THANKSGIVING GREETINGS FROM 1999!

What a difference half a decade makes. It doesn’t seem so long ago that "American Beauty" was the talk of the town, and the St. Louis Rams were on their way to winning their first Super Bowl. Then you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner in 1999, and you realize just how different things were, only a few years back.

I hung out with Rupert Zwevoid during the Thanksgiving holiday. Originally, I was going to hop into the "Mr. Peabody," and blow up the universe so I could be with family in 2004. Unfortunately, I had already blown up the universe three times the night before, when I was in a rush to get back to 1999 to see John Irving’s stage play of "The Cider House Rules." I only intended to blow up the universe once, to get from 2004 to 1999. But after I arrived in 1999, I remembered that I left the front door unlocked back in 2004. So I hit the "Armaegeddon" button again and ended up making a round trip. Yeah, holiday travel definitely sucks. Having blown up the universe three times in the span of only ten minutes, I thought it prudent not to do it again until Saturday at the earliest.

Before you pity me for having spent Thanksgiving away from family and loved ones (Those two don’t necessarily belong in the same category), please remember that I am nothing if not an intellectually-curious cat. Actually, I was very down about having to remain lost in time. But then Rupert Zwevoid told me, "Phil, it’s dangerous to blow up the universe more than three times in a 48-hour period. But look on the bright side: You’re the first earthling time traveler to spend the Thanksgiving holiday temporally displaced. Your suffering is of tremendous scientific value to all mankind."

"Scientific value, eh?" I answered, considering what Rupert had just said. At length, I agreed with him. I should have been quite pleased! There I was, a student from five years ahead in the timestream, living a holiday from five years back. How unprecedented! I spent my first 1999 Thanksgiving in Miami, not New York City, so this second visit certainly counted as a journey into the great unknown. Therefore, was I not unlike some kind of chronologically-cruising Magellan? A real maverick for my day and age…?

Taking Rupert’s cue of treating Thanksgiving 1999 as a day of momentous scientific value, I decided to play archaeologist, and appropriately, brought a weather-beaten journal and a magnifying glass with me as Rupert Zwevoid and I sought out the local fare at a diner down the street. "I am Ponce De Leon about to trip over Florida," I said to myself. "Every moment of this day must be treated with the utmost detachment and detail, because of its inherent scientific value." The following excerpts are from my extensive journal entries of that night:

PHIL X’S JOURNAL, NOVEMBER 25, 1999. JOURNEYS INTO THE "MILL BASIN DINER."

--"The entranceway is guarded by a sentry, who asks for the number of Rupert Zwevoid and my ‘party.’ Rupert tells him there are two members in our ‘party.’ The sentry immediately summons a woman named ‘Cloris.’ She says that she will be our ‘waitress/weightress(?)’for the evening. Has she been given this title because her duties involve ‘waiting’ on us? Or perhaps it is because she will be bringing us our food, which will ‘weigh’ us down after we ingest it."

--"Cloris has put a cylinder full of a clear liquid in front of me. There are cube-shaped vessels of a similarly-clear composition floating on the surface of the liquid. The cylinder is cold and moist to the touch. Rupert Zwevoid has a cylinder full of the same clear liquid and cube-shaped vessels. He sips from it fearlessly, then stares at me writing in my journal before shaking his head."

--"We are each given a plate containing half-inch thick slices of a supple, gray-brownish animal flesh, and half-inch thick slices of a less-pliable white flesh. The animal that produced these two substances had a composition similar to chicken, and a scent like chicken, too, albeit more earthy. Both the gray-brownish and the white animal flesh samples are covered with a viscous fluid that is an even darker brown, and smells like fat. Cloris refers to the flesh on the plates as ‘turkey.’

"'Made from Turks?!’ I inquire of her, quite astounded. Cloris doesn’t answer. She merely stares at me, then smiles as if imagining my head to be sitting underneath a large mallet. I separate small bits of ‘turkey’ using the crude utensils the diner has provided. Each bit is placed on one of the thin glass slides I happened to bring with me, and sealed using a drop of clear liquid from the cylinders, which I had suspected would be good for this purpose. Rupert Zwevoid, throughout all this, has been diligently devouring the small pile of diminutive green spheroids in a corner of his plate. He notices me watching him engage in this mode of scientific inquiry, and makes it a point to fling a spoonful of the green spheroids at me, no doubt testing their susceptibility to impact, as well as their aerodynamic shape.

