Two Watches

A few months ago, I lost my watch. I habitually take it off and leave it wherever I am: on my desk, on the kitchen table, on the bedside table. Sometimes I use it as a bookmark. 

So, losing my watch is not uncommon. I lose it for a day or two and it turns up under some papers or on under the bed. But this time, it didn't turn up. After a week, I resigned myself and got a new watch.

I've been buying the exact same watch for decades: a Timex easy reader in black and gold, with a light-up dial so I can read it in movie theaters. Because these watches are inexpensive and available in many drugstores, I easily replaced my watch and wore it about a week before my husband found the old watch in the sofa cushions. So now I have two watches.

At first I was miffed at myself. What a waste! But soon, I found I loved having two watches. I no longer run around the house trying to find my watch--one of them is always sitting on the bedside table or desk. What a time-saver! I now have a watch close at hand when I need one.

In my writing life, I always have ideas close at hand when I need them. On my desk sits a small whiteboard where I list story and essay ideas. Sometimes I write down references to anecdotes people tell me--for example, a couple of years ago, a friend told me about finding a bag of books on her doorstep with a note in a language she didn't recognize. Clearly, someone had put the bag on the wrong doorstep. I thought that might make a good start to a story, though I haven't used it yet. Other ideas are headlines I've read in the newspaper or online. I just had a flash fiction accepted that was based on one of those headlines: "Car Fire at Car Wash." Sometimes the list includes a place, or something odd I've seen, like the ballet slipper at the Sutro Baths I talked about in my post about location visits in San Francisco. 

So, if I sit down in the morning, ready to write but with no ideas, I look over at the whiteboard and find an idea on the board that appeals to me. What a time-saver! In fact, that's what I did this morning, and now I can erase "Two watches (blog)" from the whiteboard. Fortunately, I have this morning's headline to replace it with: "Couple caught on camera helping child steal giant unicorn."