favorite CD is Charlotte Gainsbourg's 5:55. Sophie's musical tastes are pretty mainstream--she likes Beyonce, Britney, Rihanna, Madonna--al the usual suspects. Casey is really eclectic, but especially LOVES 80's music. Her favorite films are John Hughes teen comedies from that time period, so it's only natural that she also love the music from those films especially!

Who are some of your favorite musicians or bands?

Jennifer: Here's the playlist I listened to obsessively when writing IN TOO DEEP--it should give you a pretty good idea of my musical tastes:

That’s Not My Name: The Ting Ting’s
Kim and Jesse: M-83
The Song That We Sing: Charlotte Gainsbourg
What Will Give: The Radio Department
Starlet Johannson: The Teenagers
Sour Cherry: The Kills
My Sister: Juliana Hatfield
Run: Air
Incredible: Madonna
One Time Too Many: Phoenix
A&E: Goldfrapp
2 Hookers and a Mexican: Mickey Avalon
Age of Consent: New Order
Thirteen: Elliot Smith
Nolita Fairytale: Vanessa Carlton
Don’t Bother Me: The Blakes
Phantom: Justice
Jealous Girls: The Gossip
Face To Face: Daft Punk
Chocolate, Raspberry, Lemon & Lime: Muscles
Crushed: Cocteau Twins
Sleep: Azure Ray

Even though music plays in so heavily into my storytelling, I rarely can actually listen to it while I'm writing. Can you? How does music fit into your writing process?

Jennifer: I have to listen to music when I write--but only with headphones. I sort of have to create my own little universe with its own soundtrack when I write :) I often listen to the exact same song over and over again when I'm writing a scene--and often the song itself will make it's way into the pages of the book--literally!

While music is my muse, I know other writers find their muse in theater, sports, art, the great outdoors, etc. What is your main muse?

Jennifer: Films and television. I'm obsessed with media culture in all its forms but especially film and TV.

Thanks Jennifer. And most of all, thanks for volunteering to give away a copy of IN TOO DEEP to one of my lucky blog readers! We'll do this the same way we do Women Who Rock Weds. You have until next Friday to comment, and you can comment on anything you like, Jennifer's interview, how much you are dying to read this book, whatever you like! Personally I'm gonna comment that I think Jennifer has awesome musical taste and my favorite song on her playlist is My Sister by Juliana Hatfield. I loooooove that song!

Women Who Rock Wednesday: Liza and Suzi of Civet!!!

Welcome to Women Who Rock Wednesday! As usual, I have a prize from last week to give out, a signed copy of MISS MATCH by Wendy Toliver. That lucky winner is.... sweetmelissa818 from blogger. Please send your address to stephanie at stephaniekuehnert dot com to claim your prize!

Today I have an extremely special interview to share and as usual there will be a kick-ass prize, a signed CD by my current favorite band on the planet, CIVET!

I know you have been listening to me talk these ladies up for almost a year now, but it's for good reason. I haven't gotten this excited about a band since I was like thirteen and first discovering bands like Nirvana, Hole, and Rancid in the early 90s. I've been listening to their album HELL HATH NO FURY pretty much non-stop since it came out in September. I ran a little WWRW feature on them back then, but wasn't able to do an interview because the ladies were quite busy. But in addition to being the most kick-ass women in rock, the ladies of CIVET, Liza and Suzi in particular, are total sweethearts. They invited me to their gig in Chicago in December and sat down afterward to do an exclusive Women Who Rock Wednesday interview.

So why did it take me so f*&^ing long to share it with you since I know you were dying to have it. Well, two reasons. One because I was just swamped and it took me forever to transcribe it, but mainly because I wanted to post it now, to psych you up for CIVET's tour with the DROPKICK MURPHYS which kicks off on Friday! You should visit CIVET's myspace now to find out if they are hitting a city near you because this is a tour not to be missed. CIVET is amazing live. For me, that is the true test of a band. I can't honestly declare them one of my all-time favorites if they don't blow me away in concert. I was in an all-girl mosh pit at CIVET's last Chicago show. That hasn't happened since.... um, probably never, but maybe some riot grrrl show I went to back in the early 90s at the Fireside Bowl. But seriously it was one of the best shows I've been to in a long long long time. The pictures that you'll see throughout this interview are from the Chicago show. But now I'll shut up and let Liza and Suzi do the talking. Don't forget to leave a comment after you read the interview. That's how you'll be entered to win a signed HELL HATH NO FURY cd.

