Most of the time… I find myself adrift in thought.  I will physically be present in a certain place or time… buy my mind is not running in the same dimension.  At all.

This happens to me several times each day.  I will snap back to it… and see the person in front of me… moving their mouth up and down… and up and down.  But I have absolutely no idea what he or she just said.  Going. Going.  Gone.

Take this…. for example.  You know I love a good movie.  Well… I was watching  The Desolation of Smaug on our video cue.  The next thing I knew… those poor little dwarfs were in a heck of bind…  I mean a SERIOUS pinch.… and I had no idea how they got into that predicament.    Nope.  You see….  I had been to Hammondsport, NY… for a little while.  And now I was back… right in front of the TV.

I am sort of like “The Transporter”… with a limp.

Apparently.  I am not the only one with this affliction.

So. Back to the movies….

One of my favorites when I was growing up was “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” which first came out in 1947.  It starred Danny Kaye (another one of my comedic heroes).  (The remake in 2013 with Ben Stiller is pretty decent too.)

The  movie is based on a short story… written by James Thurber in 1939.  It is probably the most famous of Thurber’s stories.  As with many of his stories…. it first appeared in The New Yorker (Magazine) on March 18, 1939.

I recently learned this:  The name Walter Mitty and the derivative word “Mittyesque”…..  … which denotes an ineffectual person who spends more time in heroic daydreams than paying attention to the real world.  In some cases….it refers to a person who intentionally attempts to mislead or convince others that he is something that he is not.

But old Walt would drift in and out… in his heroic escapades of the mind.  Helplessly.

Until of course, one day… he finds his heroic Mojo.

My drifting is far less glamorous.  I can assure you.  It mostly consists of me… making “projections” about upcoming events….  or lamenting a mistake I’ve made… in a day gone by.  And…. wishing … that on one of those occasions…. that life would give us Mulligans.  Do overs.

The Secret Life of Polly Whoosydoodle.   That’s me.  So.  The next time we talk… and I have a crappy grin on my face…. don’t take it personally.  I’m probably just visiting  Wichita Falls… or De Moines… or something.

I’d rather be where I am standing… but the truth of the matter is…. it’s all in my head.

.

“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.”  — Douglas H. Everett
.
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”  —  C.S. Lewis
.