More drug testing

So, last night, I tried to go to sleep with just the dextromethorphan and nothing else. No codeine, no diphenhydramine, not even acetaminophen. Bad idea. The DXM worked reasonably well at keeping the cough idle, if not completely, but I couldn't sleep. I've been sleeping twelve, fourteen hours a day for the past four days, and it all caught up with me last night. Very annoying.

Even worse, it interfered with my waking imagination. I had a good idea for another Sterlings story. It's hinted in the current book (new chapter is up at the website this week; I forgot to mention that, didn't I?) that the Han make Sterlings very uncomfortable because Han are fully functional hermaphrodites. I had come up with a good opening scene for throwing a few Sterlings together with some Pendorians, one of whom is a Han.

And I tried to imagine what the Han looked like. I'm usually okay at this, enough to get a feel for the character and make him or her presentable and dressed. But for the life of me, I couldn't really get the image of a Han in my mind. I mean, they're a mashup between a Silkie and a Hallavodan (and if you know what a "Silkie" and especially a "Hallavodan" are, you are way old-school furry, and I salute you o my brothers!), but instead I kept seeing a Hecatonshires having a painfully bad hair day.

I did sleep some. I dreamed a strange dream where I and a few hardy souls were in a running battle with a nanotech foglet beast. My sidekicks and I managed to snag a small sample of the critter and stick his componenty self under a microscope. Every single foglet looked like a minature Invader Zim.

I'll be glad when this cough is gone.