Restlessness is a semifrequent problem for me... shutting my brain down when I go to bed at night is an incredibly involved and ritualistic process.
Like many people, I enjoy reading before going to sleep... what's demented about me, however, is that I only read things that I've already read before.
Recently I read the same book (Mike Nelson's 'Mind over Matters') twice in a row... now I'm back into my usual rotation.
The thing is, if I start reading something NEW, my brain gets too excited about what happens next and I can't stop reading... I'll keep reading until I'm up for 3 days straight and finish the book.
The only time I really get any NEW reading done is when I'm sick and have an excuse to stay in bed all day.
Suffice it to say, there are about a quadrillion books piled up in my house that I have every intention of reading, but they're sitting around waiting for me to get hit with some sort of horrid virus.
Anyway...
Sometimes even reading won't put me to sleep - or I'll wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to fall back asleep. On those occasions, I have an arsenal of little psychological meditations I practice in order to fall back asleep... for instance, I'll close my eyes and literally 'meditate' - that is - concentrate on NOT concentrating and letting my consciousness 'expand'. I know it sounds like nonsense, but it's trickier than it sounds... I used to be really good at it when it was part of the 'cool down' to my excercize routine. I'd sit and meditate for ten minutes, and when I would stop I would feel fantastic, refreshed and sometimes it would feel as though I just took a 3 hour nap.
One of my less complicated 'get back to sleep' tricks is I'll close my eyes and pretend that I'm out camping - this is a little more obvious because I find being in the woods to be very relaxing.
Lately, however, I've stumbled on a NEW little 'scenario' to help myself sleep that I'm afraid seems somewhat demented (so naturally I feel the need to talk about it here): I pretend I'm in a hospital.
Obviously the reasons for being there are very nonspecific but most certainly not at all serious. But think about it... hospital stays are one of the few times in life when nobody really expects anything of you and you can truly just relax.
Yeah... I know... I'm really weird.
Anyway... that's it, really... feel free to comment on how twisted I am.
Oh yeah, yesterday was my 36th birthday.
By the way, the coloring on the above illustration was done by Holly Kim... it was done as concept art for 'Nightmare Hunters'.
4 comments:
Happy Belated Birthday JF!
Love the coloring on the NH image. Such a cool concept.
-JX!
Yeah, the image is beatiful. She did a good job.
Happy bday. You're a crazy leo too.
Hello, this is 'Newtype Korea'.
I'm so sorry that I couldn't get your mail.
Last weekend, We had Big trouble with the main server of our office.
We already changed It. but we lost some data in the old one.
If you already sent your column of this month to me, Please send it to me again.
JJ - Thanks yet again. You always say the nicest things...
CS - Crazy like a FOX! Whatever THAT means... (and, again, thank you)
RAY - I sent you the column again...
For those of you who are confused by this, Ray is my editor at NEWTYPE KOREA magazine... NEWTYPE is - for all intents and purposes - THE magazine for fans of anime and manga. There are three 'versions' of the publication... one in the U.S., one in Korea and the original NEWTYPE in Japan.
I do a column for the Korean version that just sorta tells what's going on with U.S. animation (insert your own snide remark here).
SR - The main pain with old age is that my gut has become my worst enemy. It just sits there... useless...
There's no real deep meaning behind the drawing... if the moon looks pasted on it's because I'm not very good.
But, ultimately, as long as you can tell it's a moon shining through a bedroom window, then the illustration has done its job.
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