JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

There’s nothing like a seemingly casual inside-out forehand pass that just air-kisses the line to make a watch look good. I’m watching The Fed and thinking, I should get one of those. (Not Roger because there is only one of those, but a proper wristwatch, and not that exact brand because I would feel like a congressman). Yup, when I buy my yacht and bid for Edith Wharton’s letters to her governess, which recently went for US$182,000. Noel and I were too late to make a bid, or we might’ve pooled our funds to buy a scrap of letter with a vowel and a consonant.

While rooting among my things in search of something to destroy, my cat Saffy dragged out my old Chairman Mao watch. I’d stopped wearing a watch out of sheer laziness—my phone has the time anyway—but how much effort does it take to put on a wristwatch? I get away with so much, I could try to maintain a little decorum (especially if I’m meeting with capitalists). More importantly, must not give in to entropy.

The watch never worked properly—a friend bought it from a sidewalk vendor in Shanghai. I took it to a watch repair shop, where the nice watchmaker (like Dr. Manhattan’s father) replaced a mechanism which cost more than the watch itself. Then he reminded me to wind the watch every morning. “Wind?” I asked stupidly. “Turn this thing here,” he explained. I felt like the kid who didn’t know that audiocassettes were supposed to be turned over.

Tonight: the Wimbledon men’s final. 15! 15! 15!