"'Don’t take notes about me while I’m eating,’ my colleague says."

--"About an hour into the excavation, and I have nearly completed dissecting the bread-based compound which, according to the chef I interviewed, had been ‘stuffed’ inside the ‘turkey.’ (‘Good lord! It’s like some kind of mummification process!’ I exclaimed.) The bread-based compound was a particular challenge, given the many spices and starchy elements that had to be separated and placed onto their own individual slides. Less challenging was the reddish-purple jelly. Although it lost integrity whenever placed inside a slide, I doubted that its chemical composition could be altered by mere smooshing.

"What I find quite interesting about the reddish-purple jelly is how it wobbles! I kept tapping at it and tapping at it with the side of my spoon, and its oscillating movement hypnotized me. Lifting a slice of it up on the tip of my fork (a crude diner utensil), I asked Rupert Zwevoid, ‘Do you think I could make it vibrate at different frequencies, depending on which sounds I phonate?’ I immediately began a tour of each of the Cardinal Vowels, making it only halfway through before a small child at an adjacent table started to cry, and Rupert begged me to stop."

--"I think we are nearing the end. Cloris is bringing two small plates of a brown, cinammon-smelling, gelatinous substance inside a flaky crust, to the table. She has not even set them down, but I have whipped out my magnifying glass and have begun examining the gelatin’s surface. I can hear Cloris talking to Rupert, ‘He just arrive here from another planet or somethin?’

‘No. Strangely enough… ah, never mind.’ Rupert says."

END EXCERPTS FROM JOURNAL


After exiting the diner, Rupert told me that I should go home, hop into the "Mr. Peabody," jet forward a day short of five years, and spend Thanksgiving with my family in 2004. I asked him about the risk of blowing up the universe too much within such a short period of time. Wasn’t there an outside chance something terrible could happen to either the universe, or myself?

"If only," Rupert said, shuddering to look at me. Then he walked up the street alone.

Ah, it’s good friends that make the holidays special. I sure hope the universe can take one more total annihilation.

Critics are raving about Jim Carrey’s performance in Milos Forman’s "Man on the Moon." If only they’d wait five years.


IT’S GONNA BE A SAD, DRAB, BUT TRUTH-LADEN, "SUNSHINE-Y" DAY.

Michel Gondry’s "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" probably wasn’t the movie I should have been watching this week. Still, I’ve been wanting to see it for months, and in spite of the plot, I’m glad I watched it.

This easily ranks with "The Truman Show" as my favorite Jim Carrey movie. Heck, this might even place above that one. After all, the actor that portrayed Truman Burbank merely had to be likable. The strange, behind-the-scenes happenings and reality TV conspiracies were more than compelling enough to carry the film. Chris Rock was right. Anybody could have starred in "The Truman Show."

The question is, could just about anyone have played Joel Barish? Shy, sensitive, curmudgeonly, goofy-looking, tight-mouthed Joel Barish? Call me crazy, but I don’t think so. I’ve always felt that Jim Carrey’s performances in his earliest, most popular comedies, had this sort of desperate edge. Here was a man willing to stoop to any lengths to get a rise out of you. Problem was, in order to keep his audience laughing, he would beat his character’s almost improbably moronic shtick into the ground. Five minutes of Ace Ventura doing his "talking out of his ass-crack" bit at the police station in the first film was funny. But NINETY minutes of it? By the halfway mark, I was begging somebody to zap Jim Carrey’s ass with a tazer to make it shut up.

