Lately I've taken to waking up early in a state of panic. For a while, this didn't seem unreasonable. For my personality, actually, it never seems unreasonable. But it's annoying. I calm down, doze off, and go straight into that deep R.E.M. sleep that makes the legitimate wake-up call a tough one to take. As a result, I spend the rest of my day not quite lucid, longing to finish dreams I can't even remember. Annoying.

So this morning, when my regularly-scheduled anxiety attack came around, I asked myself, "Just what exactly are you so wound up about?" I came up with a broadly-drawn list that included work, money, friends, family, the past, the future, myself, my world. Realizing the absurd expansiveness of my worries, I tried to flesh them out with some specifics. It put me to sleep. Ha. Counting sheep is so passé.