I Have Wasted Time And Now Doth Time Waste Me

[poliphilo]

Most of the spam emails I get are trying to sell me viagra and cialis (the weekend viagra) but- by way of a refreshing change- I got one this morning from "Josh" pushing a "replica" Rolex. "Stun your friends," he said.

Sorry Josh, but I'm death to all watches. Last one I wore, I broke the strap within 24 hours. I don't do it on purpose, but I can't help fiddling with the damn things. And Ailz is worse. She can't wear one at all. Her subtle aura sends their delicate little innards doolally.

But, then, I've never really understood why a watch would be considered a desirable item of personal jewellery. A diamond is forever, but a watch's chief business is to remind you that you're not. It's a symbol of servitude. A slave bracelet. Hurry, hurry, hurry, rush, rush, rush; Get a move on and get things done before you arrive at the edge of Time and drop off.

Clocks are another matter; they're all right, they know their place; they don't cling to you like a watch does. Talking about dropping off, we've got a pendulum clock in the back room that wants to commit suicide. It's very lightweight and its rocking motion causes it to skitter forward towards the edge of its shelf. Every morning I have to push it back into place. That's my kind of timepiece- one I can pity and patronize. There, there, you poor little neurotic thing; life's not so bad really.

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I love watches. They're a great way to parade my individuality, and I go in for unusual ones. My current timepiece is a James Bond Swatch, and friends always ask me 'the Timothy Dalton time'.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Whatever happened to Timothy Dalton?

Actually, I saw a recent photo of him in some magazine, and he'd run horribly to flab. But is he still working?

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

The IMDB says he's working, but none of it looks very impressive stuff. Pity; he's my favourite Bond and very easy on the eye.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that list of recent credits makes for melancholy reading. He seems to have missed superstardom by a hair's breadth.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I have had my current watch since 8th Octobre 1997, and it has been in service for a total of 3 years. The rest of it's time it has been sitting around without a battery, so I haven't been wearing it a lot at all. Which is slightly ridiculous, considering that it is a £400 watch. But, hey; my Cartier pen is sitting around waiting for me to afford a refill, so the watch has company while waiting for me to become wealthy again...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think batteries are a nuisance. What's wrong with good old wind-up clockwork, I'd like to know?

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Time is an invention of humankind. I do have clocks in my house, and from room to room there might be five minutes' difference. It's all relative, isn't it? But I admit,I do have a watch. It was VERY cheap. I tend to catch them on things...the bands. I think they CAN be fun, but when I get home at night the first thing I take off is my watch, and I NEVER wear one on weekends unless I have a fancy function to go to.

Rings are my thing...and after I've worn them for awhile I take them off to put lotion on my hands and...they're bent. I read an article about a football player who broke his Superbowl ring, and he said he was the kind of person who knew where he was by the 'feel' of things. I recognized myself, there. And that's why I assume MY rings are like that.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't wear rings myself (well, I've got two on my little finger, that's all) but I like buying them for other people.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you, Tony. I was feeling surly, and now I'm laughing.

A suicidal clock!

And it makes me smile to think about "stunned friends" looking at a Rolex watch.

I got a layoff notice from my Company after twenty-five years with them, and three weeks later got a twenty-five year anniversary gold watch from them, along with a little card that said, "We greatly value you as an employee and hope for many more years of continued relationship."

The irony! I pinned it to my office bulletin board and showed it to all my sympathetic and bitter coworkers, who were all being laid off with me.

Then my position got saved at the very last second.

So my gold watch is a bitter thing, and it doesn't even keep good time.

Anyway, you nicely cranked up my Saturday, so thank you!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That note was the give-away. The whole transaction had been generated in a machine brain. No human being had been near it.

I think all such gifts of obligation have a slightly bitter taste.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I know.

My stupid watch, which has the company logo on it under the 6, is broken and can't be adjusted any longer--the stem comes out, but the hands won't move.

The company was good to me for years, and offered me about a year's pay to leave and a decent pension besides.

