See this watch? Like it? I do. I should. Lina got it for me as an engagement present. And guess what? I adored it the minute it jumped out of its box. Unlike any other watch I've seen, even in a catalogue or magazine. Perhaps ever.
Still, me and watches: We haven't been lovers all my life. As a kid, yes, I always read Esquire and GQ cover-to-cover, and payed close attention. There was a (recent) time that this wasn't something I consciously thought about, but I remember and think about it now--recall taking out the maximum amount of back issues from the local library, each week--as I slide more comfortably into the shoes of a consumer magazine writer, pitching these publications, often writing a piece or two about an actual object while I pen other items--an essay, and op-ed, a script.
Thing is, I didn't just read the articles in these publications but observed the ads: what they said about the American man, the culture, marketing. To me, as a silly kid, these pages sold images of a men's life that existed, even in my hometown, where Maybe Mobsters and their entitled children ruled. I, too, might one day be wealthy and have a big-ass Rolex. I might one day drink Crown Royal. I might one day wear Bally shoes.
I don't do or believe in any of these things now, of course--especially after growing up in my anti-consumerist house, fighting my way through a childhood of studying and reading and violin-playing. I ended up moving in a different direction even if I now write about objects or even desire one from time to time. At the end of the day, I don't like ostentatious watches--or heavy ones. Brown-colored beverages of an alcoholic nature don't appeal to me more than others. And I basically wear grey running sneakers everywhere. Though I appreciate design, things aren't as meaningful to me as I thought they'd be. And I lose lots of them. Often things that represent important moments in my life. But they're just carbon, I tell myself. I can always make more money, replace them. Pieces of matter are just pieces of matter. Everything important is invisible. Weightless.
I stayed away from watches for years--first, because I played the violin, later, because I didn't like anything constricting my left wrist, and most recently for more existential reasons. Still, it's always been apparent to me that I've felt naked without a watch--too casual or unadorned, childishly free. This is nice when I'm at the ocean, or in the hills, say, trying to work up a sweat. But while I'll never completely dress up like the Esquire man--doesn't he just seem fake?--I do, sometimes, have to attend "events"--work meetings, screenings, concerts, etc.--that require me to look somewhat stylish. And I think that I do have a certain, accepted style if I may so in HTML. I look like me, and rarely am I innappropriately dressed-- even if, since moving to LA, I have begun dressing down in jeans, T's, and other Los Feliz-wear far more than anyone ever imagined (mind you, I come from a family that puts on a "nice" shirt and pants ["nice" is questionable when we're talking about solid Nautica button-downs and pleated khakis bought at Marshalls] to eat supper at a Long Island diner where low quality food is served at $24 a plate, and the most stylin' man in the room looks like Paulie Walnuts). The point? I have been both drawn to and repulsed by watches for a long time. But the scale has tipped in the former direction over the last few months. It has something to do with getting older, I think. Wanting to get on a track, focus myself. Really narrow down what matters and stick with it: Get a few objects--things I can feel with my hands--and hold on to them.
So when family members offered to buy me a watch last winter, I got excited. Then, instantly, I couldn't decide on one. It seemed like nearly--just nearly--as big a commitment as something real--like, say, taking on a mate. My watch would be my watch--at least that's how I would want it--and I would never attempt to purchase more than one. (How wasteful.) Too, I wanted something that might make me look a little more respctable in my Levis. That way, I could dress down to a lunch meeting with an editor and still seem somewhat serious. (LA, if you don't live here, is full of people who dress supercasually but usually wear one serious piece of something to remind you they're not homeless--or, on the other end of the spectrum, that they're fabulously rich. The fun, I think, is never completely knowing the difference.)
Anyway, all this got me searching for a watch. And when I say searching, I mean hunting (like, with weapons and scopes and anxiety about shooting my one Neocon friend in the ass). I looked at the men's mags, I looked in J.C. Penny. I looked at men's wrists at restaurants, often receiving strange turn-glances I couldn't shake for an hour. Still, I couldn't find anything I liked or admired. I was as turned off by the expensive heavy lifters as I was by the Timexes. The middle of the road pieces were just boring. I wasn't getting a watch just to get a watch. Maybe all watches were inherently lame. Who needs the time anyway? Suckers with 9-to-5 jobs, that's who. I was better than them. Poorer, possibly, but better. Ok, not so much better, but a little more...hedonistic. Or childishish. I forget the direction of this path,and feel like I'm just digging myself a deeper hole, so I'll just stop here.
