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2003-01-23
I need a vacation

�Hi honey, it�s Tuesday,� my mother said on my voice mail message, even though it is Thursday. She catches herself, rather my father catches her and I can hear in the silence her discomfort at being caught. So that�s not exactly silence. �Your father is telling me it�s Thursday,� she says, �Oh, I guess I forgot.� She sighs, she�s upset, but no matter how often I tell her my voice mail dates and times messages she continually starts off her messages with that information, faulty or not. I know that�s not the point, at least I don�t think it is. I think the point is that for her she knows what date and time she�s calling me. Even if she really doesn�t.

My sisters and I discuss this phenomenon and come to a nervous agreement that she�s just getting older, this is normal, not the signs of anything. Still, by discussing the incidences in relation to the possibility of warning signs we seem to me to cover our bases. We can always look back at these observations and remember when.

After years of working in the 9-to-5 world I always know what day it is and can get pretty close to the time. Right now, without looking at my computer clock, I know it�s Thursday around 12:30 pm. I don�t need a sundial or even to look in the sky. It has more to do with traffic patterns, the ebb and flow of cars, the ebb and flow of people at the nearby coffee shop, the ebb and flow of my stomach sounds. The hours are bunched around mealtimes � though industrial age-wise there is only one and that is lunchtime. But we�re not in the industrial age, we�re in the technology age and almost no one I�ve ever worked with actually eats breakfast before they come to work and most start something like dinner around 3:30 pm. Sometimes, the only thing that keeps me hanging on is the ritual of coffee and some floury thing in the morning, or mid-morning; the semi-serious consultation of menus for lunch; and the dips and peaks of finding that perfect afternoon snackmeal.

Secretly, truthfully, I envy my mother�s uncertainty about the actual date and time. I�d like to be so far removed from this work world that I would stop and ask, �Is this Tuesday or Wednesday?� Even more exciting would be confusion over the month, but that is asking quite a lot, maybe something scary, like a disaster in the Arctic or some impossible-to-reach mountain range or a coma. It could mean the lottery, an incredible never-ending vacation. But, of course, if I won the lottery, I�d keep working. I�d be one of those people.

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