Perception of Time

One of my favorite sci-fi writers, Rudy Rucker.

Everyone knows that Time is the 4th dimension, right? I said that at Nurse Bettie one night and only one person laughed (Gemini Rising). Who cares! I love science fiction and I love all stuff related to time travel. Rudy Rucker's "Master of Space and Time" was highly influential on me growing up, well, I have a nerdy older brother who collects guns (in Texas), draws comic strips, has a photographic memory, and an avid reader of everything (besides the porn that I used to sneak a peek at when he wasn't home), and he introduced me to esoteric writers.

Anyway this is a long-winded introduction to what I really want to say - can you blame me? I'm at work and killing some time before the next deadline. So my mom loved her most recent visit to NYC so much that she is coming back in November - this time with my dad! He hates NYC especially Chinatown (see previous post on the spitting problem) and does not like to leave their comfy house in Texas. I really don't want to spend the whole 5 days with them in NYC especially with a dad who isn't smitten with the whole "hustle bustle glamorous NYC" thing. My big plan is to take them out of town for 2 nights along the Delaware River, rent a fancy cabin by the river, go see the foliage, and do all that New England, white people stuff that my mom IS very smitten with. "A Martha Stewart weekend getaway," is how I pitched the idea to my mom.

She is SUPER excited and has been calling me every day (lucky me) and wants to make plans for dinner, activities, etc for something that isn't going to happen for another TWO freakin months!!! OMG. It's making me crazy! I keep telling her that I can not possibly even begin to plan for something that far away as I have so many immediate things I need to focus on on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. But my cries fall on deaf (but excited) ears. To me, November is so far away. To her, it's happening soon and things MUST BE PLANNED and luggage must be packed TONIGHT!

Then I thought if time is like an elastic string, when you are younger that string is stretched out to its maximum length so that everything is "ages away" like the idea of getting married, having kids, buying a house, or parent's visit in two months (maybe this is an "immaturity elastic string" that I have). But then when you are older, that string contracts so that your perception of future events seem to be right around the corner.

Then there is also in my mind the idea of "burlesque time" which is even faster and more convoluted than "normal linear time" because - well because it just IS! There's "Love in the Dumps Time" written by my friend Matt Brand which posits that the time you spent in a relationship varies according to where you live. Make sense? No. For example, 3 year in Hicksville, TX = 3 months in NYC. Why? Because Hicksville has no excitement, no anything so it's like spending 3 months dating someone here. The article even provides a handy chart and an equation like this:

(City excitement level) + (city neurosis level)
÷
time in relationship =  “real” time in relationship

I am totally confused now. Like worm holes.  The grandfather paradox.  Ability to change past events. All I know is... is it time to leave work yet????