While Joel Barish never has the chance to manipulate his rectum quite the same way Ace did, the same yearnings for human contact, response, and—dare I say it?—love, are there. Jim Carrey has matured since "Ace Ventura" and "Dumb and Dumber." He has successfully undertaken serious, dramatic roles in films like "The Truman Show," "Man on the Moon," and "The Majestic." But in "Eternal Sunshine…," he performs as he has never done before. This time, the goofy grin of Ace and Lloyd Christmas is a mask that conceals the frighteningly insecure Joel Barish. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jim Carrey act with his eyes, but here he does so amazingly. In them, one can recognize the scared little boy Joel never grew out of, the misfit who was always standing out on the periphery of the party, quiet and alone.

"Valentine’s Day is a holiday made up by large corporations to make people feel like shit." This is one of the first things desperately lonely Joel says after waking up at the start of the movie. True, he says it through voice-over, and a narrow-minded film student might complain that voice-over is a sign of weak narrative. But it makes sense to start the movie partially within Joel’s head. After all, once the movie kicks into high gear, almost all of it takes place there.

How does Joel get in there from here? He discovers that his former girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet, playing the dream girl of every socially-inept, goofy misfit), has undergone a procedure to erase all traces of Joel from her brain. Overwhelmed by the callous nature of her actions, Joel undergoes the same procedure, only to change his mind midway through. As the brain doctors use his memories of Clementine as a kind of road map, deleting backwards from their break-up to the moment they first met, Joel desperately tries to hide her by veering all over the geography of his brain.

Childhood events, traumatic incidents, repressed memories—Gondry’s visual flair is in evidence at every one of these stops. For example, there’s amazing use of perspective and trick photography when we visit Joel Barish’s childhood home. In relation to the kitchen, his mother, and Clementine, Joel is the size of a toddler. Proportionally, however, he looks normal. Then there’s the surreal nighttime set, when Joel is chasing after Clementine. He tries to run from one corner of the block, where his car is parked, to the other corner, where Clementine supposedly is. But he keeps arriving at the same car, and the same streetlight, over and over again.

And who could forget that scene towards the end, where Joel, having lost Clementine forever (Or does he not?), sits in the backseat of his friends’ station wagon, and watches as his memories of her literally flit by outside his window?

Since the brain doctors start with Joel’s most recent memory, then work backward, the structure of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" resembles Christopher Nolan’s "Memento." But whereas the hero of "Memento" constantly had to re-establish the arc of his character (He had to constantly try to re-remember where he was and why), Joel is aware of his journey, and is affected by everything he encounters. His arc, therefore, is straightforward. As his most recent memory of Clementine, then the second-most recent, third-most, etc., are erased forever, he realizes how much he loves her, and is desperate to retain some scrap of her.

Was it necessary to review Joel and Clementine’s relationship this way, starting with their break-up, and ending with how they first met? It’s necessary in order to give gravity to Joel’s journey. By the time he arrives at his first encounter with Clementine, which is his final memory of her, he has lost her so many times that, out of some urgent need for closeness with her, or perhaps truthfulness, before she finally fades away, he reveals himself—something he was never able to do in real life. It also helps that the site of their first meeting contains an event Joel truly wishes hadn’t happened the way it did.

"I wish I had stayed. There are a lot of things I wish I had done differently, I… I wish I had stayed."

The first night Joel met Clementine, at a beach party at Montauk, the two of them snuck into an unoccupied summer house. Clementine went upstairs to look through the tenant’s closet. Joel snuck out. The summer house is literally falling apart in Joel’s memory, about to cease existing forever. As the water from the ocean outside invades the house, washes over the floor, and pools around Joel’s ankles, he knows they’ve reached the end. So he unburdens himself of his regrets. He wishes he had stayed with her in the cabin that night. So many things, he wishes he had done differently. It’s a great scene that actually begins a lot earlier, but it has a dynamite ending. It’s the best scene in the entire movie.

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was written by Charlie Kaufmann, one of the most interesting screenwriters out there. He takes off-the-wall ideas, concepts which might seem impossible to present in a popular format, and humanizes them to the point where they become some of the best examples of the popular form. Kaufmann wrote (or adapted) "Adaptation," which I loved. I enjoyed this movie even more. "Eternal Sunshine…" has a more pat ending than "Being John Malkovich," which many imdb posters believe is Kaufmann’s best movie. True, one could argue that "Eternal Sunshine…" has two endings, and the first one is satisfying enough.

