Friday, June 29, 2012

Alphabet Games to Aid Sleep

You know how sometimes you can't sleep at night because your mind is racing, filled with lists of things to do and things you've done? Yeah, I hate that. So I play alphabet games to keep my mind occupied with Silly Things rather than Important Things. Sometimes it's just applying a category to the alphabet: Positive adjectives! Awesome, Brilliant, Cool, Decisive ... Careers! Astronaut, Baker, Con Artist, Deep Sea Diver .... Sometimes I alternate between adjective and noun as I go through the alphabet: Aerodynamic Bog, Chipper Deviant, Eclectic Fishwife ..., but every now and then I go all out. 

I Love My Love 

I love my love with an A because he is awesome. I hate when he's anxious. His name is Aaron and he's an air traffic controller from Akron. He gave me an apple. 

I love my love with a B because she is bright. I hate when she's blameworthy. Her name is Bonnie and she's a beautician from Bangladesh. She gave me a betta. 

... etc. 

There are many variants of the "I love my love with a ..." games, most of which seem to be called The Alphabet Game. I'd love to know more about it. I guess a consultation of the Opies is in order. My introduction to this game was from Alice: 

'I see nobody on the road,' said Alice.
'I only wish I had such eyes,' the King remarked in a fretful tone. 'To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!'
All this was lost on Alice, who was still looking intently along the road, shading her eyes with one hand. 'I see somebody now!' she exclaimed at last. 'But he's coming very slowly—and what curious attitudes he goes into!' (For the messenger kept skipping up and down, and wriggling like an eel, as he came along, with his great hands spread out like fans on each side.)
'Not at all,' said the King. 'He's an Anglo-Saxon Messenger—and those are Anglo-Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he's happy. His name is Haigha.' (He pronounced it so as to rhyme with 'mayor.')
'I love my love with an H,' Alice couldn't help beginning, 'because he is Happy. I hate him with an H, because he is Hideous. I fed him with—with—with Ham-sandwiches and Hay. His name is Haigha, and he lives—'
'He lives on the Hill,' the King remarked simply, without the least idea that he was joining in the game, while Alice was still hesitating for the name of a town beginning with H. 'The other Messenger's called Hatta. I must have TWO, you know—to come and go. One to come, and one to go.' - Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll. 

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