TGIM. My Day of Rest Edition.
Counting Sheep by Linda Pastan Counting sheep, the scientists suggested, may simply be too boring to do for very long, while images of a soothing shoreline ... are engrossing enough to concentrate on. —The New York Times When I reach a thousand I start to notice how the eyes of one ewe are wide, as if with worry about her lamb or how cold the flock will be after the shearing. At a thousand fifty I notice a ram pushing up against a soft and curly female, and for a moment I'm distracted by errant images of sex. It is difficult to keep so many sheep in line for counting— they are not a parade but more like a roiling sea of whitecaps, which makes me think of the shore— of all those boring grains of sand to keep track of as they slip through the fingers, of all the dangers of sunstroke, riptide, jellyfish. The scientists fall asleep lulled by equations, by dreams of experiments, and I ...