(L to R: Suzi, me, Liza)

Can you tell me how Civet formed? And you guys are sisters, how did that play into it?

Liza: Yeah, we’re sisters. We started the band like 6 or 7 years ago. Suzi wasn’t initially in the band, but it was always my dream to bring her in to the band. I was always like, ‘Oh, I want to play music with my sister.’ It just took a little while for her to not be so young and be ready to come and jam.

Suzi: Pretty much when I turned 15. She was like, “Yeah, it’s time for you to pick up the guitar and be my back up.” And I thought, “Hmm sounds better than going to school. Now I have an excuse to get home schooled and play rock shows.

Liza: It was pretty funny because for about a year, she’d come and play like one or two songs at a show just to break her in and get the feel of things.

Suzi: It was scary. It was horrible.

Liza: The pictures are so cute. You look so young.

Suzi: I really was very young.

So who were some of your early influences? I’ve heard you say that part of the reason you did this was because there weren’t necessarily women out there doing what you wanted to do.

Liza: I didn’t really feel like there were any girl bands out there that I could really look up to.

Were there any women at all who influenced you?

Liza: Well, I really loved the Runaways. It just felt like, yeah there were girl bands, but they weren’t all tough, you know what I mean? I really wanted a tough girl band.

Suzi: Yeah pretty much you got to choose from like the Runaways who were around so long ago that it wasn’t even like we could go see them. And then like Courtney Love was really cool, but she was a little intense. We like wanted to find the medium. That was like comfortable, but still really tough.

What about guy bands, who were some of your influences?

Liza: When I first started I was listening to a lot of classic rock, like The Stones, The Beatles.

Suzi: That’s the kind of stuff we grew up on.

Liza: I think I listen to a lot more punk rock now that I did when I was starting the band. Even though if you listen to the music it probably sounds like it’s the opposite, like more punk rock in the beginning. But we love like Motorhead, the Misfits, stuff like that.

Suzi: We like dark, intense kind of stuff. Where when you are listening to the record you can feel the sweat they put into it. You’ve gotta get emotion out of it. That’s what we go for.

Do you guys have any crazy stories from the early days?

Liza: I don’t think anything was ever embarrassing, but I think a lot of the reason that a lot of girl bands don’t make it is because when they start they almost invite criticism because they are really shy and don’t present themselves as tough so they kind of invite the catcalls and the bad reviews. I think it’s a matter of being comfortable with yourself. I don’t think you can blame that on society. A lot of girl bands when they start, including myself, like I didn’t feel very comfortable with what I was doing in the first year and that invites negative shit.

So do you have a way to deal with it now?

Liza: No I just really don’t care now.

Suzi: We’re just over it!

Liza: We’re so far beyond being comfortable with who we are and what we do. We just feel like really powerful women. We feel like these bad-ass females who people look up to and we fuel our own fire and I can’t even imagine anyone saying anything.

Suzi: It’s a joke. They end up being the ones who look stupid. And everyone around them knows that. We’ve gotten to the point where that kind of stuff doesn’t matter, we’re so far past it.

When did you pick up guitar?

Liza: I actually started playing guitar when I started the band. So the first couple of years were like learning years. I was like 15 or 16.

And you’re self-taught?

Liza: Yeah, for sure. I never took lessons or anything like that and then I tried to teach Suzi…

Suzi: When I was 14, she was like, “Play this!” I was like, “Okay, it doesn’t really sound that good, but it feels good.

Liza: It comes together. I think if you have a passion for something, you don’t need lessons, you can teach yourself. You know what sounds right and what doesn’t sound right. No need to go to school.

What are some of your favorite songs on the new record, either to play live or songs that are really close to your heart?

