time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin, into the winter

It's winter, so my watch has stopped.

Every morning when I get into work I have to take off my watch and hold it in my armpit.

Let me explain: I can't wear a wrist watch. Ever since high school, if I wear a wrist watch I break out terribly and painfully. Only this year have I been unable to tolerate the ring I've worn since 1987.

So I wear pocket watches. And ever since my first boyfriend gave me one in 1997, I've been wearing hangwear, or clip watches. My first HangWare watch was awesome. Doug gave me one with a brown leather strap, and I bought an additional black one (to dress appropriately). Last Christmas my father gave me a nice Dakota watch. I preferred the indiglo face of the HangWare to the red external LED of the Dakota, but the leather had worn through on the HangWear and the Dakota featured a metal carabiner. Although the black coating you see on the clip to the right has almost entirely eroded after less than a year.

However, they both suffer the same flaw. Sure, they both are water resistant to 100 meters, because pocket watches are so popular with divers, but they both have components that contract significantly when cold.

HangWare and clip watches are, by design, intended to be worn "outside," not close to the body. Without the wrist to provide the watch body heat, the internal mechanisms contract (a long time issue with portable timepieces). Unfortunately for these machines, while the quartz keeps time, and its shape, the lighting mechanisms do not.

During the walk to work, the internal bits cool and change their shape sufficiently to turn on the lighting element, and stay there. So the indiglo or flashlight remains, often unnoticed, in the "on" position until I've gone back indoors for enough time for the innards of the watch to warm again. For someone like me who hikes, or walks to and from work every day, this is a considerable issue.

So unless I notice and put the watch under my arm for a while, the watch battery is drained twice a day.

Which does not make for an accurate timepiece.

And so this is my winter excuse for why I cannot be on time.