At night when she can\u2019t fall asleep,
\nshe plays a word game she learned
\nfrom an anxious insomniac friend.<\/p>\n
Think of a theme. Think of words
\nlinked to that theme. Say them
\nto yourself, in alphabetical order.<\/p>\n
Fruits and vegetables are effective.
\nA, apple. B, banana. C, cherry.
\nD, dill. E, eggplant. And so on.<\/p>\n
Animals and birds work well too
\nuntil arriving at Q and X. Luckily
\nshe remembers quail and quetzal
\nand recently she learned of Xerus,
\na small, burrowing rodent in Africa.<\/p>\n
Geography doesn\u2019t work for her.
\nShe can name continents, countries,
\nrivers, mountain ranges, deserts,
\neven obscure land formations.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s good at that. But the images
\nwon\u2019t let her go: Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine,
\nWashington, D.C. She\u2019s up all night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At night when she can\u2019t fall asleep, she plays a word game she learned from an anxious insomniac friend. Think of a theme. Think of words linked to that theme. Say them to yourself, in alphabetical order. Fruits and vegetables are effective. A, apple. B, banana. C, cherry. D, dill. E, eggplant. And so on. … Continue reading Sleep<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"issue":[6876],"class_list":["post-2159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","issue-6876"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-10 22:39:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}