A Strange Joy

This is why you can oversleep and feel tired: the brain has started to make the tired chemical again while you were sleeping. But it’s also why caffeine is so bonkers. Caffeine works by blocking the tired receptor in your brain, so you keep making tired chemical but you don’t know you’re making it.

If you don’t have enough tired chemical, you can introduce diphenhydramine. Diphenhydramine - sold in the U.S. as Benadryl - acts by blocking histamine receptors in the same part of the brain as where the wake-sleep cycle is regulated, so this can make the brain think it’s got a bunch of tired chemical on those receptors. And once the sleep cycle is activated, the body dramatically reduces its histamine response, so the whole meme about “Benadryl: You Can’t Sneeze When You’re Dead” is actually pretty accurate as to how diphenhydramine works.

Huh?

Foot wiggle foot wiggle foot wiggle

Where did I put the- oh got it.

Clenching your jaw

There’s 23 songs, 12 vines/tiktoks, a television line, and a dial-up noise all in my head at the same time

D I S S O C I A T E

Are you going somewhere?

What was I doing?

Ooop bad noise don’t like that noise

Simultaneously recite Shakespeare and stare blankly at the wall

Stare blankly at the wall

COLLECT THE THINGS

I’ve repeated the same movement twelve times because it somehow brings me comfort

Blankets blankets blankets BlAnKeTs

I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I’m sorry could you repeat that? I’m sorry could you-

Nod and smile

Cry at the sight of a stack of papers

I don’t see it, it no longer exists

1. Saying sorry for the initial hurt you’ve committed.

2. Explaining how you’ve understood how you hurt them.

Pro-life has one application and ignores the billions of others.

Here are some more “ambiguous” phrases which courts have found DO NOT invoke your right to a lawyer:

“Maybe I should speak to my lawyer first.”

“I might like a lawyer.”

“I think I should have a lawyer present for this.”

“Could I speak to my lawyer first?”

“How long until my lawyer gets here?”

And perhaps most egregiously – “Get me a lawyer, dawg – ‘cause this is not what’s up.”

Here are the magic phrases which you need to know if you want to invoke your Miranda rights:

1) “Am I free to leave?”

It’s worth asking this even if the answer is obvious. Even if the officer does not let you leave, by forcing them to admit that you are not free to leave, you are creating a record which your attorney can use to prove that you were in custody. Miranda rights only apply if the interrogation is custodial, meaning that police officers will frequently claim that their suspects were “not in custody” to get around their Miranda rights.

2) “I am invoking my right to remain silent.”

Simply staying silent will not invoke your right to remain silent. As absurd as this is, you must explicitly say that you are invoking your right to remain silent in order to invoke that right.

3) “I am invoking my right to an attorney.”

As stated above, you must be not only clear and unambiguous, but clear and legally unambiguous. Don’t get cute. Don’t get sassy. And on the flip side, don’t get intimidated and use verbal ticks to minimize your request. Say the line with those words exactly – say it clearly, and say it once, and then say nothing else.

Because even after you’ve done all this, the police can still try to get you to talk. They’re not supposed to interrogate you, but they’re allowed to make casual conversation, and if that conversation just happens to circle back around to the thing they wanted to question you about, well, that’s really your fault for talking after you said you wouldn’t, isn’t it? Can’t possibly fault the poor officers when you initiated – if you really wanted to have your rights respected, you wouldn’t have talked to them in the first place.

The police know this, and they will mercilessly exploit this loophole. So, once you’ve successfully invoked your Miranda rights, any and all conversation you have with police officers will put those rights back into jeopardy. 

Putting it all together:

Ask: “Am I free to leave?”

If they say no, say: “I am invoking my right to remain silent and I am invoking my right to an attorney.”

And then shut up and do not say a single thing to them for any reason whatsoever until you have actually spoken to an attorney. Yes, even if it takes hours. Yes, even if they start talking to you about something else.

Finally, a very important disclaimer: