Yellow moon, shining in the same big sky

Tonight while I was working out at the gym, 'Yellow Moon," by the Neville Brothers, started playing on my iPod. As is my habit, I focused on the bass line, and when I did, it immediately stood out in my mind, a fluid orange-red line spiky with thumb-slapped syncopation, and I thought of an old friend who played bass like that. Once you start leaning on the bass line when you listen to music, you can never stop. The bass line is the canny guide that'll show you the back alleys, the local haunts of music that tourists who hear only the drums or melody will never know. I haven't heard from this friend in a very long time. One of the last times we spoke, he said he takes comfort in knowing the same sky arches over us both, each in our worlds on this earth. And I know the same horizonless sea of sound swirls around us too, waiting to be distilled and momentarily ordered into composition.

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I'm in the second week of following a program aimed at retraining my physical and mental rhythms, so I'll get back to sleeping normally. I kept a sleep diary all last week, which showed I was snoozing an average of five hours a night. Least number of hours was three, and then I got one night of a miraculous eight. Anyway, So this week's strategy is to schedule six hours for sleep, with a target daily wake-up time of 7:30 a.m.. I have a half-hour buffer on either side of that. This means I have a target lights-out time of 12:30 a.m., and I must set an alarm for no earlier than 7 a.m. and no later than 8, with an optimal wake time of 7:30. If I can't sleep, I must get up after 20 minutes, stay up for 30 minutes, then try sleeping again. If I have a rough night, I can nap the next day, but only for 15 - 45 minutes, and not at all after 3 p.m. After a little while on this schedule, the scheduled time for sleep will be increased to 6.5 hours. I'll report on any success or lack thereof. First report: I slept 6 hours last night. Woo! Right now I'm sipping some red wine, after having enjoyed a light cheese-and-apples dinner post-gym.