Suzi: I would say one of my very favorites to play is 1989.

Liza: Yeah that’s one of my favorites, too.

Suzi: That’s totally up there in the top three. Probably number two. I don’t know what number one is, but I’m sure there is one… 1989 is a really great song that Liza wrote about our family and our dad and things that happened.

Liza: It’s weird because when we play the song we really kind of all get (S and L in unison) the chills. It’s one of those songs where you play it and you’re like, man, this song really feels good right now. And then Alibis is a great song.

Suzi: Yeah, there’s a lot of aggression in that one. It’s a good one to play at shows.

Liza: And then I also I love to listen to All I Want.

Suzi: That is such a fun song.

Liza: We don’t play that live right now. We’re going to start for our next tour. But it was a co-write, so it wasn’t initially ours, so it’s kind of hard.

Suzi: We’re like, we don’t really know you!

Liza: We played in the studio and it sounded fabulous, but after that we just didn’t add it into live rotation fast enough and we need a refresher course.

That’s a great song. It’s a co-write with Tim Armstrong, can you talk about how that came about?

Liza: Yeah. I think Tim felt kind of weird about just giving us the song to do on the record because there’s so much speculation about the Distillers albums not being written by the Distillers. So Tim was like, I have this song it was written for…

Suzi: Fefe Dobson, some Candian pop singer, which she recorded it…

Liza: She recorded it, but it didn’t make her album.

Suzi: Yeah and Tim was like, “I really love this song, can you guys maybe tweak it, make more your own. I think it would be a really good collaboration.”

Liza: So we took it into the studio—or to our practice space, I should say—and we changed the chords. And Tim and I worked on the lyrics together. So it was like we were able to make it our own, working with him on it.

Suzi: But you can still definitely hear his influence in it.

Liza: Yeah, you totally can. Like the guitar riffs, even though we played everything, the guitar stuff is signature Tim Armstrong.

(Stephanie enthusiastically interjects how much she loves the lyrics and they remind her of her friendship with her best friend.)

Liza: I think originally the lyrics were very like “All I want is my man to stand by my side”

Suzi: And we’re all, “Oh hell no!”

Liza: Yeah, it totally didn’t fit with us. And Tim was like, “Well, you know if you guys want to write it about being best girl friends. We can rewrite it.” And I said, “Okay, let’s rewrite it.” So it worked out a lot better.

Suzi: I’m really happy with that song. It’s like a little present, like here’s my gift to you, thanks for being on the label.

Liza: Tim was very cool about it.

You guys are very tattooed, I’m tattooed, I love tattoo stories, you got a favorite tattoo story that you want to tell me about?

Liza and Suzi ponder for a minute.

Suzi: Well, we just got tour tattoos.

Liza: We just got tour tattoos.

Suzi: We all got matching diamonds. (Suzi shows hers off on the back of her arm.) Mine’s still healing. My skin is slow. We all got diamonds tattooed on us for this tour, kind of like…

Liza: Maybe we’ll make some money this year.

Suzi: We’re heading that direction so we thought we’d symbolize it.

That’s awesome, where’d you guys get them done?

Suzi: It’s called HandMade Tattoos in Virginia. He’s a good friend of Danni, our drummer. His name is Will and they just took us in on our day off.

Liza: And all the band wanted tattoos and they were like let’s just do it.

Suzi: It was a nice little present and we had a nice day off, hanging out, getting tattooed.

Do you have any advice to women who want to get into rock or how to survive high school or your teen years as a punk girl?

Suzi: Did you say survive high school?

Liza: We both bailed. We got our diplomas but not good times. I think it’s all a matter of becoming comfortable with yourself and finding something to believe in.

Suzi: Yeah, finding something to believe in that makes you feel really good and really secure in who you are and that reflects who you are and makes you happy and just running with it. Putting your all into it. 100 percent.

Liza: If you’ve got something you believe in and you’re working hard for, you’re not going to give a fuck what anybody thinks about you.