But I would argue that ending #2 conveys an important truth which must not be denied: While it would be convenient, perhaps even merciful, to be able to erase every horrible person we were ever unlucky enough to care about from our minds, the process would only leave us vulnerable to making the same mistakes over and over again (See Kirsten Dunst’s character). The truth is, we need the horrible memories, the bitter endings, the regrets. We need to have our minds spotted. We need the pain, in order to grow as people.

TIME TRAVEL: THE ORIGIN STORY, PART II: THE FUTURE IS NOW (SO IS THE PAST)

I did something today that I haven’t done since arriving back in the year 1999: I went to see Rupert Zwevoid at the Royal Video on Avenue U. Desperately needed to see a familiar face, is all.

Since he didn’t give me the "Armageddon Signal" until 2004, I figured there was no way he would recognize me. But to my surprise, the second the chime went off over the door, Rupert looked up and said, "Phil X! You remembering to stop up the drain on the ‘Mr. Peabody’ every time you take it for a spin…?"

I only neglected to stop the drain of the cast-iron bathtub once, but believe me, I haven’t repeated the mistake. Rubbing brandy where your left eyebrow used to be is supposed to make the hair grow back faster. Unfortunately, that area of skin is still raised and tender, and stings to the touch. Goddamn elaborate time-travel special effects.

Then I realized that Rupert Zwevoid shouldn’t know any of that for another five years. "Rupert!" I said. "How did you know about all that?"

And so Rupert explained how the Zwevoids are not only an alien race that live thousands and thousands of years, they are also aware, at birth, of every aspect of their extremely lengthy lifespans. Rupert ‘04 probably would have compared it to having a pan-and-scan for a DVD you’ve already seen several times.

"No way!" I said to Rupert. "Well, how good’s the detail on your recall?"

"Vivid," Rupert said.

"Prove it," I said. "What was I stopping by to rent…?"

"Nada, amigo," he said. "You dropped by because you were feeling lonely, your friends are all in 2004, and things between you and your girl are hopeless."

"Uh, okay," I said, trying to hide my surprise at how effectively he had just proven his point.
"You know, it was never any serious thing. It was just… you know, stupidity."

"You silly, silly humans," Rupert said. At this point, a customer walked in and asked if the movie "Pitch Black" was out on video yet.

"Pitch Black?" Rupert said, immediately dumbing-down and streetening up his speech. "Man, I don’t think that movie’s even in the theaters yet."

"Yeah, but, like I saw a commercial for it the otha’ day. That shit look dope."

"If you saw a commercial for it on TV, it was probably an advertisement for the movie, for when it comes out—IN THE THEATER," Rupert said.

"All I know is, that movie is gonna be the shit," the customer said.

"That it will be, brother," I chimed in from the aisle.

The guy turned around, gave me the once over, muttered "mutherfucker" as he left the store. Rupert laughed.

"’The Chronicles of Riddick’ will be an improvement," he said. "Not a great movie, by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, I pretty much fast-forwarded through all the prison-escape scenes, as it seemed highly unlikely Vin Diesel was going to spend the rest of the movie rotting in space prison."

I concurred. "I thought Riddick’s fight with the Lord of the Necromongers was pretty lame. A little too much like ‘Blade 2.’ But everything else in that last scene I liked."

Rupert was kind enough to explain "The Chronicles of Riddick 2" to me. I had to admit, it defintely sounded like the best in the series so far. But I didn’t bother asking exactly what year it will come out. Such is the nature of our strange terrestrial/ extra-terrestrial relationship. Occasionally, Rupert will toss me a line, some reason to maintain faith in this unpredictable world. For example, something to look forward to.

He had turned his attention to the TV screen behind him, where two VCR’s were working in tandem, illegally copying the store’s new VHS copy of "City of Angels"—the 1998 Nicolas Cage/Meg Ryan hit movie.

