Sunday, October 7, 2007

Didn't Wear my Glasses Today (Here's how That Went)

I could tell you all about what inspired the decision to go without corrective lenses today, but I won’t. It’s unnecessary and less interesting than even you would suspect. What is important is that I can, if need be, function on an entirely normal level without two thumb-sized pieces of curved glass in front of my face, and it’s nice to, on occasion, be reminded of this. It’s also nice to remember what life was like before I became a glasses-wearer (a demographic of people who are, from an evolutionary point of view, poor candidates for procreation - there is an old rhyming adage that condenses this thought but I won’t insult your awareness of adages by reproducing it here). Like essentially any decision to deviate from the norm, however, today’s atypical optical situation was not without its missteps. Here we go:

10:00 a.m. Woke up to the same (arguably unhealthy) sounds I always wake up to after retiring sometime after 5 a.m. As I rarely/never fall asleep wearing glasses this part of the day was unchanged by my decision, and at this point I hadn’t even officially made that decision.

10:36 a.m. Watched the pilot episode of “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show.” the combined blessings of being of impeded sight and watching a program filmed in blurry “1986 sitcom-o-vision” made bearable the incredible visual burden that is viewing Shandling’s face.

11:31 a.m. Got a new pair of headphones from the Internet. Spent a pretty long time looking very hard at them trying to figure out where the markings designating the right and left earpieces were.

11:54 a.m. Heard a loud noise from outside, localized in the driveway area. The downstairs neighbors had been cooking delicious-smelling food since sometime this morning. Following the noise there was the sound of enough fast, running water to make a body nervous, but further information about the situation was unavailable, due less to my un-bespectacled status and more to a dearth of desire to investigate.

12:10 p.m. Did not look closely enough at the dial’s setting on the toaster. Essentially ruined two perfectly good Eggo waffles.

1:47 p.m. Walked to work. While having lower visual acuity softened the always-upsetting reality of seeing frustratingly dumb (read: on skateboards) people out and about in the world beyond The Place, a gnat flew into my eye. This sort of thing wouldn’t have happened had I been wearing glasses. This sort of thing shouldn’t happen at all.

2:22 p.m. Didn’t recognize a d-bag (accurate technical term) patron at work because of vision/apathy. Had to pretend to tolerate the guy because he is a friend of a friend who has the most bothersome friends.

8:40 p.m. Fell asleep without particularly intending to after taking care of important business. This (falling asleep without meaning to) is easier to do while not wearing glasses, as one must make the conscious decision to remove said articles before checking out, thus providing evidence against disputed accidental naps.

10:58 p.m. Woke up. See the first half of the second sentence in the 10:00 a.m. entry.

11:30 p.m. Made peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. Had no trouble reading the directions or measuring the ingredients. Had some trouble cracking the eggs, but I blame this on the fact that I was mixing in a plastic, tupperware-y bowl and not in an honest metal one. The cookies turned out wonderfully.

2:40 a.m. Was extremely startled by sounds coming from my bedroom window. As it happened, CC was on the front porch and had been knocking on/speaking through the window, activities that were obscured by the desirable qualities possessed by aforementioned headphones. Locating the source of the muffled noises in the dim light of the room was difficult without glasses, and the fact that I was not properly dressed did not help my clarity of vision or thought. CC delivered some news.

3:17 a.m. (now) The day is over, I am having no trouble typing this entry without glasses. Of course, as I am a lazy human being I will refuse to do any proofreading on this piece, glasses or no, so mistakes you may have found are not the fault of deficient eyesight.

Conclusion: now that I am no longer in a position to operate a motor vehicle, and the fact that anything that I will fiercely ignore any information presented to me on overheads, chalkboards, or in slideshows leads me to believe that I have, after 2 years, 6 months and 8 days of glasses-wearing, surpassed the need for corrective lenses. That said, I will continue to wear them. The end.

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