Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Where Did That Three Minutes Go?

Sometimes I wonder if I have some sort of medical condition. I have a knack for losing track of time. Sometimes I'll snap into awareness in the shower to realize that I've been standing there for 20 minutes and haven't finished. Sometimes I'll honestly not be able to remember washing my hair or face even though it's obvious that somehow that part of the body was cleaned. Today, I was brewing tea and started steeping the leaves at 9:19 a.m. I finished my cereal, panicked, assuming that I had already oversteeped them (something that's been an issue lately) only to see the clock was only at 9:23. Only four minutes had passed while I ate my bowl of cereal. I was a little shocked, but relieved. I had a full minute before I needed to remove the strainer from my cup. I looked down to move my bowl out of the way and looked back up (I didn't even move out of my seat) and looked back at the clock to see that I had wasted 3 minutes in the process of moving a plastic bowl all of 10 inches across my desk. How in the hell did this happen? I honestly don't know. I've read that people with ADD consistently underestimate the passage of time, but this isn't a consistent problem for me, and I don't seem to exhibit any other symptoms of that alternate method of brain function. This is just a matter of entire chunks of time disappearing from my memory.

Maybe I should get someone to watch me carefully 24 hours a day and see if I'm phasing out and just staring off into space, or if I'm just not paying attention and doing things without consciously focusing on the task at hand. I would say it was drugs, but I've never been a user. I'm completely
lame, I mean clean. I'd be fine with these lost chunks of time if I'd ever been heavily into drug use. It'd make sense, and it'd be a badge of coolness that I'd put so much shit into my body that I now was unable to use my brain to latch onto short term memories on a regular basis.

Alas, all I can blame this on is daydreaming, and that's just dorky.

6 comments:

Julie said...

It may not be as bad as you think. It's possible you have a knack for looking at the clock two seconds before it turns over and two seconds after it's turned over again. Then, you'd have really only lost one minute. That can't explain the shower thing, but hey, I'm not perfect.

Chris said...

I agree with Meaghan and Julie --- that is unless you suddenly find yourself beside a guy with his throat torn out and don't know how you got there, much less why you have the taste of blood in your mouth.

If that happens, I'd suggest getting help.

P said...

I would start trying to remember what was happening immediately before you have a lost time episode. There are a number of epileptic-like conditions that can cause a person's brain to lose time. Wierd things can trigger it, like a light being flipped on or off and you seeing it out of the corner of your eye.

Jacob said...

Em, do you have a blog of your own?

Sid said...

I do that in the morning. Take freaking forever to get done and I'm not even sure why its taking me so long. I just waste time ...

Mickey said...

I think everyone else has good advice on this one.

Em's blog can be linked from me at Joe's Used Toy Emporium.