...March 22nd

If I’m ever questioned by a fat, sweaty detective in a cold concrete room while sitting on a folding metal chair with one bare lightbulb hanging overhead and asked where I was on March 22nd then guess what, I’m safe.  March 22nd didn’t exist for me.  Seriously, I flew west and suddenly I was missing a day.  Best.  Alibi.  Ever. I’ve had days disappear before but they’re typically associated with a pounding headache, obscene ATM receipts, and 6 hours of fuzzy, blurry, blackness.  This day, however, simply didn't happen.  I left Hawaii at 11AM on March 21st for an 8 hr flight and landed in Tokyo at 3 PM on March 23rd.  March 22nd did…not…exist.  I introduce (drum roll…) the International Date Line.

The international date line blows my mind.  I’m still trying to figure it out.  I consider myself a relatively intelligent individual but I can’t wrap my mind around this concept.  I’ve laid in bed at night wide awake suffering from 180 longitudinal degrees of jet lag and tried to figure it out.  I’ve stared at the globe in the Hemingway Corner of my house and tried to work through it.  I’ve spent more time than I would like to admit thinking about time zones and how they work.  I always make it to the Pacific before I give up and just accept that days disappear and reappear depending on which side of that imaginary line you’re on.

Seriously, have you ever crossed the International Date Line and not had your mind blown?  I don’t ask that in an elitist “I’m a world traveller, are you?” kind of way.  I ask that more as a warning of “seriously, if you haven’t crossed the international date line, beware, it will mess with your reality!”