Tues., May 32, 1999"If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do is to save every day til eternity passes away - just to spend them with you. If I could make days last forever - if words could make wishes come true - I'd save every day like a treasure. Again, just to spend them with you. But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you've found them. I've looked around enough to know that you're the one I want to go through time with...." - Jim Croce
"Patient Croce spent much of today's session once again expressing transference feelings of love for me in a spew of wild imagery typical of those whose brains have been addled by decades of exposure to American popular music. Under no circumstances should he be allowed to mingle with fellow inmates James 'I Fix Broken Hearts' Taylor or Barry 'I Write The Songs' Manilow lest the conditions of all three deteriorate to the point of permanent psychosis." - Transcribed notes of Dr. Shawnathan L. Addams, Senior Psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital's Tin Pan Alley branch asylum
I know, I know - it's not really May 32. June is busting out all over - I can hear it even underneath my bed. Pretending that it's really May 32 is silly. But I just can't help it. I suffer from chronic chronophobia - the fear of the passage of time. Maybe you do, too. Maybe that's even why you're here. Goodness knows few things slow the passage of time down faster than reading one of these entries. But it still doesn't quite stop the flow of time completely, does it? And it looks like that flow won't be outright reversed unless Pat Buchanan is elected president, and what are the odds of that?
Every new month is traumatic for me but June is especially bad. As soon as it arrives it starts vomiting forth new graduates all over the place. And then it doesn't leave until it's excreted the year's peak number of newlyweds everywhere from Vegas to that nice new subdivision just down the street. Sure, the weather tends to be great, but that's small comfort when you have to shovel countless bouquets, tossed tassels, grains of rice, and stray strands of "Pomp and Circumstance" off your driveway before you can even think about heading off to the beach.
Maybe I'd feel different if I myself hadn't graduated from kindergarten in June. Sure, they gave me a framed diploma that I still have on my office wall and which never fails to impress guests and the spirit of the governess killed here back in 1867, but somehow that seems pretty meagre compensation for their taking away my blocks and crayons. I mean, have you ever tried to use paperclips to make the sky blue in a coloring book or attempted to reach the ceiling with a carefully balanced stack of overdue bills? Even with one of those self-help books at my side to guide me, I've just never been able to recapture the magic....
Maybe I'd feel better if June hadn't been named after Juno. As you probably know, Juno was the Roman goddess who had power over most things dealing with women, especially marriage. Which is alright, I guess, except that it does violence to my belief that it's never a good idea to mix church and calendar. You know, you give one goddess a month of her own and pretty soon all the other gods and goddesses are gonna want equal time and, quite frankly, the time between paychecks is already long enough.
And as much as I enjoy and respect marriage, I'd prefer not to have to enjoy and respect it 24 hours a day for 30 days in a row....
Of course, things could be worse. Had Hollywood been in charge of naming the months we'd now be stuck having to live through "January VI: The Solstice Knows You're Alone!" or some damn thing long on blood and gore and short on plot and character development. Plus we'd all have to work nights and weekends just to pay for the ludicrously overpriced popcorn. No thanks! Not even a whole week of gratuitous sex can make up for that.My doctor gave me a pamphlet this year which he thought might ease my way through to July with a minimum of kicking and screaming. Some of the hints it contains are quite good:
Beyond a doubt, everything would be so much simpler if months didn't run together in packs. If only there had been so much as a smidgen of daylight between May and June this year, maybe I could have slipped by both these pointless barkers and ended up safe on the porch of eternity!
- Try to avoid making eye contact with June. Most months interpret stares as direct challenges to their right to exist as free-wheeling periods of time. Always keep your gaze directed at the pretty calendar photo above the month proper instead.
- Avoid sudden movements. Few things piss June off faster than seeing someone attempting to jump from Tuesday to Friday without going step-by-slow-careful-step through Wednesday and Thursday.
- Never bother June or any other month when it is busily devouring that portion of the future Nature has seen fit to place in its bowl. Under no circumstances attempt to grab even the smallest part of this future for yourself.
- Never attempt to dress June up in one of those humiliating monthie sweaters sold in Lillian Vernon catalogues. Doing so will automatically terminate your health care coverage.
- Never ever tell "Dumb Eon" jokes about the particular eon the June in front of you just happens to be part of.
- To keep June amused, try throwing your plans up in the air so that it may catch them in its maw, rip them to shreds, then run off to bury them.
- Always report any stray Junes you see in the fall and winter to the proper authorities. Do not attempt to corner them yourself!
Or at least found a sweet little interregnum to shack up with for awhile.
Oh well. Maybe someday....In the meantime, I think I'll smash a few of my timepieces. Tests confirm that most of my clocks are indisputably infected with ticks, and I just know that these little beasties are crawling over me as I sleep at night and sucking my life away, drop by drop. My quartz watch doesn't help matters, either, constantly vibrating my wrist with its fear of the future, so it's on my "Things To Wallop Today" list, too. And my grandfather clock's pendulum is obviously going stir crazy, judging from the way it keeps pacing back and forth in its cabinet in a desperate attempt to give its seconds more elbow room. Euthanasia seems quite in order.
As for that damn, unhousebroken sundial of mine... I never did get around to resetting it for Daylight Savings Time, and last night when I made an OSHA-worthy surprise check on it in my back yard I caught it loafing, anyway. I expect its union rep to demand a new set of batteries for it any day now, even though I have yet to meet a single clerk who could provide me with the kind it takes. Well, it's going on my little list, too!!But first I think a little relaxation is in order. And as luck would have it, it's almost time for one of my favorite TV shows. In fact, here it comes now! Feel free to sing along with the irresistible theme song with me -
"Bad clocks! Bad clocks! Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?!"
-Fox TV's hit program, "Government Clockwatchers"
Back To A Simpler Past Home To Have Your Clock Cleaned
(Hey - just checked my records and it's time for another booster shot full of the latest in mind-expanding first names that I've carefully harvested from the Petri dish of my local newspaper. Ready? Then just bend over and smile as you read: Amina, Baden, Camisha, Caro, Cheya, Fredisha, Jacinda, Jaquane, Kawla, Kolnita, Leucio, Maha, Naverro, Nickyma, Nitja, Raelonda, and Veltresha. It is strongly recommended that you lie down and rest now while your body absorbs those 17 cc's of potent nomenclature.)
(All The Material That's Fit To Print © 1999 by Dan Birtcher)