The point is, I found it. The Watch. The one that I had imagined before I had begun looking. The neatly designed smilin' guy at the top of this page. The Mondaine chrono. Based on Hans Hilfiker's 1940 design for the Swiss Railway, it wasn't a "Swiss Army" watch with clunky and "Manly" Eddie Baueresque touches. Nor was it something too fancy or overpriced. I appreciated its utilitarian design. I loved the way its red second-hand jumped forward before each minute. I loved the stainless steel case, its circular stainless-steel solidity, its lack of jewelry, and those other little circles clicking around, making sense of the universe. I'm now told the thing gets people into the London Design Museum for free. I just liked it before I knew any of this. I thought it was indubitably clear. And I liked how light it felt on the wrist, its simple black band. This was a watch I could wear all the time. And it said just a little about me: That I appreciate good design. There's art in clarity. That's important to me.
Which is why I was floored when Lina read my mind--after learning all about how nuts I am concerning what I put on my wrist--and actually gave me the watch I privately loved for our engagement. I hadn't expected a gift. I didn't know prospective grooms got anything. Maybe they don't. I do appreciate how lucky I am.
But I am also now saddened than anything in the wake of what happened on Friday, when at 300 Medical Plaza, the building that houses the practice of my haughty UCLA doctor, in Westwood, my watch was lost. Maybe forever.
It might be of some significance that I had been nervous to see this doctor. Not because of what he might say. But because he probably wouldn't have anything to say to me. These days, I get sent to lots of doctors who can easily read test results but don't like to interpret them. I find this frustrating, but I guess they aren't bound to say anything unless it's so obvious it smacks them in the face. Wouldn't want a lawsuit on your hands, or worse, a patient who might require some explanation. This is an age when doctors don't have to ponder. That doesn't apply to many of them, of course. But lest we forget, doctors, and there are a lot of them, are just people like you and me, and I'm finding that too many of them today, like a scourge of Americans, simply don't want to work very hard. Or take responsibility for making a mental leap. Or experiment a bit when the road ahead isn't strikingly clear. Going to medical school doesn't make anyone inherently different than, say, skipping it for a career in, oh, rare watch dealing. Someone's either special--communicative, and willing to go the extra mile--or he's not. Intelligence and accomplishment in our meritocratic culture often doesn't go hand in hand with anything else.
Pardon the tangent, but this is what was consuming my mind as I left my latest unproductive appointment with a world famous specialist, and forgot to put my watch back on as I trodded out the room with loosely tied shoes. I didn't realize I left the watch there until an hour later as Lina and I ate at a restaurant.
I nearly regurgitated grilled vegetable salad when the thought hit me. I spazzed. A wanna-be starlet at the outdoor cafe scoffed. I sipped some ice water and cleared my throat. I looked at Lina squarely. I gargled without trying. Eggplant still in the throat.
"It's gone. My watch. I lost it."
"You lost it?"
"At the doctor's office. I left it there."
"Oh, god. You got me worried. I'm sure it's still there. Wait, are you sure you left it there? They probably have it. It's probably at the desk. Someone turned it in."
"I know I left it there," I said. "Remember how when I signed out, I didn't have it on my wrist to tell the time?"
"Yeah," said Lina. "And I also remember you having it to check the time on your way in."
"It's been so nice not to have to look at my phone to tell the time anymore."
"You lost your watch."
"I lost my watch."
"We'll go back."
"I'll call."
"You'll get it back, don't worry."
"Ok," I said, realizing what it signified, may have signified.
Did it seem like I didn't care about our engagement? About staying on the new path? That I took this all lightly? Or worse, did it seem like I might not take it lightly but that I would drop it anytime some smug doctor with four important degrees on his wall would take the time to look me over? Shouldn't a man be more impervious? How could I have a family if I couldn't remember my watch after even an important doctor's appointment? Even-keeledness was a prized virtue and I was seeming to lack it.
Then, in Lina's eyes, I saw a tear.
I had lost the closest thing to an engagement ring I had ever gotten, from the only woman I would ever want it from. I would get it back, though. Or would I?
Cut to: Driving hurriedly across Wilshire. Calling all kinds of automated machines at UCLA who couldn't connect me to a person. Checking the floor of my bag a million times to make sure I wasn't crazy. Racing around the circular driveway, jumping out the car and almost tripping into a closing elevator door.
