Adrift On The Calendar

I’m so glad that my watch and phone tell me what day and date it is. I realize that I’m now totally dependent on them to keep track of such things since my brain and body and schedule are so overbooked that I can’t spend the energy or the brain cycles to track such things myself.

In some ways I feel like the crew of that ship in “WALL-E” where they’ve forgotten how to walk or move independently. And like in that film where there’s a malicious, evil entity that has manipulated them to go down that road, we have the GQP and the Death Cult right-wingers and conspiracy nut jobs who are pushing us to spend so much time stressing over their bullshit that we’re losing our ability to keep track of little things like the date. We have so many bigger fish to fry.

Do you remember a “M*A*S*H” episode where BJ Honeycutt was messing with Winchester’s clothes, subtly a little at a time having them taken in or let out, convincing him that he was gaining or losing weight? That’s what our electronic devices could do, adding a few minutes to the work day here, taking a few days off the holidays there, putting an eighth work day into the week (“Wait, wasn’t it Tuesday a couple days ago? Why is it Tuesday again? Whatever…”) Forget about “watching the watchers,” is anyone watching the watches?

The only reference I seem to have is, “How many days until that next deadline? And the one after that? And the two next week? Wait, they’re THIS week?! Shit!!!”

The good news I guess is that I’m more or less keeping up with the deadlines, at least the ones that are critical and for which I’m getting paid. The volunteer gig? Might be letting a few slip there.

I think the French have a phrase for that.