Daily Archives: November 15, 2002

The Spectacle Quandary

Good news, good news, and bad news.

Good news: I am no longer near-sighted in my left eye! Woo-hoo!

Good news: I have a new prescription that will ease the fatigue I get working with paper, print, and computer screens! Woo-hoo!

Bad news: I need new glasses.

Yes, I could just replace the lenses in my current frames, and I intend to do it. However, I want another pair as well, since I’ve developed a bad habit of taking off my glasses and leaving them next to the computer, which does me no good at all if I’m out watching a movie or something. Today, I discovered that I had evidently blocked the horror that was shopping for new frames two and a half years ago out of my memory. I have a vision: thin black wire-rim frames in a narrow rectangular shape. Does anyone make something even remotely close to this vision? Yes. Sort of. But never, it seems, in a size that fits me. I’m small, okay? I wear small sizes. I know damn well the rest of the world is big, so something labelled average actually translates as too big in my world. I hate, hate, hate shopping for frames. It’s as bad as shopping for new bras. I went to four different shops in two different malls, and nowhere did I see frames that leaped out at me and said, I’m perfect!. Or even, I’d be bearable if I wasn’t a size 10.

Frames are so expensive! Dear gods! A hundred dollars for the lenses, at least one-fifty for the frames — ouch! I refused to even try on any frame that was priced at over $170. That’s sheer insanity. Even so, I have to wait for my next EI cheque to arrive, and then hope that when I go back to the first Lenscrafters I went to, they still have the frames I hated least of all, in a size that can be adjusted down to fit me. (And yes, I even tried the children’s section. Poor kids all have to choose from round and round-ish frames. Round looks horrible on me.)

I need to wear these for any precision work that will be undertaken for any period of time, the optometrist says. Which for me means pretty much everything except making tea or eating. Writing, working, reading, TV or movie watching, sewing. I just need to get into the habit of putting them on in the morning, and remembering to take them off again at night (which, yes, I’ve been forgetting to do, growing so accustomed to wearing them for computer work as I have been, which results in putting my cheek on the pillow and jamming the frames into the side of my nose). Both eyes, I was informed, are astigmatic, so glasses are just an easier solution than contacts, especially since I technically don’t need to have some sort of vision correction on full-time. Yeah, right; live my life for two days and then tell me that my everyday activities aren’t “precision activities”.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

I’m in the home stretch.

Yes, last night I sat down to write. Two hours and eighteen pages later (no, I don’t know how that particular time-bending miracle occurred), I’m a breath away from 40K.

Now, my chapters tend to the 4,500 word count. Assuming I�m aiming for the 50K mark as a finish line (which I�m not � it will end when it ends� so long as there�s a minimum of 50K involved!), that means I have about eleven hundred words for two longish chapters, or three shortish chapters, or two regular chapters and an epilogue, which is looking like the best solution at the moment. And the wonder of it is, the story’s actually at the right point for two chapters to end it at the correct pace.

I’m really stunned that everything seems to be falling into place, because I certainly didn�t plan it. It’s like, er, magic. Or something.

And speaking of magic… only twelve hours until Chamber of Secrets! Before that, though, I have to keep an appointment with my optometrist in the wilds of the West Island, to figure out if my prescription needs updating or whether I just have to wear my glasses full-time now.