Last night I slept on the floor. With the dog. On a rug. I told my mom I thought it would be good for my back, but that wasn’t it. “The Japanese have been doing it for thousands of years!” I said peevishly, half-asleep. I’m cracking up, guys. You know those Sundays when you spend hours sorting your papers into piles only you will understand? Building a fire to prove you’re self-reliant? Moping around the house listening to Gregorian chants and sighing? Drinking the creepy brown smoothies your sister brings you? (“Try this!” I really didn’t have the energy to object.) I’m sure you have your own version of this unproductive somnolent weekend state. My mom says—which is the clue to pay attention, because she’s almost always right—that only three things can help you when you have this malaise: meditation, exercise, or work. But my answer to that is, you’ve forgotten the fourth, and the one that never fails me: drawing the Tuscan countryside with really tiny lines. Really tiny lines.
