Hello darling, here in the study at the end of the day. I just shut off the TV where every channel carried the Mayor's live news conference detailing NYC's preparations for the impending currently Category 1 hurricane. The plans include evacuations of lowlying areas (fortunately I am not in such a zone where I am) and - glad I caught this detail - public transit will be suspended indefinitely starting sometime Saturday afternoon (though the storm isn't expected to hit til the evening). So I suppose I will be kicking around the apartment and around the neigbhorhood this weekend, not much beyond that. Which is entirely fine with me. I'm beautifully set up here, with wonderful food & drink, 1.0's book which I've been reading on & off all day (already I'm on Chapter 2) which I'm sure I'll comment on more once I've read more of it. It's a challenging read, not 'over my head' exactly, but conceptually some of the concepts (reframed notion of "mind" for example) are a little hard for me if not to grasp, then to entirely accept (is the Internet 'mind' even if it doesn't perceive itself?) - but all very thoughtprovoking, indeed. Anyway, not fair, I'm not even linking to the book - my sense of privacy, connections too easily thus drawn in this superbrain world, here kicking in.

I had thought I might go to the pool today but the weather didn't cooperate, showers & light thunderstorms throughout much of the day. I did a bit of a workout here to WFUV (the Bronx's version of KZE, both playing a sophisticated eclectic mix, many of the same songs, in fact).

I was feeling restless in the apartment so once the rain let up a bit, I donned a skirt outfit and peds & sneakers, walked up to the Heights, and over the Brooklyn Bridge - on a fairly spontaneous mad mission. I have to retrace where the idea suddenly seized me - but I felt motivated to go buy myself a watch. I've worn watches most of my adult life, and it's only since moving upstate that I stopped wearing one. The last one I had, a beautiful well-functioning, simply & elegantly Danish-designed Skagen, finally wore out after a number of years of my wearing it. I really enjoyed that watch, and received many compliments on it, and it wasn't expensive to begin with, under $100 at the time I'd bought it, I don't even remember when, maybe fifteen years ago.

So walking back across the Brooklyn Bridge wearing my new silver-link braceleted spare simple Skagen, I thought - how in the world did I get the idea to do this? D gave me $100 yesterday to "get me started," along with the debit card which will be more flush tomorrow. I haven't planned on any major expenditures, really - the most expensive ventures (for me) in this town are going to a museum (admissions can be in the $20-$22 range), subway (rides these days are in the vicinity of $3 per), movies (even a bargain matinee is around $8 or $9). There's nothing at the movies around here that's grabbing me.

And I was reading 1.0's book, and came upon a few paragraphs about how a critically important invention in human civilization was the clock mechanism that allowed for more regular & reliable timekeeping. And reading this, I mused about about the marvel of intricate watchworks, and an image (that here unfortunately I have only in my mind's eye, but have somewhere in my computer photo files at home), a marvelous image of whorls & wheels & gears & levers & rods in even the tiniest watch - and the image, as I recall, is in shades of brown - it looks like a wonderful modernist abstract painting, but as I recall it's a photograph, magnified, I suppose. So I was musing about that, trying to think of what that photo had meant to me - there was some E.D. connection as I recall that eludes me now, and it's connected vaguely in my mind with a previous trip to the city, maybe a year ago (the connections are starting to come together). Then it wasn't a far stretch to think about how I had used to enjoy wearing a nice timepiece, being able to consult it, that I am so happy these days to wear nice skirt outfits that I look good in, and wear Miss Dior again, and I have one necklace that I wear all the time (literally - I never take it off!), and it's pretty much my only piece of jewelry, and - dammit! - I'm getting myself a watch! I've got a hundred bucks!

And so I went to Century 21, the most obnoxious emporium of discounted high-end designer goods. The place is mobbed with frenzied foreign tourists literally stuffing their suitcases - I kid you not, their suitcases! that they'll bring back to wherever on their return flights home - with the (scalar equivalents) of container loads of designer threads, sunglasses, handbags, and the like. I tend to avoid that place entirely - but it's where I'd bought my original Skagen - and hey, if they still carried the brand it'd be discounted. So I was as Zen as I could be examining probably 100 or more different Skagen watches in the display case - a dizzying display. But after several visual passes, and trying on one watch, I was able to (superbrain I, though I don't think that's what 1.0 means) to analyze them, sort them along various key traits that I preferred, reject the rest, not even see them anymore (pleather bands, colored watch faces, anything over $69.97) - until there were two or three in contention. I asked about two watches that were about to make my final cut. One turned out to be $129.97 - out that went! And so I'm in the end extremely pleased with my "natural selection" of a beautiful simple elegant watch that makes me feel - as do spritzes of perfume - well-dressed. Because I am now if not quite yet "a woman of a certain age," then I feel myself to be a woman of a certain style & substance, and I'd like the "external representation" of me - nicely groomed appearance (including toned body, far from perfect but not bad for an earthy bon vivant like me) - to reflect that.

And that's that. Not to minimize any complications or difficulties that people may be experiencing from the storm - but - since I won't be spending much money it seems at all this weekend - then at least I have a wonderful watch to wear, to keep track of earthbound time with, in the landscape of my mind.