A change is taking place in my brain. And I don't know what it is. I tend to forget things lately. And sometimes I get confused about time. The order of events. Like, whether this thing happened before that thing. Or whether it even happened at all.

Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm remembering an actual event or a dream. And every now and then it seems like I'm remembering something that happened not to me but to somebody else. Maybe it just goes with getting older. I know the physical structure of the brain changes with age.

Oh, and here's another thing: sometimes an event seems to make perfect sense at the time it's happening, then later I look back and realize, it didn't make any sense at all. Like the other day, I was in the Quick 'n Chicken and I thought I recognized this woman. I'm like, oh yeah, I've seen her before. But I couldn't think where. Then I remembered: I had dreamed about her. Then this morning it occurred to me: that doesn't make any sense. How could I dream about her if I had never seen her before? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Do people start doing things like that as they get older? Now, I'm not saying I'm what you'd call old. At least by today's standards. Although if I had reached this age, say 1000 years ago, I'd be ancient. Hell, I'd be dead. And if not, people would come from miles around and say, Look at this man who has lived for 50 years! But by today's standards, I'm just getting started. I haven't even decided what I want to DO yet. So maybe I'm not "old," but I am on the other side of the maximum age my brain is genetically programmed for. Evolutionarily speaking.

All I know is, I've never before been as old as I am right now. Each new moment is an age I've never experienced before. It's like the universe is re-inventing itself moment by moment. I don't know what it's like to exist in the moment I exist in now. I can only look back and remember what it was like to have existed in the moment I just existed in, the moment that just passed. The instant I experience a new moment, it's gone. Another memory. I guess it's like this for everybody. I mean, take this sentence I'm saying now, you haven't fully experienced yet, because it hasn't happened yet, it's still unfolding, it's still in progress, and you have no idea what it's going to say.

OK, now it's unfolded. Now you know what it was I just said. But it's over. It's gone. It's in the past. You can only think back on it and remember what I said. But while I was in the process of saying it, you had no idea what I was talking about because I hadn't said it yet. Your brain had to gather the words together, then look back at them. The same is true with this sentence. NOW you know what it said. Each new event becomes and instantaneous memory. It's like we're all living slightly in the future, looking back at what just happened. Every time you think a thought, you turn around & remember having thought -- the thought you just thought.

Well, that's how I feel, all the time. Like I'm living -- I dunno -- like, out of synch with reality. Like I exist just slightly ahead of a wave that's about to catch up with me, but never does. It's like I'm not really experiencing life, but remembering having experienced life. I think it's just age. I think maybe all older people feel this way, but they just don't talk about it, because it would sound, you know -- well, like I guess this sounds.

Or maybe it's mental illness. Nothing serious. Just a touch of it. Like having the sniffles.

Or it could be both. Maybe they're one and the same. Maybe once the brain goes on living past the age it was genetically programmed for, it gets kinda lost. It's no longer operating with pre-programmed software. Maybe there's no version 5.0.

Something happened yesterday that I can't explain. Something unsettling. I was walking in the woods out behind my house. It was a beautiful day, crystal clear. I'd been walking about forty-five minutes, I was way back in the woods, and I came upon a path. Now I've always been a pushover for a little footpath. It's like a magnet. So I start walking down it. And after awhile it started getting really narrow. And finally it led me to a clearing. A little grassy meadow in the middle of the woods. And there in the clearing, just above the ground, were three silver balls. They looked to be, oh, about eighteen inches in diameter. And they appeared to be hovering in mid-air, about 3 feet off the ground, with no visible means of support.

So, I stood there at the end of the path for awhile and just looked. I thought maybe they were gonna DO something. But nothing ever happened. They were motionless and silent. Three silver balls, just hovering there, reflecting the trees and the grass and the sky.

I stood there for maybe about 3 minutes. Then I turned around and started walking back toward the house, and mulled over what I had just seen.

I was reluctant to approach the spheres. Yet, I was not upset, or afraid. I was simply observant. That's what was so unsettling. Why was I not astounded? Why was I not freaked out? I was merely... bemused.

But the strangest aspect of this experience -- maybe stranger than the spheres themselves -- had yet to occur. I walked back to the house to tell Naomi about what I had seen, and maybe even take her to see the balls for herself. So I walk into the house, and Naomi is in the kitchen, and I walk over and sit down in my recliner and start reading the paper. I never mentioned the three silver balls.

She even asked me about my day. She said, "How was your day?"

And I said it was fine. I told her I bought some light bulbs. I told her a funny story I heard on the radio. I told her everybody was mad at Bush (it was in the paper). I even told her I saw that woman again, the woman I kept thinking I had dreamed about before I ever saw her. But I didn't tell her about the three silver balls. I never uttered one word about the oddest phenomenon I had ever laid my eyes upon. And I don't know why.

At dinner I decided to tell her. I decided to say, "I went for a walk in the woods today and I found this path and it led me to a clearing and I saw three silver balls hovering in mid-air." But instead I said, "Pass the beans, please."

Now, I didn't want any beans. I wanted to tell Naomi about the 3 silver balls. But when I opened my mouth, the words that came out were, "Pass the beans, please." And the strangest thing of all was, I sounded vaguely like Jackie Vernon, the old comedian. Now I hadn't seen or thought about Jackie Vernon in years. But suddenly I was talking like him.

And it wasn't just me. Naomi noticed it, too. She said, "Why did you say that like Jack E. Leonard?"

"I don't know," I replied. "Only it was Jackie Vernon, not Jack E. Leonard. Two different comedians."

"Whatever. You just all of a sudden started sounding Jewish and fat."

"I'm not Jewish."

Then I put some beans on my plate.

"It must have had something to do with that woman," I said. "I keep seeing her. She has silver hair. She looks at me sometimes, like she knows me. I'm almost certain I had a dream about her back when I had that wisdom tooth out. When they put me on that stuff.

Naomi gave me a strange look. A look as if she suspected something.

"Why would this woman make you start talking like Jackie Vernon?" she said as I heaped beans on my plate.

Beans I didn't even want.