While in Bali I bought a nice little fake Omega watch, which is basically the first metal band and body watch I’ve ever owned (generally I’ve been of the black plastic digital sports watch persuasion up until now), and because I wear my watch on my left wrist, it combines with my newly acquired wedding ring to repeatedly startle me with the sudden sparkliness of my left hand. Now I know that by a ring and a watch are far from even approaching bejeweled excessiveness, in fact it is under performance in many circles, but I can’t help but stare at the sparkliness and have the phrase “Man bling” pop into my head.
On an amusing aside, I think that “bling” was the first indication that perhaps I was getting old and grown up, in that it was the first major trend that I was simply unaware of since my early teen years. Now I’m not saying that I ever was an avid watcher of popular trends, or in any way a participant in said trends, but apparently months and months passed between the emergence of bling and me becoming aware of it, and even more months passed by before I came to an appreciation of what the hell everyone was on about when they talked about bling. I just had no idea (and additionally didn’t give a flying…. well you know what I mean). It was then that I realised that perhaps being more concerned about exams and health insurance than the latest trends was my brain telling me something about not being a youth any more.