Response 4: Time and History

Personal Timeline Project


Take 2 photographs that each depict a object or scene that shows the traces of time.

This is a table that's being used as a message/brainstorm board for one of the project in CMS. Over time, some of the post-its have lost their sticky power and have fallen to the floor. How long does it take for a post-it to lose its stick? How long have the faulty ones been on the floor? What does it mean that no one has yet picked them up? Though it's not legible in the picture, the four vertically lined up yellow post-its read "Please Do Not Touch." One reason why I chose this image is because it reminded me of some of the living conversation spaces we've talked and read about already this semester.

I got a pedicure last week. I swear, this looked really hot when I first got it. In any case, I've tired to zoom in on the paint job to avoid offending anyone who might be squeamish about feet. They're not always the most alluring body part. I love pedicures, but they are so transient and so expensive. During the winter, they are a particularly egregious luxury. But, I had the opportunity to see my sister and we decided to do it together. Getting your nails done is as much about passing time-- to be out (leisure time spend away from home, as Robison and Godbey put it), socializing without eating or drinking anything-- as it is about having a durable result. The moment I put on a closed toe shoe, the blue design was messed up. The next day, I touched it up (poorly, as visible in close-up but not from a standard view). In following days, the paint chipped even more. Soon, I will have to remove the paint and, probably, replace it with a non-professional coat.

Personal Timeline

On Saturday night, I had one of my typical bouts of insomnia. I usually waste time all day trying to get started on an important, necessary task (cleaning, reading, writing) and then only start to feel alert when it is time to go to sleep. I could just become nocturnal, but then I would miss my morning meetings and everything else that occurs during daylight hours in Eastern Standard Time.

When I have insomnia, I become overfocused on the narrative of insomnia. I become consumed with trying to fall asleep as if in a (self-defeating) race against the coming daylight. I check the time and the alarm over and over, try perhaps too hard to do things that will make me fall asleep, even wake myself up because I remember that I'm supposed to be having trouble falling asleep. This time, even my dreams were about "beating the clock."

I never really know whether I've lost as much sleep as I think I have. I can remember slipping into dreams, but I have no real way of knowing how long I was asleep for. It possible that I actually don't have insomnia, just that I recall my waking times more vividly than my sleeping times. I have used colors (yellow for awake, green for maybe asleep, purple for asleep) to indicate the fallibility of perception. The timeline only pretends to be somewhat linear but is instead a jumbled progression of thought and thoughts disguised as actions.

Here is the representation.