I watched the ghostly, black-garbed image of Nicolas Cage walk along the beach, until my eyes began to trail down to the box cover sitting atop the counter. Other tapes lined up behind it. These would probably be copied, too, one after another after another. Here was Rupert’s day, neatly arranged, planned out. Naturally, I began thinking about Zwevoid existence in general, and how lucky Rupert was to have already seen the finished product of his life during production, when most of us can’t even get a rough cut until the lights are about to come on.

Recent events in my life began to seep into my mind, and I found myself, quite unconsciously, talking aloud: "It must be cool to be able to… see your entire life already organized and worked out in front of you, Rupert. That must be really awesome, you know? Everything you’re going to do, everyone you’re ever going to meet. From the moment you’re in the world, you already know all of it. There’s never any confusion, never any mistakes. Never any risk that you’ll invest in something, or someone, and in the end it blows up in your face. Because you already know.

"Imagine being able to go through life with the mystery already solved. How great would that be, Rupert? All the sleepless nights in college, "Should I major in Business Management? Or English Lit? Do I follow my passion? Do I go after the steady paycheck?" Gone. All the visits to the guidance counselor, who frankly, only makes matters worse by giving you more and more options, until you could drown in your own confusion. All that’s gone, too. Because you’d already know.

"And how much easier would it make the whole mating ritual, Rupert? Every woman you ever meet, it’s like she’s already got a sign over her head, in blinking neon lights. ‘Destined to be special,’ or ‘Run, asshole, as fast as you can!’ How great would that be, Rupert, if it were really like that? No more suspense, or longing, or high hopes, or disappointment. We’d already know who the perfect person for us would be. She’d be sketched into our brains from our first moment of consciousness. And we’d ESPECIALLY know her Estimated Time of Arrival, so we could spend our women-hunting time doing more productive things instead, like reading, or learning a foreign language, instead of what we all do now, which is this constant exploring, and longing, and desperate hoping.

"I mean, isn’t it entirely possible that some of us are never destined to meet our special other? Wouldn’t it be better to know that right away? How much more humane would that be? My mom used to tell me that there’s someone out there who’s absolutely perfect for each of us. But come on, Rupert, we all know that’s bunko! The world has plenty of people who were never loved by anybody, and believe me, it shows! They’re psychos, drunks, crack-whores, and homeless people! They never found love, they never found that absolutely perfect someone, and they probably never will! All I’m saying is maybe some of us simply aren’t meant to find true love, so wouldn’t it be great if we knew it from the start? That way, if we already knew, we’d never have to worry about raising our expectations, only to have them swatted down. We’d never have to experience that kind of pain. Because it’s really, really, REALLY EXCRUCIATING PAIN, Rupert. The kind of ordeal I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy…"

Between the time I started my rant and when I finished, Rupert hadn’t turned once from the television monitor. A silence filled the store, interrrupted occasionally by bursts of Nicolas Cage’s sad drawl.

I kept waiting for Rupert to say something. Anything. Finally, he reached his left hand underneath the counter. His eyes were still fixed upon the TV screen. When Rupert’s left hand was in view again, I could see something inside it: A Mars bar.

"I’m supposed to be taking my break at 1 p.m. today," he said. "I usually eat a Snickers bar. The sugar keeps me going. Of course, according to the clock on the wall over there, it’s now 1:15, and I am unwrapping a Mars bar."

"Huh?" I said, at length.

"Phil X," Rupert said, turning around in his squealing swivel chair to face me. "Life is only unchangeable until it gets changed." Then he did a 180 again and I was left staring at Zwevoid scalp follicles.

I turned and slowly walked toward the exit. I felt tired, and crummy, and empty. Home was looking like a nice place to hide. But, as I yanked the door open, the little chime on top went off again, and I heard Rupert say, "Hey! Phil X!" I quickly turned around.

I could see Rupert Zwevoid at the other end of the video store, sitting straight-backed, wearing the kind of tranquil grin you expect to see on friendly alien visitors who, hopefully, are wiser than those they visit.

"You’re broken right now," he said. "But someday, you will be fixed."

I really hope he’s right.

