Day 361: Powers That Be.

I don't usually steal ideas from other people's blogs, but when you read something and literally yell out "Me too!" you feel kind of compelled to thieve.

(It should be noted that this is the same blog that got me started on Johnny Cash, so I guess I've thieved there before, but why focus on details?)

Anyway, the entry touched on what would be the most desirable superpowers. The one that made me blurt out my camaraderie was about your eyes being able to take pictures.

I wish that at least once a day - hell, I'm so queer I even blink my eyes shut sometimes and pretend they're shutters. Then I try and see if the image is seared on the backs of my eyelids like an instant photograph. (No, I don't bob my head - i.e., shake it like a Polaroid - but I've thought about it.) Without question, eyes that take pictures is the power I most consistently dream of possessing.

Flying was mentioned as the other most-desired superpower, but I can't say as it makes my Top Three. Sure, flying would be amazing (and it would make my Top Five), but if I'm only listing three, then time travel would clock in at number two.

I daydream about time travel with frightening regularity. It's rarely in the context of wanting to go back and change something; it's more about seeing places, time periods and people that are no longer available to me. For instance, I've always wanted to walk the streets of London in the mid-1800s. I long to wake up at my grandmother's house in Virginia Beach so I can bask in the early morning sun that spills through the picture window facing the ocean. I'd like to see Nick Drake, Nirvana, and the Doors play live. I wish I could hang around Los Angeles circa 1950. I want to spend the afternoon with Emily. The list goes on and on. I almost never fantasize about traveling into the future.

My third superpower choice is less set in stone than the first two, and might be different if I wrote this post tomorrow. Right now, though, it would be to become invisible at will. I realize this superpower has a potentially creepy edge, but when I think about being invisible, it's not to spy inappropriately (well, not usually, anyway). No, I think about getting into sold out, pricey or otherwise off-limits events. I think about thwarting the Heisenberg Principle (the act of observation alters the reality of that which is being observed). I think about disappearing in moments of danger, and the freedom that would allow. I think about making it look like stuff is floating. And that's just the beginning.

But most of all, I wish my eyes could take pictures. I realize that's what memory is - the ultimate mental slide show - but to actually hold and look at life's fleeting moments, well, that would really be something.