Jan. ?, 2007

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Flinging myself forward in time, the time between taking off in Minneapolis and arriving in India is a blur. Crossing time zones makes telling time difficult. It’s not enough to look at your watch. You must ask yourself if you want to know what time it is in a place you’ve left, if you want to know what time it is at the place to which you’re traveling or what time it is in your undetermined location over the Atlantic Ocean. Instead of hours, you reckon time like this: hungry, tired, awake. That’s all your body cares about as it screams, “Who’s big idea was it to spend 20-plus hours in an upright fetal position while careening eastward at 500 mph amidst hundreds of strangers you’ll never see again in your life?” It’s times like that I wish for an out-of-body experience.

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