Archives for posts with tag: citizen

Pretty morning. Splendid sunrise. I slept well, and with no regrets I slept without my sleep tracker on my wrist. Did that change the quality of my sleep? Maybe. Maybe not. But… Maybe.

The first sunrise of summer.

Without regard to sleep quality, I’d be giving up the sleep tracker anyway; my wearable is no longer supported by the manufacturer, and the new phone I’ve just moved into isn’t the same brand and “doesn’t play nicely” with my old wearable. Totally fine, I think I am effectively done with trying to capture all that biometric data. It was initially useful and sometimes eye-opening, but that hasn’t been the case for a while, and the device itself just tethers me to my phone, and pings me fucking constantly. Over it.

Father’s Day got my Traveling Partner and I talking about watches, time, and time pieces, after I gifted him a modest field watch for everyday wear.

Practical and basic.

I guess I’ve missed wearing a watch. 😆 I gave that up years ago, before I ever began wearing a connected device, (because I had such an unhealthy and stressful relationship with time). That was so very long ago that it’s just not a thing anymore, even to the slightest degree. I don’t have panic attacks over being a couple minutes late. I don’t freak out if someone else creates conditions that throw carefully timed plans into chaos. (Hell, I rarely make “carefully timed plans” with the sort of inflexible precision that they could so easily be wrecked by timing, at all.)

So… I’m contentedly re-embracing wearing a watch. It’s not as if that’s super necessary, either. My phone is almost always very nearby, and I can easily check the time. I like the look of a watch. Elegant or practical. Fancy or plain. There’s something amazing about a watch. Such a finely crafted tiny piece of machinery capable of so much precision! Impressive among human achievements in the way bound books, libraries, and printing presses are impressive. These things are among our best human achievements.

Fancy and fun.

I have a lovely fun watch my Traveling Partner gifted me. It’s pretty, and a bit fancy for everyday. I enjoy wearing it (even more lately), but it isn’t quite the right choice for everyday wear. We’ve spent fun hours this week talking about watches and casually shopping together for watches we might like to own, and getting to know this facet of each other’s personal style. Selecting a watch is every bit as intimate as lingerie. It’s been an extraordinary way to connect and be close. Fun.

… The clock is always ticking…

I sit with happy thoughts, early on a Friday morning. The Solstice was yesterday. Ordinary enough day. I worked.  It was quite a hot day for the first day of summer. Fitting. Today is likely to be similarly hot. I’m okay with it – and grateful to have AC.

I sit thinking about time, and watches, and watching time. In some upcoming future moment, I will begin again… in the meantime, it’s enough to be here, now. Watching the sun rise on a summer morning, unconcerned about the time.

Jury Duty today. Short morning. Doing my civic duty to be part of American justice is okay with me, though I’ve only ever been picked for a jury once, and that was Grand Jury. For some reason, I get eliminated for regular juries all the time over something or another. Sometimes because I’m an anarchist. Other times because I’m 100% comfortable that jury nullification is a thing. Other times because the reading material I brought with me for hanging out and waiting made some attorney or another less than ideally comfortable. Once because I’d simply seen and heard too much on media about the case being heard. Once or twice because I was a woman, though it wasn’t explicitly stated quite that way.

Jury duty is crazy important. Some citizen – the victim, generally – seeking justice for some wrong, another citizen – most often the accused – very much hoping to be understood as not being the person committing that wrong, or even perhaps hopeful that a “jury of peers” will understand no actual wrong was committed. It’s all very complicated and requires each citizen level up and do their very best. I have doubts that everyone understands it this way, but always hope that if I am ever a citizen in need of a jury, that the citizens on it will take it all very seriously indeed.

So, I’m sipping my coffee and watching the Internet go by. Listening to the new Whiz Khalifa track. I follow it with some Snoop Dogg.  I charge up my Kindle. I load a great playlist for the day. I have to leave the house earlier than usual, and I keep my eye on the time.

Ready? It’s time to Wednesday! 🙂