My watch was about five minutes ahead of everybody else’s at first (I mean here). Then I made it fifteen minutes, then something in the proximity of thirty. Then I was not sure about the actual difference between my time and the time on the wrists of people who wanted to meet with me. I started missing meetings by hours, some did not really appear on my radar. Some things just never happened… at least according to my time perception…
Many of my best friends are not in my time zone anyway. Was I calling at 12, 12:30?… Was it AM or PM?… It appeared I would always wake them up.
But even in New York, in the street, it felt very nice to be somehow around 12:30 while everybody else was just going through their high noon high. And how nice did it feel to arrive at a store that was supposed to be closed for 20 minutes already and the security guard would just wave me in as if I were some time traveling VIP. How nice. Same thing with movie tickets. I would barely make it (according to my watch), and there were still minutes in the real time to spare. The 30 minute thing on the watch was a bit of a blessing for somebody who might sometimes arrive a little late. (I am sorry, I tend to do that at times.)
It was on Friday when I had to adjust my clock to be in real time. I had to be at certain places at a very particular and very specific time, there were too many people waiting for me. I could not leave one location too late, not arrive at another one too early.
Setting my watch to the real time felt just like a simple turn of a little hand, but… I think my conclusion now, on Sunday is: I do not like this “real time” thing…
The New York Saturday in real time was just horrible. There were lines and masses of (I guess gentiles) everywhere I went. The bank was a mess, the subway was just packed. Two guys next to me even had a discussion about “Flatland” and how time, yes time, was the third dimension for its protagonists, the flatlanders…
“So she just took one of the guys out of that prison, by taking him through time and then setting him down at a completely different place. How cool is that. Imagine somebody traveled through time to take you out of here and put you down at a completely different location.” (For the rest of the ride we all experienced two Columbia Students performing “deep thought simulation.” I really wished some sphere had taken me out of that train car, right there, right then.)
Strand books was even worse than the subway “either somebody is going to move forward or back, over here!” (Yes, imagine this sentence screamed with a heavy New York accent.) Some of the shoppers were barely visible behind their piles of yellowish paperbacks and other special semi rare classics. The only quiet island in the entire store seemed to be the table with the title “erotic books.” Who would want to be caught looking at some bare skin now in the age of war.
The Photography Books section was packed as tightly as a roll of film.
A man who looked as if he has just escaped from an early episode of “Colombo” was standing next to a man dressed up in a Strand-can-I-help-you blue apron looking at the last copy of “New York 1960” as if it were a victim of a homicide. The man:”Do you have a copy of this book?, I mean, do you have a copy of this, beyond the copy here? I mean, do you have a non display copy?”
As I was leaving the store, picking up my bag (it was #25) somebody asked for the rare book department. “It is out the door and then right and up the stairs on the second floor,” said one of the bag check guys… and then to his friend: “I saw Jane Fonda’s workout in rare books yesterday. Apparently it’s rare.”

St.Marks books did not seem to have anything new on their greatest and finest new arrival table. There was a new believer on the shelf, but I did not feel like standing for it in line.
Sunrise Market was the next logical stop for me, their timeless offerings could maybe save me from the curse of being trapped in real time.
Yet, no, my favorite Ponzu product has been probably discontinued, they were out of my favorite kind of natto and I did not even go so far as to try and explore anything new (no time). Again, so many people, all in one place, I was a bit afraid someone might panic. (Perhaps even I might be the one?)
In front of the elevator (sunrise is on the second floor), a guy with a Russian accent received a call from what must have been his broker. “A one bedroom with an alcove for twenty eight hundred? Oh, this is far too much! No way… let me think about it.” He held the phone away from his ear and stared blankly in the air for about five new york seconds. “Okay, can we see it? Okay, maybe in 10 minutes?”
His female companion, who might have been from Japan, judging by the context of the entire conversation, asked very shy and pretty brilliant questions. “Don’t you think $2800 is too much?” Our Russian boyfriend must have continued his phone conversation in some other dimension because his answer was: “Oh, it is not so much, besides, it is probably negotiable.” (“You are holding a phone my friend, not a gun,” was my silly thought…)
Her second question was even better: “What is an alcove?”
“Oh, from what I know, it is some extra space, almost like a room, you know, private.” He clearly had it all very wrong. “It is something, like, 1200 square feet.”
(This is when I knew that they would be soon looking at some deep east village basement.)

I took the bus uptown, I could not handle the masses of strangely bizarre real time people. I spread myself out all the way in the back of the articulated bus, right under that huge star-spangled window sticker. The trip went up third avenue, for maybe an hour or so of wild Manhattan traffic adventures. Whatever I had done on that back seat, I would like to reenact it at some later time. I was like that Erotic Book Section at strand. All by myself, on the back seat, eating some hot japanese green peas out of a bag. (Oh, and some buckwheat tea as well… can you imagine?) The bus was packed, but not for me. Some of the riders glanced into my direction from time to time. I did not smell, I did not scream… maybe the entire back side of the bus was some sort of time portal, invisible to all the other New Yorklanders?
We eventually arrived at east 96th… The sun was slowly setting…
I could not handle waiting for the bus on 96th street and cut down on my transit time, by hailing a regular yellow cab. It was not until we were already in motion when I realized that I had left a group of people waiting for the bus. I could have taken at least two of them with me, maybe the oldest, or the nicest, just to get them quickly across the park… but I failed to think about this at that time.
The cab was taking me into the time ahead of their time. I was back on my way to setting my watch at least three minutes ahead…
Yes, I was paying for it, just the idea of it was $2.50… but it was somehow okay, my excruciating excursion into the world of real time had been quite rough.
My first stop on the west side was the previously packed bank (from one of the previous entries), now completely deserted, I had arrived.
Then there was a little package for me downstairs. (Issue 13 of Parkett Magazine, one I was missing, since 1987) I think I was back on target, somehow a survivor… I made it, made it through the day.
I know this might sound incredibly silly, and very narrow minded… but somehow the photograph below reminded me that maybe some of us are just supposed to have their watches set about five minutes ahead… while others… probably should not try such “experiments…”, ever in their predetermined lives…
Oh, and please let me know if I can take you, carry you through time… and then set you down at a completely different place… I think I found a hint of a possible way… though it is still all very experimental.