Button Up Shirts and Wristwatches

My feet are freezing! I've thought about getting up and finding a towel to put under my feet, but I'm still sitting here, no towel and still with cold feet. My hands are cold too, in fact I'm just generally cold. I just checked, and my right hand is significantly colder than my left one, no idea why, but if I put a blanket over my shoulders, I might at least be able to chase away the chill that I feel in my sides and on my neck; that would help. I don't think that will do anything for my right hand or my feet though. I just looked over my right shoulder and there's a blanket on the rocking chair about four feet from me. I'm going to reach over and grab it as soon as I finish writing about being cold. It's hard to write about being cold when you have a blanket draped over you. It's like writing about being hungry while holding a hotdog. Yeah, the hotdog might not be sufficient to quench the hunger, but the illusion, at least, that you have food is unavoidable. If I rub my head fast enough, I can make heat, but then I end up with fallen hairs from my head on the keyboard. Then what? I have a momentarily warm head and a keyboard with hair on it and fewer hairs on my head. So...

My right hand is still cold.

There's a red pen sitting on the desk in front of the computer. It's actually a cranberry color with a matte finish, but no name identifying the maker, you know, like Bic or PaperMate. It just says Franklin Medical Center 800-377-HEALTH baystatehealth.com/fmc. I likethe shape of it. It's not one of those goofy fat pens with extra gripsand lots of contours. It's sleek and has a satisfying clicker and one of those clasps that you use when you put it in your shirt pocket. I wonder about the design decision to include the pocket clasp on pens with so many fewer people opting for shirts with pockets. You know,the classic button up with the collar, maybe in plaid or with stripes? I haven't worn a classic button up with plaids or with stripes in five months. I had one in a bag in my hand just yesterday afternoon, actually the bag contained several. But I set it down, with a bunch of other stuff and drove away. Calmly, no screeching tires, I just drove away. I was angry and hurt and broken and certain that I couldn't do it anymore. I set the bag with the button up shirts on the curb next to the backpack and the filled water bottles, and the books, and the curry chicken leftovers and closed the hatch, then the passenger door, and sat down in the drivers seat, closing the door just hard enough to make sure the latch caught, and drove away. Around one car in front ofthe cottage rental office then looked both ways and pulled out onto route one, with the ocean out the left window of the car. The passenger seat was still leaning forward from where the back seat had been accessed to gather belongings. Once I got a little ways down the road, I reached over and pulled the lever to return to seat to it's normal position. No radio, no cars, no road, no talking, no scenery,no smells, no sounds, no button up shirts, no nothin'. Just driving...just driving....just dr.....

So people used to wear wristwatches. Like everyone used to wear a wristwatch. Once pocket watches fell out of favor, everyone wore a wristwatch. OK, pop quiz...when's the last time you saw a Timex commercial? I know, when you say "pop quiz", you're supposed to actually have a question where there's only one right answer, like"what's the capital of Alaska?". You say "Ankorage", and I say"right!" or ring a bell (ding, ding, ding) or something. That's a popquiz. Sure. But, really, when's the last time you saw a Timex commercial? I'd say like 15 years ago for me. I've seen Timex magazine ads, but the last time I can remember seeing a Timex ad on TV was like in the 1980's during Wide World of Sports, where the guy goes over theski jump sideways and they show it every week? Same guy - same ski jump - every week. I wonder if he feels like Bill Buckner. People say"Bill Buckner" and you think of that soft grounder hit to first base to end the game, and it rolls through Bill's fingers. I wonder if theski guy feels like, OK enough already, we've seen it enough. I wonderif he gets paid every time they show him being slapped over the end ofthe ski jump by a vengeful gravity god. At least if he was getting paid, he might feel OK with having his entire career encapsulated in that one moment. "Oh hey, you're the guy that..." I wonder if he feels bad about it. I wonder if he feels like burning all of the footage of everything he's ever done on the slopes and off, and throwing out all his button up shirts and all his crap in storage that he pays $73 amonth to store for nothin'. I wonder if he's miserable over his wipe-out royalty checks not covering the negative balance on his checking account because of two checks he wrote to pay for a stupid passport when he didn't have the money in his account, hoping another royalty check would clear, then his bank whacks him for $105 for three overdrafts, because he spent twenty dollars on gas and before that used the card for a sandwich on the way to pick up his fiancee who'd been traveling and miscommunicating sometimes by email, then not at all by phone. Then the online bank statement says that the $135 check came in BEFORE the $20 and the sandwich, when you know fucking well that it didn't. The twenty bucks and the sandwich were BEFORE the $135, NOT AFTER! BEFORE! I wonder if he thinks about that. If it makes him crazy that he doesn't know what to do next, or that since looking into her face and yelling at her in Portsmouth then later driving away from her and the bag with the button up shirt in Rye, he hasn't looked another person in the eyes, and doesn't now even know how to start. I wonder if he feels like an idiot. No reason, just an idiot. Like he can't get anything right. Like all anybody cares about is that he's the guy that went over the ski jump sideways and "hey, Johnny! Let me buy you a beer!" I bet he hates that.

Pop Quiz:Why did people stop buying wristwatches? I'll give you a hint: Cell Phones.