Answers, the third!

Continuing the cavalcade of answers!

From one of my anonymity-preferring readers:

Do you ever lie in bed unable to sleep? (Either waking in the middle of the night or simply unable to get to sleep in the first place.) If you do, does your brain run through all the things that make you anxious or stressed? Or embarrassing things that happened to you? What works to get you back to sleep?

I'm lucky that I don't get insomnia much. But it does happen sometimes, almost always when I get stupid and drink caffeine too close to bed time. I try to avoid caffeine after 5:00 or so. What will happen is this: I'll lay there all groggy and stuff, but not falling asleep; frustration will build as I wonder why I can't sleep; then, suddenly, I'll snap awake with a furious realization: that damned Pepsi I had!!!

I do wake up in the middle of the night a lot, but I rarely have a great deal of trouble getting back to sleep. I'm pretty lucky, that way. Anxieties about things can weigh on me, though. But mostly, when I'm not asleep and the lights are out, I'm often thinking about writing stuff -- either plot details or I'm running through scenes in my head or I'm fantasizing about my inevitable Hugo Award win. That sort of thing. Stress, things that anger me, goof-ups I've made -- I try to avoid thinking about these kinds of things when I'm trying to drop off to sleep.

When you are home, do the cats follow you around?

Lester follows me around. He thinks he's my cat, but he's really not. I don't know why on Earth he would ever think that he's my cat.










Yeah, that's a mystery. No idea why he thinks he's my cat.

Julio will also follow me around, but he's the more traditional type of "cat following the master around": "Oh, you're going to the kitchen! And my food bowl is empty-ish! Or it's less full than it was! Hooray! Thank you, fine food bowl filler guy!" Julio's not much for following me around. Although he does like his cuddlin' now and again....


Sigh.

More answers to come! And feel free to ask, if the mood still strikes!