The next morning I woke up with my mind on fire.  The old lady never showed back up, but now i understand what she meant when she promised me magic.  I'm seeing the world in a whole different way.  I can feel, hear, taste time itself, and I'm more certain than ever that i have a home to get back to because my time is different than everything else's. It's the wrong... color?  flavor? no idea how to quantify it yet but I'll fucking well find out. 
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It's been a few days and I'm playing with this new energy.  I'm trying not to rave like the madman I've been labeled anymore, but after digging around online I'm finding that at least here there's a lot proven beyond the boundaries of mundane science.  I'm reading, I'm learning, and I'm experimenting.  Let's see where this goes.
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Okay, breakthrough of some kind. I've found some meditative techniques, mental exercises that let me push on this new force.  It's clumsy, but if I strain I can, well not so much move them through time as move time through them. It's weird, but the only way I'll grasp it is to approach it logically, experimentally. for now, at least if something like that lava monster comes at me maybe I have a defense...

Now this, I know how to do.  This magic stuff might seem weird, but deep reading and research is in my wheelhouse. Looking for ways to make manipulating time easier, I'm getting into the value of symbology as a shorthand for the mind.  Seems it reduces the strain of holding magic in your head.  but the symbol needs meaning, either to you personally or to the magic you are trying to perform.  In my case, timepieces should suffice.

I need another job though, something to give me that inspiration back.  I can work on refining this, sure but I'm never going to get anywhere real without another hit of whatever it is these jobs give me.  So next time, I have to push the envelope.  Get over this cowardice and press forward.  To get home i might have to break some eggs or even some skulls and make sure I get mine.  

Things have been quiet for a while, and I've taken some time to reflect on the nature of these jobs.  

I keep hopping in and out of different versions of reality. That alone is useful to me.  For all I know, one of these jobs may take me home on its own.  Maybe that's what these behind the scenes types are prepping me for. 

I can't just trust that, though.  If they're trying to help me, great but this is on me to figure out.  I'm getting better at manipulating the time flow around objects.  Once you decide the mystical mumbo-jumbo on it, a lot of it has to do with something kind of like Gravity, only instead of physical mass, it's perceptional? Objects have a relatively weak "thread" of cohesive time around them.  Easier to manipulate.  Animals, things that can perceive events but maybe not understand them are a bit stronger.  People are stronger than that, because they understand causality and sequentially.  It gives their "thread" more weight. 

If I understand correctly, I can pull an object free of its 'thread' and slide it down a stronger one.  Right now I can use my own. Visually it's weird, like I'm hand it to myself.  The catch is I don't know when I will reach for it.  But if I can learn to do that with stronger threads, maybe I can even do it to my own someday. Pull it free of this timeline and pass it across to another? 

I know this sounds like gibberish, but remember, magic is just science we're not yet in on. If you're reading this maybe it's common knowledge right now.  Or maybe I get myself killed spectacularly, in which case you can take this as What Not to Do. 

Wip