So it has come to this: I need bifocals.
I wasn't surprised. For the past six months, my vision has gotten kind of scary. I've always been severely nearsighted since I was a small child, but glasses and contacts mostly solved that. (I say "mostly" because my astigmatism is not corrected by contacts, and I don't like to drive at night due to this Lights are big and blurry, and it's hard to adjust between darkness and lightness. I've been ridiculed a lot for not driving at night, but eh, that's all right. My friends will reap a karmic vengeance for ridiculing a poor nearsighted girl, and I get to be the designated drinker). But increasingly and increasingly, I was having trouble reading small print, reading anything without a lot of bright light, and making out colored print on colored backgrounds.
My adorable eye doctor (a very kindly gay man of Asian descent and bear inclinations, which I think is a great combination, who is given to elaborate praise during eye examinations. I have never before been made to feel that making out the lines on those little charts is such a proof of my fabulousity) broke the news to me gently. He was surprised I was eager to get them. I really just want to see better, and I've already gone through a huge midlife I've-lost-my-looks funk and come out the other side. Also, it's easier to deal with aging now, than it would have been back in the nineties.
I explained this to my eye doctor. "Thank God it's now I'm getting bifocals. Back in the nineties, I hated pop culture. I hated the music --- I liked Nirvana, but all those depressing ripoffs were so awful --" He took up this point with avidity. "You mean like Portishead?", and we listed terrible grunge bands.
"And the hair and the fashions... all so awful. I used to feel that I was an old fogey and stuck in that young-people-don't-know-music thing, and it was so depressing. But now I love listening to the radio again! There's so much great music now. Not just rock and pop, but that genre I call 'gay disco', it's so much better now. It used to be that boring house, but now it's fun. I love listening to Energy. And the hair and clothes, it's all so much better now. So I don't feel like an old fogey, like I'm stuck and fossilizing."
Evidently I am the first patient to react to getting bifocals this way.
13 comments:
I did the surgery route earlier this year. I have permanent bifocals. One eye corrected for distance and one for reading. It was a fabulous choice!
you probably made his week.
you need to get one of those chain things so they can hang around your neck.
I'm so with you on the "I can listen to the radio again" bit. I hated 90s pop/rock. I think there were maybe 2-3 groups that came out of the 90s that I actually liked (tori, dave matthews), but none that I really loved.
Now? Oh yeah. It's fun again! I don't care that I'm hitting 40, and that there are all these very young babes playing the music. It's just fun.
ps, you might remember me as lucygoosy or quiltmama
I got bifocals about 7 months ago (after several years of warnings from eye doctors that they were coming.) I've been very pleased with them. It took me a few weeks to get used to the change and learn how to read books up close to my face again.
-- Steve
PS: I really didn't get bifocals. I got progressive lenses. You can't see any lines in the lenses as a result. Also, I got tiny frames which the doctor didn't recommend with bifocals or progressive, but they seem to be working well anyway. This is a nice overview of progressive vs bifocal if you don't already have that info
http://www.ussafety.com/images2/Progressive%20vs%20Line%20Bifocal.pdf
also, make sure you perch them on the end of your nose when you read. that's SO sexy.
also, make sure you perch them on the end of your nose when you read. that's SO sexy.
But perching them on the end of your nose makes you post everything twice.
and you know because??
i bet if Helen Mirren did it, you wouldn't complain.
No complaints, just listing some of the possible side effects, along with dizziness, nausea,hot/cold flashes,increased older male attention and do not operate machinery until you know how this will affect you.
I, too, <3 teh gay club music. I can't really call it disco... it is a descendent of disco though. technically, it's actually house!
btw, I think you actually dislike techno, but think of it as house (maybe due to rave music of the '90s) - as house has always had its roots in disco much more apparently than techno (although both actually sprang from disco - there was the happy, warm, diva stuff, and then the branch of Giorgio Moroder > Kraftwerk etc)
Get the progressive lenses. Much much easier to deal with if you spend a lot of time on a computer.
whatever you get, i'm still all about the glasses necklace. it'll make you look like Julia Childs!!!
I'm definitely going to get the progressive kind.
My doctor & I discussed the possibility of trying out having one eye corrected for distance and one for close up. I may experiment with that.
Hi, Quiltmama, how's it hanging?
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