(This is an example. It is only an example. Any similarity to any actual writing is purely coincidental.)

My dilemma isn't quite solved yet. Hmm. How do I put this...

OK. I guess I'll just have to insert some of what I'm critiquing.

How do you describe the difference between this:
I stop shaving to listen to that beautiful ad.

and this:
I love riding around in those little golf carts, coming face to face with the common man.???

One has a sense of immediacy as if the narrator is telling what is happening at this moment. The second has a sense of conveying his feelings. The first is the first line of narrative voice in the piece and makes me wonder if the entire piece is going to be written this way, as in the example in my original post. The second more accurately reflects the true voice of the piece--First person present tense, but an easier form of it. Warmer, less cold?

[Edit] Okay, I deleted my original post (in which I basically said I would never want to read even a short short written that way) because I was proven wrong. *g*

I did crit the piece you are working on now, and aside from the change in tense that you posted, it didn't bother me too much. BECAUSE!!

Because, for me, it worked in that piece; Because, for me, it was a part of the characterization.

To me, it added to, and was reflective of, the highly egotistical, narcissistic and hedonistic nature of the main character.

This was a very rare instance that this POV and tense DID work for me.

But that doesn't answer your question of how to phrase your crit, does it?

Susan

i.e

I would use the first sentence if I was having an out-of-body experience, I can also imagine using it for a hypnotic flashblack.

The second sounds like internal musing and more emotionally personal.

my 2¢!

I'm probably too late since you were in a hurry, but too bad, I'm saying this anyway.

In your second example, both examples were clearly in first person present tense. It wasn't the tense that was different, but the topic. The first example ("I stop shaving to listen to that beautiful ad.") describes action in present tense, which is almost always a mistake. (Exceptions exist.) The second ("I love riding around in those little golf carts, coming face to face with the common man.") refers to a condition which lasts, thus it can sometimes be used successfully even in the middle of a passage that is otherwise in past tense. It means that "I love it now, even as I write these words about something that happened long ago." It also implies that you loved it at the time of the story, unless you say otherwise explicitly.