Diary of a Watch Addict, Part I

 

Under the Covers

I often find myself peeking at my Citizen Eco-Drive Professional Diver dial’s phosphorescent luminescence, which is most impressive in a dark environment. If the bedroom is too bright because my wife is in bed reading, I’ll get under the covers and gaze at the watch’s spectacular tritium glow. My wife will say to me, “Are you playing with your watch under the blanket again? How old are you, anyway?”

One afternoon I was napping under the covers when my wife walked into the room talking on the phone to her best friend, Alysson. She didn’t know I was in the room, confusing the mound on the bed with a clump of pillows and a blankets.  I heard her whisper to Alysson, “I found another small package from eBay. He’s buying watches and not telling me.”

That’s when I thought about getting a post office box.

 

The Jahiliyyah

I should make it clear that I have a visceral disgust for the color gold and do not and would not own any watch with the slightest tinge of gold in it. Diamonds are also a source of disgust, as are skeleton watches, the kind that are “see-through.” I also hate irregular watch shapes: Square, rectangular, hexagonal, oval, and other “modern” shapes are completely unacceptable. My watches need to be perfect circles with oversized bezel cases that look like spools taken from battle ships, submarines, spaceships, and other vessels that affirm Man’s Technological Progress and Conquest.

It’s shocking, depressing even, to consider how tiny the watches were that I was wearing during my period of woeful ignorance: Measly bezel diameters of 40 millimeters or so. No wonder I was indifferent to whatever watch I wore. The miniscule, neutered watch simply performed a banal function, telling time. Back then I was living in darkness. It should have been obvious that a man my size, six feet, 230 pounds with 8-inch wrists, needs a big watch, a manly watch. Why was I so ignorant of this simple fact?
 It is as if my life can be divided into two parts: Pre-Big Watch and Post-Big Watch. To think I lived in a period of such darkness and ignorance is almost incomprehensible.  When I think of this abysmal period of my life, I’m reminded of the Arab word for protracted ignorance: jahiliyyah.

 

Popeye Forearms

Since being born again as an addict of extra large watches, I have given all my long-sleeve shirts to the Salvation Army. Only short-sleeves. Now my watches can be seen in all their glory.

And I’ve realized wearing extra large watches requires me to have huge, intimidating forearms laced with cables of rippling muscle tissue. That’s when I bought a set of Captains of Crush Hand Grippers and started exercising my wrists, hands, and forearms during my free time. Lara hates the stainless steel crushers’ squeaking sound going on all day and insists that I frequently take the crushers into the backyard and spray them with WD-40. Also she’s concerned about the long-term harmful effects these grippers might have on me: carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, and arthritis, to name a few.

But in spite of her annoyance and warnings, I exercise with my crushers all day long. It’s become an addiction and it’s paid-off: My forearms have almost expanded to the size of my upper arms, pushing me into Popeye territory.

 

Big Man on Campus

I am in my late forties and I am a community college composition instructor with twenty-five years of full-time teaching under my belt. One of the classes I teach, Critical Thinking, is my favorite. My main book in that class is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. It chronicles Frankl’s struggle in the concentration camps and his witness to those who kept their dignity, choosing to be worthy of their suffering through a life of meaning, and those who surrendered to apathy and died a spiritual death.

I’ve become somewhat of a Viktor Frankl expert and teaching his book has become my brand, my forte, my passion. And the effort I’ve put in the class has born fruit. All my Critical Thinking classes fill up within minutes of registration.

But I have to confess I feel a certain cognitive dissonance teaching Frankl’s ideas of “logotherapy” and the “existential vacuum” while wearing a Rebosus NightGlow Phantom, my forearms pumped up from a marathon Captains of Crush workout in my office. Let’s face it. Viktor Frankl probably wouldn’t be lecturing the finer points of “paradoxical intention” or “Tragic Optimism” while wearing an Invicta Imperious Sea Wizard.

Another disconcerting fact about my wearing my chunky timepieces to class is that a lot of the students, mostly young men, have been frequenting my blog, Manly Watches, and buying many of the watches I own. It’s weird watching them strut into the classroom wearing an oversized Invicta Russian Diver or an Android Divemaster Enforcer. I have to set these young men aside and make it clear: “Just because you’re wearing my watches to class doesn’t mean you’re getting an automatic A. Got that?”

 

How I Grade Student Essays

I read the student essays while squeezing my Captains of Crush hand grippers. I do 20 reps in my right hand and switch to another 20 reps in my left hand, going back and forth until my essay grading session is complete, never more than 15 essays a session. As a right-hander, I grade with my pen in my right hand, which means that for the sake of efficiency it’s ideal that I mark spelling, mechanical, grammar, and word choice errors while I’m squeezing the crusher with my left hand. Now if I find that before I’ve reached 20 reps in my right hand, I have to prematurely switch the Crusher to my left hand to pick up my pen for correction marks, I am resentful.

So my grading system goes like this: The students begin with 250 points, an A grade, on their essay. Now if I have to pick up my pen and prematurely switch the crusher from my right hand to my left hand more than once per page, the student’s essay is deducted a full letter grade.

I always explain my system the first day of class and even do a demonstration. You’d think such a display of obsessive, perhaps draconian, behavior would be daunting and the students would walk out of the class and march straight to admissions to drop the class, but all my classes fill up quickly and my student retention rate is in the upper 95 percentile. Go figure.

Life Is Enduring the Intervals Between Grand Moments

With my forearms and wrists well proportioned to my colossal watches, I now wear them in full glory. Indeed, wearing a scintillating oversized watch is nothing short of glorious. My favorite TV show of all time, HBO’s The Wire, talks about the longing for glory. There’s a scene where Lester Freamon, a cop,  says to his fellow cop Jimmy McNulty that he is greatly mistaken if he thinks he can define his life by “grand moments.”  Freamon says these moments of exaltation that we spend our time dreaming about are not what life really is. What is real life then? Life is, according to Freamon, “the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come.”

Let me tell you, Freamon. I love you, man, but you’re wrong. I stick a strapping black ionic-plated combat watch on my wrist and I’m bathing in grandeur. There is real glory to be had in this world and by God I’ve found it.

Comments

[matt]

what Lb Captain Of Crunch Grips Do You Suggest Someone Starting With? I've Been Lifting Ten Years, ButWe Don't Have any Forearm specific equiptment At,Me Gym So I Just Use Barbells..

[herculodge]

I'd start with a Captains of Crush #1. The 1.5 is a lot harder.

[matt]

Sorry,My Phone Is Auto CapitalIng Every Word.

Do You Know Of ANy Local Retailers That Carry It, OR Online Only?

[herculodge]

I bought mine on Amazon