I've lived in San Diego for 7 years now. Seven. And yet, it still feels like I just got here. I recently was pondering why it is that my perception of the passing of time had become so skewed in recent years, and something finally occurred to me. My whole life, in my unconscious mind, the passing of years was always measured against the background of the passing seasons. But, here in Southern California, there are no seasons. So, to my unconscious mind, it is still the summer of 2000. It has to be, because winter has yet to come. Perhaps this also explains why my body has continually refused to acclimate itself to the weather of Southern California. Perhaps it is still hoarding it's heat in the anticipation of a bitterly cold winter that will never arrive. This past January, I trekked back to North Carolina in an effort to experience some real winter for 2 weeks. It was my hope that I could manually force the year counter in my unconscious to tick ahead one year by actually experience a seasonal change. Mischievous weather patterns and years of greenhouse gas emissions all plotted to spoil these efforts, however, and I was met with 2 weeks of temperatures in the high 60's while in NC. I barely got to use the jacket I had packed, and regretted not bringing more shorts. So it appears, for now, that I'm doomed to live in a past that continues to progress into the future, leaving me never quite knowing where the present lies.

If only I could get the hang of that Temporal Vortex...