Ketshup

…or “catch-up,” if you will.

First off, I need a new hobby like a hole in the head. Having established my sadomasochistic propensities (ritualistic self flagellation?) in the last post I naturally decided to take up the hobby of fixing century-old pocket watches and reselling them on Ebay. Some of the tools from my jewelry making days have come in handy.




The movements on some of these watches are enough to make this grown man cry from mere joy.









The procss involves taking the whole watch apart as shown here, cleaning the parts, verifying none are broken, reassembling the watch, oiling sparingly and adjusting the regulator so it'll keep time.





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Ok, so the party I mentioned in the last post was a phenomenal success by some measures—over four hundred people showed up!—but it was a little tough for me just as I feared it would be. Example: Y asks me, “Is that X over there?” It was X over there and he was, let us say, fooling around with someone else. I knew X and Y had some sort of romantic connection and that Y came all the way out here on X’s invitation. All I could get myself to say was, “That looks like X over there.” My heart broke for her. I didn’t see her again that night. Now, to be sure, I may be ascribing feelings to her she never had, but my heart broke nonetheless to see that disregard for another’s feelings. I spent most of the night catching up with folks whom I hadn’t seen for years, but I remember at one point just having to get out for fresh air, muttering something like “I just don’t belong here.”

We lost the cameras along with the pictures, but that picture above is of me wearing something similar to what I wore that night. I looked like a banker from the 1930s, but that's just fine by me. I added a pocket watch with a Prince Albert chain and an old pipe.

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Sunday I’ll be seeing a gaggle of old high school friends I haven’t seen for years. It's a theme that's been repeating in my life quite a bit lately. Should be fun, though I have to admit I'd prefer to see some of them more than others.