CURTAIN FALLS

I really ought to tear down that earlier post about ‘C.’ Don’t get me wrong. ‘C’ is still a wonderful person and luminous actress. She’s clearly in touch with her anger, too, as evident in her reading of Chorus #1 in "Fatal Attraction—A Greek Tragedy." Last Friday, ‘C’ invited me to see her off-Broadway debut at the Bleeker St. Cultural Project. Being the theatrical savoir-faire that I am, and since admission to the reading was free, of course I agreed. Loyal readers of this site (loyal as of last Saturday, anyway) will also remember that I was nursing a hopeless crush on the sarcastic, overly-theatrical, and physically well-put-together ‘C.’ In hindsight, I must have been what Euripedes would have referred to as "out of his f*ckin’ mind." Not that ‘C’ did anything to lower my opinion of her, which is more than I can say for most of the women in my life. But simply put, I don’t think she and I are right for each other.

Calling ‘C’ a social butterfly would be like calling Tallulah Bankhead "slightly forward." No, ‘C’ is not gregarious in a slutty way. But she clearly has some male friends. Tall, sturdy-looking male friends whom she hugs. While I’m sure their tall, sturdy male physicalities are no match for my zany, razor-sharp wit, ‘C’ is a woman, after all. I find it hard to believe any female in her right mind would choose my endless repertoire of smart-ass remarks over height and well-groomed facial hair.

Still, when the house lights came up after the reading, she noticed me before she noticed her friends. Of course, then she hugged the tall dude and I immediately felt like a fifth wheel (If he’s her boyfriend, it was as of last weekend only—not that I’m jealous.) At least ‘C’ wished me luck with my classes before I left. If the writers of the play had been there, I would have asked them what aspect of the Adrian Lyne "Fatal Attraction" movie made them say, "This story is just like a Greek tragedy!" Since they weren’t, I went looking for the exits.

I gave ‘C’ a pack of Twizzlers before I left. While she and I were working for Edison Schools, she always bought candy to the office ("Because candy makes people happy," she said). One day she bought an economy-size plastic container full of Twizzlers, and went through them the way I go through hopeless crushes. They were the only thing I was absolutely sure she liked. I caught a smile when I gave them to her, but maybe it was bewilderment. My ex-roommate used to devour Twizzlers three or four-an-hour. Said he needed them to calm his raging alcoholism. Who am I to criticize? I just smoked a pair of unfiltered cigarettes while writing this entry. Man, I am such a fuckin idiot.

BACK FROM THE DEAD

October was a busy month. SES After School programs were getting started, so the private education company I work for was asking 40+ hours a week from me. Meanwhile, in spite of the obvious advantages of time travel, I am still getting stressed out by these 1999 classes. Took two exams in Speech Production, the first three weeks ago (meaning October 1999), the second during the previous Wednesday. Bombed on the first one, underachieved on the second. To his credit, Dr. ‘O’ seemed genuinely concerned. After the first exam, he asked me for my opinion on whether he was effectively teaching the material. He actually knows me by face, but I think that has more to do with how well I’m doing in Survey of Communication Disorders, which Dr. ‘O’ regularly sits in on.

"Phil, Dr. ‘S’ says you’re one of the best students in her class. Yet your grade is slipping in mine. I don’t want you to get disillusioned with Speech Pathology at such an early time, but I have to warn you, you’re in danger of getting an unsatisfactory grade."

I explained to him that I work full-time, that balancing my job and two classes is very difficult. I'm not always as prepared as I’d like to be. During this past weekend, I had a very important paper to write for Survey…, so I had to cram for the second Speech Production exam the night before. Jeez, when exactly did I inherit Peter Parker’s life, sans the red-and-blue tights? At least I can afford to take an extended break from work. I should probably make time to visit the dreaded Dr. ‘O’ during his office hours.

THE DEEP END OF THE POOL IS THE MOST DANGEROUS

Friday was the official last day of the temp pool. Two of the office managers offered me a long-term gig. Office manager ‘S’ wanted me to stay onboard and make phone calls to parents of absentee children, while office manager ‘V’ offered me something in grants. I hate office manager ‘S,' as she is angry bitch. The most satisfying moment of my last day was telling office manager ‘G,’ who hired me and is quite cool, that the reason I won’t stay is because I refuse to work for ‘S.’ Everyone else in temp pool applauded and cheered. ‘G’ laughed, said she totally understood, and wished me well. I should hear from office manager ‘V’ during the coming week.

