AKICILJ: Watches.

I am a Type A, time-focused person. I need to wear a watch and always know what time it is or I get very uncomfortable. Even when there's no place particular for me to go.

For the last fifteen years or so, I've always worn a basic Timex Indiglo watch. I like the extremely plain/classic aesthetic: black band, silver-colored bezel, plain white face with big clear black numbers. I like that it lights up. And, until recently, I've always liked that it is both cheap and reliable.

Until now.

When my last Timex died, I bought a nearly identical one at Target. A few weeks later the little loops you thread the band through fell off, so I returned it to Target and got a replacement. A few weeks after that the pin that holds the band to the bezel broke, and I returned that one to Target for a replacement. The next one had the entire "winding"/setting pin fall off.

At this point, I began to suspect that it wasn't so much that I was buying individual Timex watches that happened to suck, as that Timex had just gone completely to hell as a brand. But I gave it one more chance. All the pieces have stayed on my current watch for several months now, so that's definitely a plus. But instead of falling to pieces, it has a more insidious problem.

The little setting pin has a tendency to pull out during the course of normal everyday activities. When that happens, of course, the watch stops - waiting for me to set it. Typically I don't notice until something suddenly happens to demonstrate to me that it's half an hour later than I thought it was. I look at my watch frequently, but I'm usually immersed in other things and I don't stop to think about the fact that it couldn't possibly still be 11:40. I just glance down and think "oh good, I've still got time." And then suddenly I am late picking Alex up from something or the babysitter is here and I am nowhere near ready to go to work. It is the most unbelievably frustrating thing imaginable.

So I need a new watch, but I need more than that. I need an entirely new brand and style of watch. I need to go out and spend money on an unknown kind of watch at precisely the moment when I have the least possible amount of faith in watchmakers. Please advise me, LJ! What would be relatively inexpensive, not offensive to look at, and actually reliable?

OMFG.

So you might remember that I am preaching at my church - for the first time ever - on July 11. The monthly newsletter just recently came out with this sermon description:

July 11—“Life or Death Situations”
Rebecca Wald
Rebecca will share lessons she's learned from working with people who are dying and people who want to die - two sometimes-overlapping groups. Is assisted suicide the best we have to offer those among us who are dying?

One of the things that led to me feeling called to preach this sermon is that a member of our congregation, a physician active in the Final Exit Network, was arrested a year or two ago for assisting in a suicide in Georgia. When he came back to church the interim minister lauded him from the pulpit and he got a standing ovation from the congregation. I think that his position has sort of been automatically adopted as the church's position, because, well, he's one of the noisiest members. But I think that many people haven't really thought it through. That's one of the reason why I really, really want people to hear a different perspective.

Well. That member just called my house and spoke to Michael. He told Michael that he wanted to bring a number of people from outside the congregation to hear my sermon, and was that okay? Clearly he means his Final Exit Network/Hemlock Society buddies. Michael said - as, really, what else could he say? - "Come, come, whoever you are..." But shit.

OMFG I am panicking about this. I'm gonna be lynched. Well, probably not. But he's going to pack the audience with people who are hostile to me from the outset. As if this wasn't going to be hard enough already.