Friday, December 01, 2006

Driving Glasses (yeesh)

Yep. It's come to that. I now have driving glasses. I think that's pretty much when you turn in your youth card.

While the eyeball injections are helping me rather amazingly well, my vision will never be the same. Everyone looks like an alien with a bulbous, misshapen kidney bean head. Text floats like the 3D credits in Parasite. (And yes, sadly, I saw that in a theater. On a date.)

Most frighteningly, I have real trouble with street lights and glare, especially at night or in inclement weather. Images smear, one set of red lights becomes two or three. Distances are altered. I get quietly freaked out.

Knowing this could become a real safety issue, I finally caved and scratched together the cash for a pair of driving glasses. I realized I would have to be less funky and stylish in order to give myself a wider field of vision, and I'd have to cough up bigger bucks for good lenses. (In the old days, I just bought the cheapest stuff around.) So, I now own a big pair of clunky tortoise shell rectangles with Teflon lenses. Not very fashion-forward, I'm the first to admit, but it's like having a Cinemascope screen for viewing the world.

Driving home from the optician today in overcast skies and dribbling rain (and massive wind gusts), I could see so clearly, and the large lenses allowed me to see my mirrors without problem. It was pretty flippin' beautiful.

Whew.

So, hello, Buddy Holly! No glamour behind the wheel, but a lot more confidence. And that, as my favorite ex-con would say, is a Good Thing.

I guess they could be worse, eh?
(And, helloooo humidity hair!!)

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you look good in them, Merujo. They match your hair and compliment your face quite nicely.

For truly ugly glasses, nothing could top the ones they issued people in basic training who needed glasses. I fortunately didn't need any, but people who wore them called them Birth Control Glasses (or BCG's for short) since they knew they would never get any dates while wearing them.

Anonymous said...

I think they look quite nice on you. Very nice in fact.

Janet Kincaid said...

They look great! They compliment your eyes and your hair color. They're perfect.

And the glasses Chuck mentioned above? The BCG's. My dad had those when he was in the Air Force in the 60s. It's a miracle, I guess, that I was born.

Sasquatch said...

As someone who has seen them in person, I will vouch for the fact that they look good. Very good. And if Merujo doubts it, she's itching for a fight.

paulnojustpaul said...

Like the other good people say, I think they look great on you! You've got a touch of that whole smoldering librarian (think Toto) thing happening. Love it! Okay, so I'm biased: I always thought/think you're beautiful. But really they look great! [big hug!]

Anonymous said...

For reals, those specs are awesome. They are totally you.

I wore some of those until about a year ago when they broke. It was very depressing. I loved them.

Heather Meadows said...

Those glasses are great! They're cool in a "I go to coffeeshops" kind of way. And you do go to coffeeshops, so I don't see the problem ;>

When I got my first pair of glasses, I chose huge, circular frames, because I was afraid people wouldn't be able to see my eyes otherwise. I think they had the opposite of the intended effect, though--instead of highlighting my eyes, the glasses overwhelmed them.

It's hard to tell what's going to look good or not at first :)

Claire said...

I like 'em. My sunglasses are pretty similar, so you know what you have must be cool. :)

Scholiast said...

I was going to say they look as great on you as you with them -- but everyone else has already said that, so suffice it to say that you look good, also with driving glasses :)

Anonymous said...

I like the glasses, and they sure beat the ones I had in high school and college that were so big that the bottom of the glasses almost touched my cheek while the top of the frame were above my eyebrows. Eek.