Actually, telling office manager ‘G’ that I refuse to work for ‘S’ was only the second-most satisfying moment of last evening. The most satisfying: Getting around, finally, to doing something about ‘C.’ I think ‘C’ is awesome. ‘C’ studied drama at NYU, currently auditions like a madwoman (sometimes, for madwoman roles), and always has candy to share because "candy makes people happy."

She’s also something of a dork. Has two younger brothers (early 20’s) who were big on Dungeons & Dragons (I haven’t gotten around to asking her if she did it, too). Loves LotR and Star Trek. Used to read comic books. I have no doubt that my attraction to her has something to do with the company I keep, but she has other good points, too. I could go on and on…

Anyway, it was about 20 after five last night when the other two members of temp pool finally went home, leaving just me and ‘C.’ To be fair, she and I had been circling each other for the past two months, and we’d reached the comfortable point where we tease regularly. I could have just asked her for her contact info. But call me ambitious. I was determined to find a way to let her know that I like her without the mess of, you know, actually telling her that I like her. After mentally running the gamut of subtlety for, like, fifteen minutes, I felt that I hit upon the perfect line of interrogative questioning.

Then I said fuck it and just asked for her contact info.

"NO, PHIL! YOU CAN’T HAVE MY CONTACT INFO! NO NO NO NO NO!" she said. On the last "NO," she even slammed the bottom of her closed fist upon the desk for emphasis. Then she gave me the loveliest smile I’ve ever received from a member of the opposite gender, tore a sheet of paper out of a legal pad, and wrote down all her contact info. Then she asked me out.
(Did I mention that ‘C’ is awesome?)

Of course, five minutes later we split ways to say our final good-byes to people. I went upstairs, told ‘C’ I’d be right back. But the conversation with office manager ‘V’ took longer than expected, and when I got back downstairs, ‘C’ was gone. I was upset that she had left without me. While I found her again ten minutes later, wandering in from the lobby because she left something behind, I couldn’t help looking at her and thinking, "You left this horrible place without me." She’s in the chorus of an off-Broadway play this Monday. She invited me to come see her, and I told her I might. So, how will this all play out? Not well, I think. Call me a pessimist, but I just have a feeling that we're hopelessly doomed. Still, maybe the best thing for me right now is a doomed romance.

TIME TRAVEL: THE ORIGIN STORY

Since I began chronicling my adventures in the recent past, many doubters have expressed disbelief regarding my accounts. They demand that Phil X be truthful, that he confess there be no time machine invented by him, that he admit that these so-called "time travel adventures" are nothing more than a work of fiction.

Okay, ye naysayers. Here be the truth: Phil X is not really travelling through time in a homemade continuity cruiser he conceptualized. That’s right. I did not, in fact, build a time machine. The honest-to-God truth is, the actual means of chronological transgression (time travel for laypersons) was given to me by a member of the Zwevoids. The Zwevoids are an extraterrestrial race that has walked among humankind for centuries. They have infiltrated the highest levels of our society, and have borne witness to some of the most important events in human history. The particular Zwevoid who handed me the secret of time travel works in a small, private video store on Avenue U. His name was/is Rupert Zwevoid.

Three months ago, and five years into the future: I was perusing the shelves of that small, independently-owned video store on Avenue U, looking for a copy of the critically-acclaimed "Somewhere in Time," which starred the late Christopher Reeve. Since I did not see it on the shelf, I asked Rupert, who was working the register that night (Now that I think about it, he always worked the register, no matter what the day or time was) whether he had ever heard of such a movie. Rupert diligently searched through the computer database, and turned up the title. Unfortunately, the store had no copy.

"So you like time travel movies?" Rupert asked me. "We have ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ on the shelf."

"Seen it already, Rupert," was my disappointed reply.