Suzi: You kind of make your own rules about life because you are doing something you love. Your telling the universe this is who I am, this is what I want, and good things are going to happen because of it. And it’s not about going to school or doing things a certain way, it’s about following your heart, making yourself happy first.

Liza: Totally.

These are my questions that I always ask. What was your first album and your first concert?

Liza: My first concert was actually Joan Jett. I can remember seeing her at a fair and I was just sitting on the fence. We didn’t actually have tickets so I was peeking over the fence watching her. It was very inspiring. I must have been six or seven. I was really young. And then my first album that I can remember, I had a New Kids tape. (Liza laughs.) I’d totally go see them on their reunion. It’s good stuff, you listen to different stuff when you’re a kid. I can also remember my parents playing a lot of Tom Petty when I was younger. That sticks out a lot.

Suzi: I’m 19 so I grew up when the Spice Girls were huge and they—I will not fucking lie about this—they are a huge influence on me. They were the coolest girl group of all time. They just rocked. They took over the whole entire world and it doesn’t matter if they looked really fucked up…

Liza: But it was all about girl power.

Suzi: It was! And being like 11 that was cool to me. I was like, “Yeah, girl power!” I really believed it and I was all about the Spice Girls, okay? And Liza took me to go see Hanson.

Liza: I did. That was one of her first concerts.

Suzi: And she wouldn’t let me pee until they played Mmm Bop, which was of course the last song because that was their big song. So I’m practically crying and having a horrible time. And then they played Mmm Bop.

Liza: It was good. And we also saw the Spice Girls when they did their reunion tour.

Suzi: And I cried during that, too.

Liza: It was great. There’s something to be said about a band like that that moves that many people. I mean, yeah there’s marketing involved but people want to believe in something.

Suzi: And that’s what inspires you. It’s up there and you can’t look away. Cheesy as all hell, but whatever. Anyway, the Spice Girls, that’s when I grew up. It’s not to say that I don’t love rock ‘n’ roll. I mean, Social Distortion and The Ramones and The Clash and The Beatles and all that, huge influence on me, but when I was a little girl, that’s what was big. I’m proud to say.

What’s been your biggest rock star moment so far?

Suzi: We have to pick one? (Both Liza and Suzi laugh.) All of them.

Liza: How ‘bout when we chased down Tommy Lee. Oh wait..

Suzi: That was horrible. That wasn’t a rock star moment. That was us chasing after a rock star.

(We all laugh.)

Liza: I think when we were on the Dropkick Murphys tour recently and we had the amount… their catering.. and we played these big stadiums, like baseball stadiums on the East Coast and we showed up for the first show and no one told us we were playing stadiums. We were like, “Okay.. There’s like 10,000 people out there!”

Suzi: And people loaded our stuff onstage for us.

Liza: Yeah, it was pretty overwhelming. And we got everything we asked for on our rider. It was great. It was a good time. They really took care of us. We were getting paid like way too much. (She laughs.) It’s really hard to come down from a tour of that size and do the real stuff.

Suzi: And be grounded when you come home.

Do you guys like touring?

Liza: Oh yeah. Suzi and I love it.

Suzi: We don’t like coming home.

Liza: This is just too much fun.

Suzi: I could just stay out here.

What’s your favorite thing about it?

Suzi: The not being home part.

Liza: It’s almost like you’re on vacation. You just roll in every day, you load your stuff and you play. You do what you love. There’s no pressure. You’re around the people you wanna be around. You get a set schedule. I don’t have one of those when I’m at home, so it feels really good to me.

Suzi: You get a set amount of money to do whatever you want with everyday.

Liza: Sometimes they feed you, sometimes they don’t.

Suzi: Sometimes you get lost.

Liza: It’s great. It’s a good time.

A big thank you once again to Liza and Suzi for doing the interview! Go buy your Civet/Dropkicks tour tickets, get ready to see them on Warped Tour this summer and leave a comment to be entered to win a signed HELL HATH NO FURY cd. As usual, I will chose the winner via random number generator and announce them next week when I have Lynn Turkington of Angel Potions here, telling us about her skincare/beauty line and of course another oppurtunity to win great, free stuff!