Not in any literal sense. I've just been thrown off mental kilter.

You know biorhythms? Remeber those machines that you could pay a dollar or so, input your birthday and the day you were interested in (some of the machines used thumbwheels, just like a spaceship, or Eniac computer) and the machine would pen-plot the peaks and valleys of your various emotions, based on the physical, emotional, and mental rhythms started (ostensibly) on the day you were born.

Later, they came out with the computerized versions (BASIC, IBM PC, typed in by hand from a software book, because how else would you get software back in '82?), spewing out your emotional forcast in green-phosphored ASCII-goodness. I'd look through the coming months, looking for the ultimate high, when all three cycles, 28, 31 and 33 days, fell into line with each other. Since 28, 31, and 33 have no common factors, this convergence would only happen every 28*31*33 days, or 28,644 days, which boils down to 78 years, 5 months, and 3 days. On that day, your biorhythm would restart, just like the day you were born, with all your cycles on the rise, starting at zero.

This was all a preface to try and explain how I've been feeling for the last few days. I was going to say that they all felt like they were in line, a powerful force, but that I couldn't tell whether they were heading up or down. Now that I think about it, one could be going up while the other two are headed down, or vice versa. All I can tell is that the're all passing through zero which, in addition to meaning that it's neither good nor bad, is also the moment when things are moving the fastest (as with any normal sine wave). Taking the parascientific example too far, this kind of combination, with each wave passing through zero at the same time, would happen every x/2 * y/2 * z/2 days, or 28*31*33/2*2*2, 28644/8, 3580.5 days. In short, every 9 years, 9 months, 19 days.

Okay, now I'm really getting off topic. But maybe that's the point. There's no topic for today, other than all of my newer friendships (and none of my older ones, thankfully) are going through some level of strife. It doesn't really help that my work life is also going through an upheval of change, switching from GeoCities to Yahoo Messenger. Time is scarce, money is tight, and more than any year in memory, I feel like my actions in the first month of this one will set the tone for the rest of the year, and beyond.

Okay, sorry for rambling. Let's see if I can actually pull this together into something that makes sense. Hmm. Okay. Did you ever see that episode of [insert Sci-Fi show here. Stargate-SG1, Star Trek, Orson Scott Card's 'Tales of Capitol' (okay, that one's a book, so?)] where such-and-such character has their memory wiped, replaced with new memories, and they try living their life, but as they go on, they realize that their memories don't fit with 'who they are' because they 'wouldn't do things like that.' Well, I feel like the reverse is true. My memories all point to sensibilities that I believe represent me, but the way I act nowadays doesn't feel like it fits that model, like I'm on auto-pilot, jaded or, more specifically, a spectator inside my own life, looking at what's going on through the windows, much as I am right now, writing this on the train, watching houses, cars, lives speed by.

I don't have a tactic, or a motivation, a goal, or any of that. At least one that I'll admit to myself. I'm just watching frost melt off the rooftops, trying to internalize the conscious realization that friendships aren't task-oriented problems with measurable milestones. I feel like the direction I'm travelling is orthogonal to where I should be going, getting me no closer or further from my destination, if I have a destination at all. Okay, now I'm just repeating myself in different ways.

Quite a ramble for a Tuesday. Thanks for sticking around. Things should get back to 'normal' soon. Hey, it could have been worse. I could have gone on a tirade about the different theories of time travel, and how every show that tries to tackle the subject mixes several of the theories into their underlying premise to fit the plotline, continuity be damned (err, storyline continuity. Naturally 'continuity be damned' is the hallmark of any time travel story).