post the fifty-second, 2013

mark it down: this is the week i stopped wearing a watch.

i mean, like, for everyday. i still wear a running watch whilst running (except when it konks out as on tuesday). ANYWAY. everyday watch.

i first started wearing a watch in fifth grade. it was a yellow snoopy watch where the snoopy arms would turn around to keep time. loved that watch. no idea where it went.

someone's selling this in an auction.... $300!

in high school -- a watch that had belonged to my great-grandmother. i still have it somewhere. it's a very delicate wind-up bulova, analog of course, and fits quite well on my freakishly tiny wrists. i wore it all through high school. no matter how i set it or how many times i wound it, the mechanism would always end up 2 minutes fast. if i set it purposefully slow or purposefully fast, it would end up back at 2 minutes fast. spooky in a cool way.

mine is most like the one with the black strap and square face.

i took that watch to college, but when i was a freshman in college, my auntie gave me a SWATCH. i wore the freaking HELL out of that thing, wore it many years, replaced the band at least once. it was originally all white - white case and band, with a red grid on the face that looked like graph paper, and black arms. when the band broke, i replaced it with black. also, when you had a SWATCH you had to have a swatch protector, and i had more than one. if you don't know what a swatch protector is, google it!

SWATCH!

after college, one of my had-been-roommates gave me a mickey mouse watch with a sort of dressy look. i mean, it wasn't completely cartoony, it was nice. the face had a small mickey and it was open so you could see into the mechanics of the watch. that was sweet. i wore it until it quit running and i believe i have that one somewhere too.

mine isn't a pocket watch, but this is the same face.

after that one quit running, i went back to granny's watch for a while, had to get it repaired first, and it didn't last long before it quit again. and, then i got a really nice citizen watch as a gift from someone who is sitting in the room with me right now! guess who! guess! anyway, it is a nice watch, and i wore it probably a dozen or so years. or, more. really classy, analog, gold with a leather strap. i still have it, too. the strap kept popping off the face, even after i got new strap-holder-on-thingies.

classy!

also, during this era, someone gave me a timex mystery answer watch. it's a combination digital watch and magic 8 ball. i alternated the citizen and the timex, depending on activity. the citizen for work and dress, the timex for play. i wore the timex to run, before i had the garmin, and i wore it to summercamp and to several monkey marathons.

poor mystery answer watch, like jud, is now dead.

after the trouble with the citizen's band (breaker 1-9?), i sort of put that one aside and started replacing it with a series of cheap analog watches. i'd alternate those with the timex. i couldn't find anything i liked, really, and started wearing the timex more & more. then, guess what, timex konked out. so, i sent it for repair, and all was well, until it konked out again, and so i sent it again, and all was well, until it konked out AGAIN, and i sent it again... and repair denied. they'd no longer repair that model.

that was about a year ago. the repair place offered me a discount on another model, so i got a small digital with a tiny compass. seemed like fun, the tiny compass, but it is only a plastic bubble that's in the way. i purchased a generic timex digital at the sporting goods store, and it's okay... nothing special. i thought it would be fun to have two, but it's nothing special. each is small, but still the strap on each is too long, meaning a bit of the velcro is left exposed and gets caught on sweaters, shirts, hair. ugh. neither fit right, neither will stay in place on my arm. more and more, i was forgetting to put one on, forgetting in the morning, forgetting after running, forgetting, forgetting.

pink expedition with useless compass on my disproportionately small wrist with freakishly protuberant triquetrum.

so....

this week, i just decided to go without. timekeeping is ubiquitous, omnipresent, and time itself is relentless. why do i need a reminder strapped to my wrist?