5/1/08
When your life has almost no meaning, you shape your existence around the tiniest cues, imbuing them with meaning that nobody else could fathom. Like the obsessive-compulsive - who counts stairs, holds her breath at stoplights or makes sure he has an even number of paces en route to the bathroom - a young, depressive misanthrope without a regular job will let almost anything become touchstones to his structure.
In the late-90s, when (as XTC sang) all my schemes came to a humiliating end, I drifted into that world, able to subsist on the dying entrails of a freelance life and keeping a vampiric schedule. But I was always too much of a control freak to go completely to pot (although I tried that too), and thus gave myself arbitrary vespers. Both were in the form of lost digital watches.
Somewhere in my mom's apartment in New York, there lurked a digital watch in an unpacked box, stuffed in some drawer, god knows where. At precisely 2:43am every night, the alarm would go off, and since I was up late writing, I'd hear it every time. Thus 2:43am became my witching hour thereafter; I was not allowed to start any project after that time, and if I was currently engaged in writing my tortured novel or playing Tetris, 2:43am meant it was time to wind down.
Transitively, there was also a digital watch buried deep in my own stuff where we lived in Hollywood. The alarm was set permanently to 12:04pm. I actually tried to find this particular watch with zero success, but after a while, I stopped looking: my days had an end, and now they had a beginning. True, when Daylight Savings Time came and went, there would be odd shifts, but the theory held.
I stuck to the 2:43am and 12:04pm rule for years, long after one watch's battery, then the other, died deep in their respective storage bins, their mystery leaving as it had come. I mean, who sets their alarm for such bizarre times? Anyway, by Y2K, I'd gotten a real job and had to abandon that schedule... but still, once in a while, I'd see a clock read 2:43 and think of an old friend.
Now Tessa has a digital watch that goes off in our bathroom every day at 3:17pm. What the hell am I gonna do with that?
Posted by Ian Williams at May 1, 2008 11:54 PMMaybe start an early happy hour?
Now I'm going to have Raffi's song version of the title in my head all day long. Ding dang dong...
My alarm goes off at 1:11PM everyday, by design. It allows me 49 minutes to check e-mail, make whatever phone calls I need to make and let out the dog before my 2:00PM call time for the shower. I figured, eleven minutes after the hour isn't quite fifteen minutes but it's not half-past either. Plus now that spring's here, I'm up in time for The National Anthem for 1:20 Wrigley starts.
Plus, I like the symmetry of 111.
You could have a cookie break with Lucy. That sounds like a fine time to have afternoon snack.
personally, I'd reset it to 4:20.
Use it as a time to reflect on the benefits of wealth and elitism?
Revelation 3:17 - Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
There's a tangent to go off on there, but I'll let someone else run with it.
Um...get out more in the afternoons?
Nap time.
2:43 AM is when you stop playing tetris and start watching other people play tetris. and thus begins the slow spiral into loserdom.
:)
jersey - I think I like Luke 3:17 better...
"His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
What about Peter 3:17
"Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position."
I know you don't particularly like Bush, so this may be the most relevant. I don't know if the cite is completely accurate, but I got it from this link someone sent to me, "God's Yellow Pages":
It's Tessa's watch, right?
Proverbs 3:17
"Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace."
All my watches are analogs, of the $19.99 Timex variety. They don't beep or tell me what to do; they just keep time. :-)
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.
Scripture? Excuse me, I believe I'm on the wrong blog.
That's actually a fascinating essay...I love the idea of a hidden watch beeping at you every night, and you can't find it. It would be great to publish this piece (time piece, ha ha) in a magazine...but then again, you have a larger audience here than a lot of literary mags do.
To Mr. Green -- is that a Tarantino reference, or a marijuana reference?
i think it means every day is st. patrick's day. time for a pint.
I agree with CM. Great post today.
We currently have a digital watch that beeps to life in the evening, around 6:15pm or so. Can't tell you the exact time because every clock in our house has a different time.
The beep has driven me crazy, but after reading your post, I have decided to embrace the beep. Have a good weekend.
P.S.: My dad has spoken for the first time since his AAA surgery. His first words were "what is today's date?" Poor dad is just realizing that he has spent nearly a month in ICU, under heavy sedation. He is slowly getting better. Just wanted to share.
That's really awesome, LFMD. May he get even better!
LFMD - Awesome news about your Dad! May all are digital watches beep in celebration!
saying hello to an old friend is always weird......compulsion is " honesty" trying to say that.....always. xxx
Hurray for your Dad, LFMD--[non sequitur: in my head you are "le femme, manly dorm" and I always smile when I read your posts!!)
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Best to your dad, LFMD!!!
Jersey, your comment on Ian's blog reminds me of Luke 18:10-14. Just in case you think Ian is the Pharisee in my little analogy, I think he does a pretty thorough job at recognizing moments of wretchedness and misery and beating himself up on occasion.
(*All these unknown people who live within a half-hour's drive of the various places I rest my head are starting to creep me out.)
Some other random 3:17 verses are interesting; maybe you can bring a sign to basketball games--"Ruth 3:17"
And she said, These six measures of barley gave he me; for he said to me, Go not empty unto thy mother in law.
You guys are so kind! Thanks for the good thoughts for my dad. You would all like him -- he is the best.
Oh, and by the way, ALL of the digital watches are chiming throughout the day at my parents' house because Dad is the only one who knows how to reset them.
LFMD, that is terrific and awesome. Such great news, I'm so glad he's getting better!