 These Changing Times | |
Pardon me if I ramble on and wander aimlessly for a bit... I've got the time. Or does time have me? Time is a strange beast. We think we own it. We pretend that we only have so much of it, we waste that which we are given, that which we plan for we think that we've created or made it, and we spend it like it is some commodity like dollars or pork bellies.
You ought to stop and think for a minute... it is not we who own time, but time who owns us. We can pretend that we control our destiny and possess parcels of it as we can control our actions, but at its core time is merely just another fascinating dimension with which to lay out the topography of existence through which we are created, exist, echo, and cease to be.
Time continues, whether we want it to or not.
I suppose it is important that we measure this unstoppable something by which we find ourselves beginning and ending. There are establishments that will gladly do this for us. We expect banks to openly measure and display precise measure time and casinos to avoid any mention of it. You didn't spend three hours in a casino... it's four beers ago since you got there.
There are places where Einstein was right... time truly is relative. You don't have to take a pair of twins and rocket one around near the speed of light to observe relativistic effects. Anybody who's spent an hour at a strip club and an hour at the DMV knows how this works. Sometimes it is the measurement of time that makes for odd results. Sixty minutes on a football field can be three or four hours off of it, and forty-five minutes on a soccer field is precisely that with a little bonus time doled out by the guy in long black socks with the whistle. Strange.
Our instruments with which we measure and divide time were once sacred and marvelous devices. Calendars took on the dimensions of great tritholiths on the plains of Salisbury, constructed by means that to this day we still have no precise idea how. As technology progressed through candles, water clocks, sundials, and mechanisms analogous and crystal-electronic, the reverence has faded somewhat and time itself has lost respect as we contain its measurement into objects of greater meaninglessness and kitsch.
I like to measure how complex my life is by the number of clocks I have to reset when Daylight Savings Time begins or ends. I like to see how many things I add or remove over time, and how many devices can manage to adjust themselves and which ones can't. Also, I like to track how many things I have that can measure "absolute" time and yet have no need for it, or if I don't utilize those timer functions.
For example, I never use the pre-preparation timer on our rice cooker and our bread machine. The coffee maker is always producing ad-hoc coffee. Why do I need timers on these things? Why bother keeping the clocks set correctly? Will a little drift cause the universe to tear and split in a rift in my kitchen?
When you fly into a different city, the flight attendant usually tells you to adjust your clocks for local time. Why didn't they tell me to do this before I left the house? Now all my stuff is off by an hour, and I can only adjust the devices I have with me at the moment. All my stuff is out of sync! Sheesh!
Back to the subject, if there ever was one to begin with...
One of my more unusual methods of measuring time is a clock made out of a round piece of slate on the wall of my den. I can draw on the clock with a piece of chalk and put on the tick marks for the hours. At first, I wanted to be very precise about the tick marks so that I could tell the time. Then, I got a little frisky with the numbers, changing a few from normal numerals to Roman numerals and I even spelled out a few of the numbers. I even put five in Spanish... cinco.
Jazz is the art of syncopating and playing variations on a theme for music. What is the equivalent to marking out different measures of time?
When Daylight Savings time comes around, I don’t have to change the hands on my clock... all I have to do is erase the numbers and write each in shifted 30 degrees one way or the other. Unlike everybody who just changes the hands or digits on their clock, I am actually changing my clock. It's not "Spring Forward, Fall Back" for me but instead "Spring Scribble, Fall Scribble."
Consumer safety advocacy groups say that Daylight Savings Time days are great for changing the battery in your smoke detector. I keep meaning to get a new one, since this one goes off with every beer-fart and paranormal event that no other device or entity seems to take notice of, so I have to put the battery back in to take it out to replace it. The last time there was a true fire here and the smoke detector was functioning, one of the cats detected the flames and smoke before the device ever did.
How do you replace the battery in a cat?
Since this swapping-of-the-batteries is pretty much a non-event here, I've decided to add something even far more important to the time-adjusting ritual. Every time it's time to change the clocks, I buy all new underwear. It doesn't matter how much effort or skill one has to eliminate stains and maintain waistband integrity... there's only so far that you can keep a pair going and by establishing clear "Use By" dates it's not hard to maintain a respectable and reasonable fleet of undies. It's not all that expensive for me to do this, since I'm a tighty-whitey kind of briefs man, so there's no need to go to the bank and ask them for a loan for silk boxers. So I'll be heading to the Underwear Store today to get a whole new wardrobe that you'll never really notice...
But I will. I always make the time for it. | 
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