2002-10-25 - 7:53 a.m.

Now is the time for me to be jolly and write an entry. Again this morning I was pretty tired. I think I'm getting used to the new schedule though. I'm surprised that it's been two months and I still haven't woken up just before my alarm. I have woken up before it, sometimes by 10 minutes, sometimes by an hour, but I haven't seen what I expected: to wake up every day just before my alarm. I think my alarm isn't frightening enough. I'll have to take it off radio and put it on frightening noise mode.

Or I could just live with not waking up before my alarm. Tough call. I think the main reason is that I don't get to sleep at the same time every night, although I'm working on that. Last night was a success, I don't remember the end of the ocean sounds CD. The secret, I believe, is to start with the volume on high so as to distract my thoughts and stop me from getting on extended thought trips, and then as I start to get tired the volume seems too loud so I lower it bit by bit until it's barely audible and then.. I don't know, because I don't remember. Success.

I think I have a hard time getting to sleep because I'm so analytical. In my early teens I clearly remember laying awake and trying to feel myself fall asleep. I remember the strangest feeling that the way to fall asleep was to squeeze my entire self down into a tiny space. I remember feelings of spinning and pulsating (as in growing and shrinking) and generally not laying still. I also remember that I never did fall asleep while I was thinking about it. Of course not, that's the paradox.

But my problem is that my mind is extremely active. To give an example, I remember when I was about 4 or 5 I used to watch whether my feet were falling on the cracks or on the 'tiles' when I was walking down the sidewalk to school. I couldn't help but notice the pattern that my feet fell in, and I would find myself extending my stride so my foot would clear the crack, or land before it.

Taken by itself, this behaviour isn't anything strange, I'm sure. A lot of people will have done it. The thing that I think makes me different is that after a while I truly hated doing it, and there was nothing I could do to stop. Half way to school I would catch myself watching where my foot was landing and I would get pissy at myself because suddenly my mind would be occupied with something I didn't want it to be occupied with. No matter how hard I tried to stop thinking about whether or not my feet where landing on the cracks, I couldn't.

I'd raise my glance up to the horizon and even put my hand up under my eye level to block sight of the sidewalk immediately in front of me, but this was just a temporary measure and as soon as I got tired of it, my mind was immediately thinking of where my feet were landing. What pissed me off was that I couldn't not think of it. It took mental effort to estimate where my feet were going to land, and I didn't want to be thinking about it, but I was helpless.

That happened for a long, long time. These days when I walk on a sidewalk, if I think of anything at all it's how many strides it takes me to cover each 'tile'. (I keep using that word.. I don't know what else to call each section of a sidewalk. Maybe just that, 'section'.. or maybe 'slab') Anyway, the point is that my mind always gets caught on thoughts that I don't necessarily want it to think, and I can't fight it because .. because it always wins. If I try to fight myself from thinking something, then it just makes the thoughts of that thing stronger, because I'm fighting it.

So letting go of consciousness is a bitch, for this reason among others. I've always had trouble falling asleep. So far my best technique has been music, and for some strange reason I stopped using that technique for a long time now. It's nice to be back into it.

Ok, I'm hungry. Not much else to blab about.

I went and bought some cookies yesterday during work. While I was at Quality Market, I found the tea I've been looking for: "Tension Tamer". It's heavenly! Any tea-lovers out there who haven't tried it have got to look for it. It's by the "Celestial Seasonings" brand and hopefully it's available in your area. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Ta-ta.

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