September 26, 2002
faulty vision
Tara has announced that I am a liar.
"You?" she announced in an email yesterday morning, "Are a liar."
Funny. The Guy keeps saying the same thing.
Her bathroom, Tara informed me, was painted -- I'd forgotten that detail; not having been in on the painting (and the inevitable reward afterwards, Tara's cooking, which for some reason is one of those few things that remain hallmarked in my memory) I'd lost that somewhere in the void of my mind. Also, she informed me, the hole in her bathroom is covered.
"You don't honestly think I'd let sewer stench into my house, do you?"
Well, no. My apartment smells funny, though.
"I demand a retraction."
So there you go. My bad.
We were at her place on Tuesday night in fact, invited over to dinner so we could meet up with a friend visiting from Seattle. Said friend was also the minister of Tara and Remington's wedding; she was down in California to take the GRE, one of those traditional New Life Adventures that take place after losing one's job to the new Bush Economy.
Before we left to the Coldstone Creamery for dessert, Tara took a minute to show us the marble that would be lining the floor and counters. They were veined, massive, delicious weights. My mouth watered over them. The Guy peered at the tile for the floor and ran an awed hand over the surface. "You realize after you're done with the bathroom, you'll have to redecorate the kitchen so it'll be up to the same standard."
I looked up. Tara had a gleam in her eye. Remington looked resigned.
Personally, I'm hoping that when she finishes redecorating the entire house, she'll move on to another house, and I'll have raised the funds to buy this one and enjoy the benefits of her redecorating. Anybody that wants to donate money for this worthy cause, contact me.
(But it's still Italian Rustic.)
On Monday, traditionally a busy day for us at work, I ended up dealing with a support issue and shuttling back and forth between several desks. For whatever reason, I took off my glasses and put them on my desk. People were in and out of my cube, picking up this, testing that, looking for the other. There was hardly any room for me there anyway, and I ended up on the phone to a customer at an adjoining desk.
An hour later, still on the phone with a customer, I heard a crunching sound and a dismayed, "Oh, no," behind me. I glanced around, and dimly beheld a colleague holding a tangled bundle of wire and glass in his hand.
Short-sighted, self-consciously attentive to the phone, I turned back to my work and steadfastly avoided looking at the scene of the accident. That is, until the scene of the accident came to me. A hand poked itself under my eyes, holding the fractured remains of my glasses.
"I stepped on them," my coworker said apologetically.
I glanced down. He had big feet.
While there are some things I get upset about, broken glasses don't number among them. My vision insurance, one of the (very) few perks of working at the Purple Slime-o, is thorough without being extravagent. I was due for a new pair of glasses anyway.
I'd noticed lately that driving in inclement conditions -- foggy days, for instance, rainy evenings, nights, sunny afternoons with blue skies, California -- is getting more difficult. I'd stare at a sign coming towards me at 65 miles an hour, and discover that the damn thing had picked up a paler twin brother. The two would caper from side to side, almost-but-not-quite behind each other, and only toe the line when I was close enough to complain. Meanwhile, street lights would magically sprout "NO RIGHT TURN ON RED" signs out of nowhere, right after I'd performed a "RIGHT TURN ON RED" in front of a motorcycle cop having a slow day.
Well, I mean, that isn't fair, is it? Hardly sporting. Trying to trick me into going the wrong way on a one-way street is one thing, but deliberately setting me up for high-speed chases isn't what I'd call a demonstration of brotherly love.
As usual, I picked my doctor by pulling up the insurance-approved in-your-area list from a web site, then calling down the list until I got an appointment that suits me. I hit paydirt on the first try. I drove my broken glasses -- shut up -- I drove with my broken glasses on to the clinic, a short ten minutes away. Like all the optometrists I've ever had, this one was friendly and likeable, the kind of person you wished was your primary care physician, not your eye doctor.
Like all eye doctors, the very last thing he did was render me sightless for the rest of the day. "Just a couple of drops," he said encouragingly. "You should be fine by this evening."
I've always assumed that the purpose behind dilating the eyes is to give the optometrist a good hard look at my brain on the other side. The fact that several optometrists have displayed bewilderment upon peering into my eyeballs has left me rather leery of actually inquiring into the procedure. My natural suspicion tells me that a little knowledge in this case could lead to serious damage to my self-esteem.
It takes several minutes for the dilating drops to work, and in order to pass the time, my very nice optometrist (ook me out into the front room to choose new frames.
He harvested a small collection of them. "These would look good, and these and these. Let's try these on. We actually have the exact same model you had before. Do you want the exact same look?" He sounded vaguely disapproving.
"No?" I said.
This was obviously the correct answer. He nodded in a nonjudgmental way that told me he wasn't emotionally involved (but as long as I had made up my mind, he was glad that I had made up my mind to do the right thing) and began playing musical glasses on my nose.
"These? Hm. No. These? These are good." I stared at him through the new frames, feeling them sliding down my inadequate nose. "Hm. Or maybe these. Let's set these aside. I think I might have a larger pair. These look good. Your eyes are centered in the frames." This is apparently the highest standard of opto-symmetric beauty. He began building piles on the shelves: these are good because your eyes are centered; these are bad because they make you look like a fat-headed, cross-eyed Mole Person.
"Hm. How do you like these?"
In general, the bridge of my nose and my ears conspire together to make any pair of glasses, no matter how well-adjusted, nostril-huggers. I poked the latest pair of frames back up to my eyes, and for the first time, inspected my reflection in the mirror.
A fuzzy pink blob face stared back at me with fuzzy dark blob eyes. Just to make sure, I switched the glasses with another set of empty frames and snuck another look. The fuzzy pink blob smiled encouragingly at me. Not being able to see my own reflection made it impossible to make aesthetic judgments about my face.
I was intensely relieved.
"I can't see anything. I think I'll go with these." I picked a pair at random from the Doctor-Approved pile and waved them at him. He popped them back on my face and stared at me for a long, critical moment.
"Do you like them?"
"Yes?"
"Yes?"
"Yes," I said firmly. "I like them."
I had no idea.
The optometrist placed them neatly on my face, stared while they slid happily down my nose, and began frowning. He plucked them off, adjusted the nose pieces, yanked at the ear pieces, then framed my eyes again.
Cowed by his ruthlessness, the frames stayed meekly in place.
He beamed a benediction at me. "These are a good choice," he said. "They're blend in a little with your skin tone, so they don't really draw a lot of attention--"
"That's good!" I interrupted, relieved. That's the last thing I want. Attention paid to my face.
"--to the glasses," he specified, finishing up. He confiscated the frames and jogged back to the front desk to place an order for me. I wandered around the front room while he filled out paperwork, making encouraging sounds to myself. (You know the type: "That's a chair! Stupid! Stupid!" "Is that's a wall?" "Ooh. I can see through my hand!")
The front desk attendent was sneaking surreptitious glances at me, torn between amusement and dismay. "Do you have far to drive back?" he whispered at me as I passed.
"I can't see a thing," I hissed back. "I think this is an improvement."
He sneaked a grin over the counter. "Nice meeting you."