I went and found that same bio "Whiner" quotes. It's from the website for a movie the author of the story directed. I'm pretty sure the director didn't "describe herself" that way. More likely, some studio or some publicist described her that way.

I think Sergei's right... some people just hate people because they have money. That is so tired. It's like you missed the whole point of the piece.

I thought it was a great story. And isn't the point of it how messed up Ambien is as a drug, not how (insert derogatory adjective here) the author is?

I've said it before, I'll say it again, I think many of Salon's readers just have a problem with female writers.

First of all, this was a great article--who cares if she has a lot of money, does that mean that all of her problems or various life bumps along the road are negated???

And secondly--I had NO IDEA that Ambien caused trouble like this in many different cases! Even though once time, under the influence of four Ambien and half a bottle of scotch, I drove my car through the parking meter arm of a parking ramp taking the arm with me halfway down the street before it fell off, then I smashed my car into an indeterminate object, left it in the road, peed all over myself, and finally my boyfriend found me and basically tied me to the bed so I wouldn't do any further damage. I thought it was just the booze!

First of all: Tessa, this firestorm isn't your fault, nor should you take these comments personally. There was a part of the population that at some point equated Salon with progressive values, and progressive values with class warfare, and it's not your fault if you got on an airplane to Leningrad that you thought was headed for St. Petersburg.

Maybe readers here ought to consider the value of Tessa's honesty, rather than attack her social status. After all, better for the wealthy to be open about their foibles; it reminds us that we all share the same problems, no matter what strata we (troll) in.

That said, I see in this piece something resonant in all classes, in all relationships. Boyfriends ghetto and avant-garde are equally fickle. Ultimately, it's not a problem of parsing substances (it's just as likely the alcohol worked on the gent in question as did the Ambien) -- it's a problem of what feminists call "disposable relationships" and Mick Jagger called an average tuesday night. Men are built for mass breeding; maintaining our sexual interest amounts to threatening our evolutionary success, and smart girls dig this intuitively. That's not to say there's no such thing as love; but if you can find a guy to cuddle with, who cares what drugs he's on? One thing's for sure: He's not cuddling with you unless he's already high on testosterone. And once that blows off, you'd better think the guy you're with is an exceptionally good human being as a whole, or else he's just gonna screw you over, under whatever intellectual justification his social class affords him.

Some of the letter writers need to chill out. I enjoyed the story and I did not think that the writer was whining. What was whiney about it? It was a light cute story.

Does anyone wonder why there is a legal drug out there that is regularly causing people who mix it with a single drink to not remember whole portions of their lives? If you ask me, I think that's pretty scary. This is the first time I've ever heard that about Ambien, which previously I thought to be a fairly innocuous drug. Shows you just how much we know, without a press release.

Drug cocktail interactions are really getting to be complicated to parse these days. Seems to me it'd probably be a lot safer to just get your vitamins by eating dark leafy greens and let the darwin awards and mother nature sort out the rest!

Interesting story, though - thanks, Salon, for informing us yet again about the weirdnesses of our contemporary age through entertaining (and occasionally fluffy) writing!

It seems many of the respondents miss the point. I've been prescribed Ambien; have been known to use it with booze. Love the stuff. It's incredibly effective for sleep...it also causes blackouts with as little as one glass of chardonnay. That's the point she's trying to make here, folks. I'm glad to finally see it in print.

There really is something so precious, exquisite and hothouse about Manhattan, isn't there? Thanks, Salon, for sharing the unique and truly unmistakeable modes of suffering of New Yorkers. One wonders how they manage to survive! "I knew he had to much Ambien when he bumped my Kristal, which spilled onto my Dior and dripped onto my Prada and down onto the Corinthian leather of my Maserati seats and down onto my Jimmy Choos. And KNOW how hard it is to get champagne out of Corinthian leather!)

Honey, as much as you want to go social climbing and as much as he has the cash to take you anywhere you want to go, you really do have to start hanging around with a better class of drunk. Believe me, sugar, there are more than a few unhappy River Oaks matrons such as yourself living with sloppy drunk (rich) Texas oilmen because they sold their snatch to the highest bidder with the biggest Gulfstream jet.

Scarier than what happened to me during the VERY brief time I took this stuff. I don't recall any amnesiac effects, but I had horrible, horrible dreams on it. I mean Hieronymus Bosch horrible, full of images that I haven't forgotten yet (and this was fifteen years ago). If Boyfriend needs a sleeping pill, he might consider talking to his doc about Lunesta, which seems very clean and free of hangover or affective fallout to this insomniac - the only effect it has on me is way-better-than-usual sleep. Lunesta is expensive, but Boyfriend seems to be a cost-is-no-object type of guy. Of course, I'm only speaking from my own experience, and hazarding no guesses about how it might affect his amatory prowess.