Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Eyewear and Vanity

As many of you know, I have a tendency to get eye infections, which tend to worsen with contacts. I have been given a number of prescriptions to help me out, several of which contain precautions that prolonged use “may cause cataracts”. I’m not sure that the wearing of the contacts is the problem, but they definitely encourage and inflame the problems once they start. If I wear my glasses and let my eyes breathe the problems normally work themselves out. The length of time that I have to wear them varies according to how severe I let the problem get before I just wear my glasses.

Obviously the logical answer is that I should just wear my glasses all the time, but simply, I am too vain. I feel frumpy (not to mention sleepy) and underdressed when I wear them, like I’m walking around in pajamas and pretending like I just forgot to get dressed that morning. I salute those of you that have the self-confidence to wear glasses all the time, I don’t have it, and truth be told, I don’t desire it. And I’m not talking about the group that is all cutsie and adorable in glasses with your trendy frames and your thin lenses. I’m talking to the group, like me, that would have been the village idiot 200 years ago, but for the coke bottles they have to wear so you don’t slap up against walls and trip over the edge of carpeting … you know, the lenses that warp the shape of your eye depending on the angle that someone looks at you … those of us with 10+ year old frames because WE can’t afford to continually update our frames and lenses because OUR glasses cost the equivalent of a home theater system.

And right now, I’m having tons of allergy problems and was going through contacts rather quickly … trying to wear newer contacts rather than having to don the frames. Here however, my cheapness has overcome my vanity … that and this time I really don’t want this to escalate to the point that I am caught wearing glasses at my own wedding, so I’ve been wearing my glasses for a couple of weeks and I HATE that in half my vacation photos I look like I was torn from my sheets at the crack of dawn and tossed into a group photo.

And if you are wondering why I don’t have surgery and just have my eyes fixed, send me a check for $4,000 and I’ll consider it.

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