That's right, you heard me, I time travel. Whenever my affliction of random sleep kicks in, I'm not snoozing but transporting to other times. Well I guess I'm sleeping. As far as I can tell my body is still here drooling and snoring and mumbling away. I think it's possible to get my body else when. Pretty sure Solange managed that, but I haven't figured out how yet. I've got a good idea of how. I just can't duplicate it. So when you're seeing a lump of brown haired gangly armed body flesh, I'm seeing things from the past.
As far as I can tell I've been doing it all my life. While my folks assumed I was insolent or suffering from ADD and not paying attention, I was sleeping traveling to times and places unrecognized and scary to a child of the twenty-first century. Thank you Dr. K for finally offering a correct diagnosis and getting me off that cornacopia of Adderal, Methylin, Daytrana, and a plethora of other drugs I oh so wish I could forget.
From what I can figure, I can travel to any time before I was born, and can't seem to travel to any time or place where there aren't human beings wandering around. Sorry all you paleontologists out there, I can't provide any first hand accounts of breakfast with T-Rex. Nor am I able to travel to the future, so much for cashing in on the state lottery. Sure would have helped with the trial expenses.
Where I travel seems linked to whatever I'm thinking about when the narcoleptic sandman comes a knock knock knockin. The experience is rather surreal. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Dali didn't have the time travelling knack i've been cursed with, some of his paintings remind me of the feelings I experience when falling into other times.
It feels sort of like a flickering light, a rickety subway train speeding past lights that flash through your view. Can't really say how long it takes may be an instant, but it feels like ages and no time at all before I find my self elsewhen. Once then, I feel like a ghost. I can smell things, feel and taste things, hear things, but can't really hold anything for long if at all. How solid I feel, once I arrive, seems linked to the emotional state I was in when I pass out. The happier, the sadder, the more scared or shocked I am, the more there there I feel. There are even times when the now long dead people I come across can see me. Think this may explain all those ghost or alien sightings. Not that I don't believe in the paranormal mind you. Heck, how can a guy who time travels doubt the paranormal. I'm just saying I often look like an apparation when making my journeys, sometimes a more solid apparation then others. How long I stay differs. It isn't directly linked to how long I'm asleep. This I know, for I've spent a week wandering the halls of the Library of Congress while sleeping for mere minutes, and just glimpsed the Bridgette Bardot's bedroom for seconds while being conked out for hours. Haven't really kept meticulous track time wise. Why don't you try keeping an eye on your watch constantly waiting to pass out. It's not easy and far from fun. It does seem I stay longer elsewhen when I'm interested in where I'm at or emotionally worked up with what I'm witnessing. "Why only a few seconds in the bedroom" you query? No Bridgette there alas.
I have been seen by some people. For example, I have even caused a horrific accident once making a car swerve into another when I appeared on the intersection of Bowery and Bleeker in NYC. Sue me for thinking of CBGBs, can you blame a teenager with a fine ear for kick ass rock. Hope this doesn't burst any bubbles or anything, but since I've caused such accidents and come back to the present with nothing changed, I don't think a butterfly's wing flapping makes much of a difference. The way I figure it, there's a bunch of us, myself included more than likely, who don't mean a thing, even if we got that swing. Sorry to break it to ya, but I'm betting most of our existence are irrelevant. It might be the cell walls talking though.
Travelling to whenever I'm thinking of has made life hard. I hate history classes. Reading and hearing about war is one thing. Finding yourself amid the thick of it is another. So I try to tune out history as it seems top heavy with war, depression, treks and camps of death. As a kid I was enamored by the likes of Boone and Crockett and Bowie. That faded fast when I found myself between Mexico and the Alamo as canon and gun fire flew over and through me. Remember the Alamo? If you don't mind, I'll leave that to the rest of America. Thinking of the future or fantastic things like dragons or galaxies far far away is far from good. When I try, it's a crap shoot. I end up in places I have no control of like a latrine in a Reb encampment, outside Gettysburg I think, or in Anne Mcaffrey's office.
I also haven't the knack with languages and finding myself on the Montparnasse in the Twenties for example, might sound cool but is far from it. As great as it might sound to witness Man Ray argue with Kiki there's no fun when you can't understand a word flung as they banter back and forth.
It hasn't been all that bad. I've learned to focus my thoughts on fun things like concerts of yore - Woodstock is 'mind blowing' live. When all else fails, I think of old movie theaters or libraries. Both seem the safest places to end up in. There's nothing like spending time among sharp dressed folks out on the town for a night at the Pantages in L.A. or the Paramount in Oakland. I've rubbed elbows of a sort with many famous folk of yesteryear crashing Academy Award banquets, and am not ashamed to say it have ogled at a number of bombshells of yore. Hey, I'm a teenager and a guy, can you blame me? My curious ability has helped with school too. Nothing like listening in on Steiglitz talk about Nude Descending Staircase at the Armory show and transcribing his words into paper form to ace an essay assignment for art class. Thanks Alfred. Yeah, I know it's probably all plageristic, but heck it's for a high school class and gotta be better than copying from some dated encyclopedia.
Since the more emotional I am the more I am there when traveling, I've tried to keep myself as numb as possible. To be on the safe side, I try to remain all zen and calm focusing on my breathing - boring but sort of serene. With no friends to speak of, I didn't have to worry of exciting birthday parties or friendly spats with my 'bf's. At school, it's a lot of staring at the grass or desks and thinking about whenever or whomever I want to be or see.
So a snap shot of my oh so fabulous unstuck life would be breakfast of toast and fruit. After a while waking up with your face in a bowl of cereal gets tedious. Once I've fortified myself for a day of unsocial life at SLO senior high, SLOSH, I droned as best as I could teenage hell, surrounded by classmates I didn't know talking about events and things I couldn't experience. I suppose I must have looked like a glazed eyed automaton, not very friendly I assume. Can't really blame the world. I'm betting I appeared pretty stand offish and wasn't very receptive to those that approach me. It really isn't any fun trying to hold a conversation when the subjects are things I can't or don't want to experience and the banter of talk is interrupted inopportunely by lulls caused by my passing out. Trying to think kindly of others, I suppose it must be really off putting to experience some one falling asleep right when you are expounding upon the trials and tribulations of trying to get onto the debate team.
Anyway, I was resigned and almost fine with the fact of living a deadened life in the present. At times even happy. Until that fabglorious day, when I awoke from a slumber spent at Provincetown Playhouse enjoying a production of Aria da Capo to find the desirous deep chocolate eyes of Solange staring at me.
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