Dribs and drabs

[thistlechaser]

Following the "three things make a post" rule:

- I slept five hours last night. While that's just a drop in the bucket after not sleeping the previous two nights, at least I'm only tired today and not 'oh my god, kill me now' level exhausted. I still hate the machine, it makes me feel like I'm being smothered. Nothing like the feeling of being smothered to help you fall asleep, huh?

It's way too early to know if this is just chance or if it's a Thing, but usually I remember at least one dream a night, and I haven't the past three nights. The first two can be explained by the lack of sleep, but I wonder about last night. To remember a dream, you need to wake up within (some number of minutes, I forget how many) of having it. If the machine makes me sleep sounder/wake up less, I guess I'll stop remembering them. That would be a really big negative side effect; I love remembering my dreams, I often spend much time the next day thinking about them. I guess we'll see.

- Still loving FFXIV. A side effect of that is how much schadenfreude I get from reading WoW news. I had been unhappy there for so long, and I wasn't looking forward to anything about the coming expansion, and I hated the graphics and so much else about the game, now I can sit here and read the news and snicker to myself that I don't have to put up with it anymore. I sure do wish I had quit sooner!

I'm so happy to be getting so much RP on FFXIV. I'm still getting it almost daily (the days I don't RP it's by my choice, not for lack of options). A new fellow just joined our FC ("guild"), and he writes long posts, like me. It's so nice to be able to flex my writing muscles and not feel like I'm making people wait for me.

- It's such a wonderful thing to read a book by a great writer after such a string of bad books. I just started reading BZRK, by Michael Grant (the same fellow who wrote the Gone series that I loved, and wrote all the Animorph books with his wife, along with tons of other YA books from that time). It's not just that his stories are great (they are), or his characters are realistic (so realistic), or he has a GRRMesque willingness to kill off his characters (*cackle*), but his skills at crafting a sentence and describing the world just blow me out of the water. I had to go back and reread this section a number of times (then continued reading the book only to keep flipping back to it).

Even though he was just seventeen, he wasn't really for girls. He was for women.

Women would look at him and let their eyes slide over his face and those shoulders, because you know, women don't stare the way men do. They just need a glance. And then, having memorized him with a glance, they would...

It wasn't until I read that that I remembered there have been studies that confirm just that -- women decide in something like two? three? seconds if they're attracted to another person, much faster than men do. Something about their general body shape (silhouette), the width of their shoulders, that sort of thing.

Unfortunately I accepted a book for review (Salvation, by James Wymore) from a publisher. Bad timing, I'm going to have to read it next instead of continuing on with the BZRK series. Oh well, hopefully Salvation will be good. It has good reviews on Amazon, for what that's worth...

Wow, this turned out to be an actual post! I worried it wouldn't be more than three sentences long. Heh.

Comments

[manue7a.livejournal.com]

Is there such a rule? I never knew! But I'll try to keep it in mind, it makes sense.

Something about their general body shape (silhouette), the width of their shoulders, that sort of thing.
That's exactly what I said during a conversation yesterday. 'So what do you look at if not the face?'
The shape. I thought that was a perfectly sensible answer, the other person just gave me a slightly surprised blank look. It was a man.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Rule on three things making a post? Well, not a real rule! :) A couple people say it though, so it's sometimes just an excuse to post.

Yeah, the face is far from the first thing I look at, too. It makes sense though, I think. Back in the cave man days, woman would want a strong man, a good hunter and protector, so the body shape was more important. Men wanted the best option for passing along his genes and improving his genetic line, and the face is a good indication of that (symmetrical features, etc). All those decisions subconsciously made, of course.

[ashmedai.livejournal.com]

I like remembering my dreams too, but I very seldom do.

Haha - I don't even know what I look at first on a guy (and I am a guy)...I think the face, unless something else catches my attention first.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

You can train yourself to remember them. I did when I was a kid. There were a few tricks, but one of the easiest ones was repeating 'I want to remember my dreams' over and over during the day. Not just rote repeating it, but meaning it every time you say it, so it gets firmly stuck in your head. Once it's ingrained, your brain will wake you up after you have a dream, so you'll remember it. (That's the downside of remembering them, you'll wake up each time.) When you remember one "naturally" in the morning, it just means you woke up at the right time by chance. That's why most people don't remember them often.

[ashmedai.livejournal.com]

Hm, thanks for the tip, I'm going to try that! :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Good luck! It might take a while (weeks), but it will eventually work. I'm proof of that! At first I remembered a few dreams a night, but it interrupted my sleep too much (I used to write them down), so now it's just one or two.

[ashmedai.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Hey, I'd be happy with one or two per night. Usually it's zero. LOL

[spike7451.livejournal.com]

I wish I remembered more of my dreams.

So glad you managed to get five hours of sleep in one go.