9:15PM
       
       My watch alarm goes off at 9:15PM everyday. At first, the
       purpose of this alarm was to get my eyes off screens and get
       myself ready for bed. The routine reminder helped pull me
       out of deep computer trances and put me into a good sleep
       hygiene. (Though many times my alarm beeped on ignored.)
       
       When my lifestyle changed and bedtimes became later, the
       alarm stopped having any useful meaning. My watch still
       dutifully beeped at 9:15PM everyday, but I didn't look away
       from screens or begin my bedtime routine. All the same, I
       was compelled to keep the alarm. Maybe I'd get back to my
       routine, I thought. Not tonight, but maybe tomorrow. Well,
       the routine hasn't come back. But I did find a present use
       for the alarm.
       
       Now when the alarm goes off I perform a teeny existential
       inquiry. I look around my environment, I look within my head
       and heart, and I ask myself: "am I where I want to be right
       now?"
       
       It's easy to be somewhere sometime without wanting to be
       there then. Many occasion I've found myself in an experience
       I don't want for myself, that I'm tolerating simply to
       maintain social graces. Someone wants to keep the good times
       going when I'd rather go home. Or someone wants to get the
       good times going when I'd rather they didn't start. I don't
       get much from going to bars, going for coffee, or going to
       parties. I am fulfilled by quiet activities like drawing,
       writing, and sewing. These things are not easily made
       multiplayer. No wonder I feel compelled to concede to
       activities others enjoy.
       
       9:15PM. That's my cue to check-in with myself and ask if I'm
       where I want to be. And recently I've found myself content
       with my choices, happy to be watching a movie or playing on
       the computer or ambiantly sitting with a friend. To feel
       that "yes" is a great feeling, like the touch of warm bath
       water all over my soul: warm, weightless, erasing. When I am
       where I want to be I feel most like myself, which is to feel
       like I've melted into my surroundings. There's such little
       latency between thought and feeling, such immediate
       palpability of gratification. That's life: when the wires
       and joints disappear---when I'm fully inhabiting a moment
       without counting the minutes.
       
       9:15PM hasn't always been a "yes". Sometimes, resentfully, I
       have answered "no". I've been in conversations, though I
       wanted quiet. I've been among people, though I wanted
       solitude. I've wanted to be somewhere so revoltingly
       different than what was before me. And I suffered for this,
       feeling despair and loathing for being untrue to what I want
       to do. Worse still, I'm not able to extract myself from
       these moments. I'd like to do something about that, but it's
       not the subject of this writing. To be instrospected on
       another day, maybe.
       
       But how different would my answer be given at 1:00PM,
       5:15PM, or 8:20AM? I have wondered about the implications of
       answering my existential inquiry in the evening, compared to
       say afternoon or morning. The truth is that I know I'd say
       "no" in those moments, for they are usually given over to
       another person: my employer. 9:15PM is consistently my own,
       though. By then I've decompressed, cooked, and
       cleaned. There's nothing left I need to do, so I can fulfill
       what I want to do. Thus when I ask myself "am I where I want
       to be" I am expecting the answer to be "yes". After all,
       with the little time I have to myself I should always spend
       it on myself.
       
       Lately I've found myself teetering on the edge: either equal
       measures of "yes" and "no", or ambivalence to either
       answer---like I'm not even sure how I feel. These moments
       are worrying, but permissible. This routine is only an
       exercise in existential inquiry: to ask and observe. The
       moment isn't one for great celebration or upheaval in my
       life. The alarm goes off, I check-in with myself, and I
       carry on with my day. Answer or not, that brief moment of
       reflection is powerful.
       
       So what next? I've considered changing the time of my
       inquiry. Maybe I would make surprising observations in the
       morning, or mid-way through work. So too I've considered
       making the time random each day. I'm not sure I'll do either
       just yet. To be honest, I'm not even sure how much longer
       I'll keep up this routine. Only time will tell...