45 minutes to Z.

Studies indicate that the average, well-rounded individual falls asleep at night after approximately 7.5 minutes of lying awake.
Meanwhile, basketcases like me can take six times (or more) as long to finally doze off. Short of reading an extraordinarily stuffy Victorian-era novel until my eyes finally cross (props to you, Henry James), I generally have trouble finding ways to stupify my brain into submissive somnolence after dark. Night is when the factory of my meager intellect finally kicks into a full creative swing, and once it does, almost nothing can shut it off. Conversations--usually in English, sometimes in broken, Hebrew-strewn German--fabricate or replay in my mind; fantastic screenplay lines pop into my head, demanding to be scribbled into the margins of some notebook before they're reworked too much or forgotten. I wonder about people I've lost contact with, and wonder even more about people I'm close to or wish I was close to. Ideas rattle, ricochet, reverberate, scream to be realized on a canvas or on the page, but damn it, I have to sleep instead. Society simply isn't designed by or for nocturnals... if it had been, architecture would probably look like something from Six By Seuss, vendors would be selling birdseed shirts on every street corner, and sleeping time would be scheduled between 1 and 7 pm. But I digress.

In the past couple of years I've discovered that repetitive thought processes enable me to knock myself out in record time, even on my most restless nights. So here, for your entertainment (or, you know, what-have-you) I'll outline some of the frighteningly simplistic and childish prompts that I use to sedate myself on a weekly basis. Brace yourselves, it might get ugly.

1. If I could invite ten literary characters to a dinner party, which would I choose?
Not too original or difficult, but tough to recount without dozing off: just you try.
2. If it was one of those staged "murder" dinner parties, which character would I force myself to kill off?
Always tough when one must consider the following factors: the character's social/political/historical significance in contrast to other characters; whether s/he would be difficult to do away with (any magical powers? fabulous muscles?); the indirect effects that might be inflicted upon other literary works if chosen character had never existed, etc.
3. If I could have an honest, in-depth discussion with any five women in history, who would I choose to meet?
These seem to change depending on mood, but I find that Virginia Woolf and Margaret Sanger are almost always in my top five. (Usually J.K. Rowling is, as well, because I am actually a ten-year-old in a 22-year-old's body.)
3a. I apply this question to male specimens too, but find that men are considerably more difficult because of the breadth and popularity of their works throughout our patriarchy-informed history. The pickings are less slim, so my list requires more and more revision. I rarely make it to ten without drifting off.
4. What would various Oregon landscapes look like if I were severely color blind?
5. Do colors really appear the same to each individual, and can this really be determined by comparative testing using a color wheel? (I am fairly certain not.) Similarly, is taste interpretation really all that similar between individuals?
In short, is my hex color #CC3399 your #CC3399, and is

my snickerdoodle
your snickerdoodle ? A completely pseudo-philosphical question, perhaps, but I sometimes wonder. Taste and other senses, preferences, and interpretations seem so dependent upon individual experiences and associations that I personally doubt whether any one snickerdoodle (same batch, same recipe, same cookie) tastes exactly the same to two people. (Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart... your spice cake will never conquer the world.)

Alternately, because I've spent far too many years in various art or English departments, to lull myself to sleep I also:
6. Rename friends and family members or myself. Sometimes my renamings have themes: what would this person be named if s/he were a character in an epic tale or a low-budget 80's soap opera? If s/he were a bestselling author with a pseudonym? If s/he were a member of the opposite sex?
7. Decide whether various people I know would have been cast as hobbits, orcs, elves, or men if they were extras in the Lord of the Rings films. Always a good time, although occasionally I wake my boyfriend (definitely a hobbit, in looks and mannerism) by laughing at the verdicts.
8. Come up with an A-Z list of authors or book titles, sometimes by genre (although they tend to get patchy toward the end of the alphabet).
9. Consider the authors, books, themes, multimedia elements, and artistic projects I want to use while teaching my high school class (all truly enthusiastic teachers probably obsess about this sort of thing).

I'm not sure whether this sort of mindless hypnosis works for everyone, but it certainly does for me*. I always wonder what other peoples' responses to the questions would be... sometimes, just pondering that will knock me out. If I'm really tired, anyway.

So concludes this rambling bizarrity; time now for some exercise.





* I used to try reviewing katas (karate forms) in my head before falling asleep, but my heart rate actually increased instead of slowing down. Perhaps I'm more aggressive than I thought.