[Note: The following change of tense must bec accepted because you're reading a blog. Don't phone the edit-police. They have no jurisdiction here...]
I'm in the basement of the building now, galloping into the doctor's office. I slow down, calm myself, so no one thinks I'm crazy (ha). I explain the deal to the lady at the desk. She takes me to the room I used. The examination table flaunts fresh white starchy paper. The doctor is gone. The halls are empty.
"It's not here," she says as she checks the floor. "It wasn't turned in."
"Who else was in here besides the doctor?"
"He saw you," she says, "then moved to another room."
"Who cleaned the room?" I ask.
"I actually cleaned the room," she says. "I didn't see it. And it would have been turned in if you left it here.
"I definitely left it here."
"Then it would have been turned in or I would have found it," she said.
"Maybe the doctor has it?"
"Maybe. I'll have him call you when he returns. Maybe he took it and just forgot to drop it off?"
"Maybe."
Was this a viable option, though? Could an Ivy League-educated chief of [insert name of scary medical specialty here] have taken my beautifully utilitarian and artful watch/engagement gift?
I asked my friend Joe a couple days later, after repeated phone calls to the hospital and no results.
"Why couldn't he have taken it?" he said. "I bet there's a better chance he took it than the receptionist/room-cleaner. Those guys are meglomaniacs."
I agreed with him. My doctor seemed very meglomaniacal.
But why would the chief of [insert name of scary medical specialty here] need a watch like mine? Didn't he make over half a million a year at least?
"It was a pretty nice watch," Joe said. "It wasn't fancy, but it was beautiful. Some people like to steal. Turns them on. Doesn't matter if they treat people with cancer or ALS."
"It was beautiful, wasn't it?" I said. Surely, a fancy doctor could also get off on stealing his patient's stuff. Or I could have just dropped it in the garbage pail. It's nice to fantasize, no?
I thought about my history with watches. How I never felt I was meant to have them, but simultaneously desired a few--not least David W's yellow swatch in third grade that he could take into the pool his stockbroker dad had just christened. I thought about how this one watch symbolized something about me I wanted to share. How my fiance had secretly known this without my having told her, and how she had found it for me. How I had slapped it onto my wrist before she had a chance to engrave something on the back of it for me, stamping it as mine forever.
Something about my impetuosity--my carelessless with objects; my deep reasoning for sometimes, randomly, challenging the world to take away what matters; my anger with people who don't take me seriously; my need to punish myself for continously seeking them out (even in a medical building) when I know the right people are to be found elsewhere (perhaps in a naturopath's house?)--had ripped this watch out of my reality. I no longer could tell the time whenever I liked. I now had to take my phone out of a pocket. I had to make an effort to get on the same wavelength with the rest of society. Had to now return to the out-of-it feeling I often walk around with; the half-there, half-gone attitude that always sees me nodding at others while I think about more pressing or bothersome concerns.
This was all somehow wrapped up in choosing a watch, wearing a watch, keeping a watch, and realizing that I had found the right person in Lina, when she had found the watch I had always wanted (i.e. when she had located for me the part of myself I always wanted to develop as I mature).
My friend Joe joked as he often does that this was yet another sitcom script happening as my life. The rich doctor who has to steal your watch.
"Yeah," I said. "In the sitcom, I'd return six months later, and he'd be wearing the watch. I'd ask him where he got it, and he'd say his wife had given it to him for his 25th wedding anniversary, how he'd always hated watches until this one, had never wanted to know the time if he didn't have to, had never liked wearing something on his wrist. Then I'd stare at him and he'd stare back with a smirk. Nothing would be said, and I'd cut to another scene with me driving home and arriving at my next meeting late."
"That's exactly what it'd be like on a sitcom!" Joe said.
"Yep," I agreed. Then I looked at the microwave across my kitchen to see what time it was. I had a men's magazine article due. A piece about some object for an article in a periodical rife with ads for objects.
"Can you buy yourself another?" Joe asked.
"I can," I said. "Thankfully, the thing didn't cost 10 grand. And I didn't have the one Lina bought me for soooo long, right? I could get another now, re-write my memory like a hard-disk, and in twenty years never even remember this whole mess. In the end, it's just something you wear on your wrist, right? It doesn't mean anything, right?"
"Sure," he said.
"Sure," I repeated.
[P.S. There's a tip jar, above, to the left, should you want to contribute to my new watch purchase. I'm a (perhaps, bad) joker, sure, but I'm also not really kidding. Help clothe a newly naked wrist.]
