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The first is make weird noises and strings of words that sound like they ought to be meaningful but ultimately aren't. If I'm very tired, I also get a light show. This doesn't help me fall asleep even a little.
If that doesn't work to keep me up, it likes to throw out random questions and try to make me think about them. This is an asshole move, because I've long since learned that thinking is a sure way to stay awake, so at bedtime I practice *not* thinking. This is tricky, because the underthought is something like "Am I doing it yet? Am I? Wait, shut up. Hm. Hm. Yay I did it! Crap." It is hard to get the underthought to stop thinking, but the effort makes me sleepy. Anyway, a couple of these asshole questions in recent weeks are actually kinda interesting, even though I'm not myself interested in doing the work to come up with answers, so here they are in case anybody else is:
1. So, how would world history have been different if Europeans really had had widespread potatoes and Native Americans had tame/tameable horses prior to 1492? Potatoes are a way more productive crop than grains, really, and don't require you to subsidize a miller, and gosh, horses are just useful amirite? But horses aren't that likely, because you can't carry them on boats (well, unless they're big boats), unlike potatoes and, more importantly, sweet potatoes which is how we know for sure sure sure that there was some contact between Polynesians and (South) Americans in prehistory, the sweet potatoes. I wonder if Polynesians could've given them chickens, though. They certainly could have carried potatoes back to Asia. How much contact was there between Asian and Polynesian cultures anyway?
2. Is the reason so many rite of passage/coming of age stories in kidlit/ya take place during summer vacation because it's a liminal period between one grade and the next? Or, better yet, one type of school and the next? Wait, in order to answer that we'd first have to better define "rite of passage/coming of age" story... and I'm also thinking of stories involving, like, divorce or losing friends due to growing apart or sickness stories, so maybe I mean growing up stories? But like, hardcore growing up stories, because obvs all stories are about maturing as a person or else what the hell is the point? - and then we'd have to show that they ARE more commonly set during summer vacation than other times and who wants to spend the time to do that? Am I only thinking all this because I like the word "liminal"? (Yes, yes I was.)
This was a strictly defined "couple", not a permeable "couple". Most of the questions my brain throws out at bedtime aren't very good at all.
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If that doesn't work to keep me up, it likes to throw out random questions and try to make me think about them. This is an asshole move, because I've long since learned that thinking is a sure way to stay awake, so at bedtime I practice *not* thinking. This is tricky, because the underthought is something like "Am I doing it yet? Am I? Wait, shut up. Hm. Hm. Yay I did it! Crap." It is hard to get the underthought to stop thinking, but the effort makes me sleepy. Anyway, a couple of these asshole questions in recent weeks are actually kinda interesting, even though I'm not myself interested in doing the work to come up with answers, so here they are in case anybody else is:
1. So, how would world history have been different if Europeans really had had widespread potatoes and Native Americans had tame/tameable horses prior to 1492? Potatoes are a way more productive crop than grains, really, and don't require you to subsidize a miller, and gosh, horses are just useful amirite? But horses aren't that likely, because you can't carry them on boats (well, unless they're big boats), unlike potatoes and, more importantly, sweet potatoes which is how we know for sure sure sure that there was some contact between Polynesians and (South) Americans in prehistory, the sweet potatoes. I wonder if Polynesians could've given them chickens, though. They certainly could have carried potatoes back to Asia. How much contact was there between Asian and Polynesian cultures anyway?
2. Is the reason so many rite of passage/coming of age stories in kidlit/ya take place during summer vacation because it's a liminal period between one grade and the next? Or, better yet, one type of school and the next? Wait, in order to answer that we'd first have to better define "rite of passage/coming of age" story... and I'm also thinking of stories involving, like, divorce or losing friends due to growing apart or sickness stories, so maybe I mean growing up stories? But like, hardcore growing up stories, because obvs all stories are about maturing as a person or else what the hell is the point? - and then we'd have to show that they ARE more commonly set during summer vacation than other times and who wants to spend the time to do that? Am I only thinking all this because I like the word "liminal"? (Yes, yes I was.)
This was a strictly defined "couple", not a permeable "couple". Most of the questions my brain throws out at bedtime aren't very good at all.
( Read more... )