When I finished signing the papers in front of a clerk who was signing us new retirees out, I suddenly stuck out my hand.

"Goodbye, Oak Ridge National Laboratory!" I said to her, and it felt good.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've been looking round to see if I have any gifts from former employers- and I don't think I do.

The only thing I can remember receiving was a brass carriage clock- which was given me by the Lad's Brigade (like the Boy Scouts but with added militarism) when I left my first curacy- but it was a cheap clock and it came unglued and fell apart ages ago

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I wonder why timepieces are so often used as organization gifts.

My first watch from my company broke after three weeks.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If it's a leaving present, then the gift is symbolic.

They've owned your time and now they're giving it back to you.

[jenny_evergreen]

So many people seem to feel similarly about watches; as someone who's worn a watch continuously since she was 9 years old, I really start to feel a bit persecuted!

I like my watch. It doesn't stress me out, it reassures me; it tells me, yes, you are where you intend to be at this very moment. (Sometimes it tells me, "Oh, goodness, get going or you WON'T be where you want to be when you want to be there!", which I find quite helpful; I don't have to worry, I just check my watch.)

My watch helps me to feel independent; I don't need to ask someone the date or time because I already know! And it allows me to be helpful; when someone else needs the time or date, I can give it to them!

Just wanted to put in the pitch from the other side. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's years since I even tried to wear a watch.

My items of personal jewellery are
a. my wedding ring.
b. a small silver ring with a garnet, which I think of as my "Goddess" ring.
c. A much corroded bronze ring, believed to be Roman, which I wear on a thong round my neck.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I once saw some jewelry made with old Roman glass, which was a beautiful blue-green.

It was very expensive, but I loved looking at it.

I wonder if it was really from ancient Rome?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Why not?

The Romans made lovely glass.

There's some in the Manchester museum. Exquisite.

I would love to have seen that jewellery.

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

my watch battery went recently, the day before that in my alarm clock.

I've not worn a watch since, and have found it enormously liberating.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just!

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

A diamond is forever, but a watch's chief business is to remind you that you're not.

I love that! I don't know, I'm not really *into* watches, but if I go to work without mine, I get nervous. I don't know why, really. I think it's because at the moment, I have to depend on others for my transportation. I'm more of a necklace and rings person :-|

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If I'm out I rely on public clocks. And if get desperate and there aren't any clocks in sight (which doesn't happen too often) I can call up the time on my phone.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

ha! this post gave me quite a laugh. i even read it out loud to the boy, who also enjoyed it.

i'm with you on watches-- i gave them up permanently last year, after one died and the next one's strap broke. at first i was a little nervous, but i've since realized how unnecessary they are. i don't have a clock to tell time by, either, though if i did, i would want it to be the old wind-up pendulum clock my parents have (by way of my great-grandmother's school-house). i don't suppose they'll ever give it to me, because every time i'm left in charge of it, i forget to wind it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like my clocks to be so big they stay in one place.

I really covet one of those huge, old, long-case clocks you sometimes see on the Antique's Roadshow.

[silent-mouse.livejournal.com]

The suicidal clock is forever in my heart now. You described it so vividly, like an animated movie.

We have lived a full day yesterday without any clocks - due to a short power outage and us being (quite) observant Jews and Sunday being Passover and all - and it felt nice. I felt that you don't really need the clock for living your own life, that it is some kind of illusion that one needs to know what time it is all the time.I suppose it's only important when one sets a meeting or something similar.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. We give clocks too much power over us.

All the same, we had a power cut last night and it shut down our bedroom clock and I didn't know when to get up in the morning.

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

The two of us are helping to keep the universe in balance ... not only do I feel naked without my watch, but I have one that stays set to the atomic clock and is always accurate to within 0.4 seconds of the official time.

Hey, the only thing worse than a watch is a watch that doesn't have the correct time. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's one hell of a watch.

I guess it must stay tuned to orbiting satellites or something like that.

Wicked!:)