"Oh, okay," said Rupert. "Well, gee, I hate turning away a customer empty-handed. Especially a regular. So how about I give you the secret of time travel, which my extra-terrestrial race mastered several millenia ago…?"
* * *

Rupert gave me a remote. It looked like the handle of a gear shift, only with a small counter and a single, white button at the top. He asked me to please not press the button until he had finished explaining what the remote does. According to Rupert, this device was similar to what we twentieth-century earthlings would call a "garage door opener." Like said opener, pressing the button at the top of the remote sends out a signal that activates some very important Gears and Pulleys somewhere. However, the gears and pulleys Rupert went on to describe didn’t open a garage door so much as drastically alter the position of the sun, thereby undoing the chains of gravity binding our entire universe, effectively destroying it. The remote didn’t give off a "garage door opening signal" so much as an "Armageddon Signal."

But the Zwevoid machines destroy the universe in order to facilitate time travel. Rupert explained it to me best using a movie analogy:

"You know how in ‘Star Trek IV,’ the crew achieves time travel by sling-shotting their stolen Klingon ship around the sun? Well, we Zwevoids do the opposite. We achieve time travel by sling-shotting the sun around our ships."

Apparently, "Divine Machines," the source of the sling-shotting, wade invisibly out amongst the stars. But with a single press of the button on the remote, the machines could line up to form a pool cue of epic proportions, which could give the sun such a thwack as to make it do a one-time fly-by past the source of the "Armageddon Signal."

However, after seemingly destroying the universe, the Zwevoid "Divine Machines" would return the planets, moons, and the sun to their original positions mere milliseconds later. On certain weekdays, they also give some of Saturn’s moons a vigorous dusting. In the time frame that it would take one of us humans to complain that aliens were urging the universe to engage in the long goodbye, Zwevoid technology could have already obliterated, and resurrected, said universe a dozen times over. And the most amazing thing is, we humans would never notice it! Zwevoids have been blowing up and reforming the universe for centuries, but for us, the experience manifests itself as the most fleeting of momentary nausea or dizziness. Have you ever felt your eyes get tired while reading the paper on the subway? That ain’t eye fatigue, buddy. It’s the "Divine Machines" reassembling reality!

Of course, certain questions remain: How does the one who activates the "Armageddon Signal" avoid being caught up in the subsequent maelstrom, and destroyed himself? And how does any of this lead to time travel?

Answer to the first question: In order to avoid being torn asunder with the rest of the universe, it is essential to be inside the proper time-travelling carriage. Since most of the car companies on planet Earth aren’t designing vehicles for effective time travel, Rupert instructed me to simply get a cast-iron bathtub, and affix the helmet of a hair salon chair to it. The helmet, according to my alien adviser, would protect my skull from the elaborate special effects that accompany time travel, and could possibly take my head off if I wasn’t careful.

Cast-iron bathtubs are great, said Rupert, because they’re practically indestructible. Just climb inside one, squeeze the "Armageddon" button, and the bathtub becomes like a yo-yo on a ‘forward pass.’ The wrist, incidentally, would be like the sun, moving from down on the hip to out-in-front, shoulder-height.

The gravitational pull of the sun drags the timepod, as extremely formidible gravitational pull is wont to do. As the timepod accelerates, it eventually picks up enough velocity to achieve time travel. There’s your answer to question two. Of course, how the timepod manages to appear exactly five years in the past is something Rupert hasn’t been able to explain to me without blowing my brain up. Do the ‘Divine Machines’ handle these kinds of complex calculations? Is it the remote that somehow predicates the outcome?

Perhaps I should have gotten all my questions answered before I impulsive hopped into the cast-iron bathtub belly of the "Mr. Peabody," and jetted for the recent past. But I didn’t think it was my place to dissect the Zwevoids’ technology, since it’s clearly worked well for them these many, many years. And anyway, I’m more concerned with being a responsible caretaker for this radical remote. Remember: With a push of a button, the universe is effectively destroyed. This doesn’t weigh lightly on my conscience, and I promised Rupert I would only push the button three, four times a day, tops.