Mixed results
Nov. 13th, 2006 07:39 pmIt's been one of those days of good things and bad things. Most of them were minor annoyances or pleasures, like spotting freshly-planted pansies around the building where I work, and not being able to get morning coffee because the university was taking a day off in lieu of Veterans' Day.
The big bad thing was that my glasses broke in two this morning. This was not entirely surprising -- I've had four pairs since I left secondary school, and this is the third pair to break -- but it's never welcome. I'm now wearing the sole survivor, the pair I hastily had made up in 1988 to a 1985 prescription because I was in the middle of writing up my thesis and didn't have time to get tested. I can see through them just fine, both the prescription changes since then having been pretty much within experimental error, and the style is just like all the other pairs I've had in my adult life -- big lenses and unobtrusive pinkish-brown plastic frames. They feel fragile, though, and it's obvious that a trip to the optician should be in my fairly near future.
The trouble is, I'm not sure that I'll be able to find another pair of frames like that -- I was amazed when it was possible last time (2001), and the style I picked then was the only one like that in the store. A bit of poking around online reveals absolutely nothing I like the look of, and indeed the latest thing seems to be even worse than the little oval lenses that were all the rage for a while. I have an old-fashioned prejudice in favour of plain old low-tech glass lenses, too; I like the weight on my face, and feel naked without it, and I like being able to clean the lenses with an ordinary tissue.
On the other hand, I may be more receptive now to the idea of a change of image than I have been the last few times I needed new glasses. I've been slowly changing my look over the last couple of years, but the hair and glasses have stayed pretty much the same for most of the last quarter-century. (The glasses might actually have been in fashion, back in 1980 or so; the hair, not so much.)
The big bad thing was that my glasses broke in two this morning. This was not entirely surprising -- I've had four pairs since I left secondary school, and this is the third pair to break -- but it's never welcome. I'm now wearing the sole survivor, the pair I hastily had made up in 1988 to a 1985 prescription because I was in the middle of writing up my thesis and didn't have time to get tested. I can see through them just fine, both the prescription changes since then having been pretty much within experimental error, and the style is just like all the other pairs I've had in my adult life -- big lenses and unobtrusive pinkish-brown plastic frames. They feel fragile, though, and it's obvious that a trip to the optician should be in my fairly near future.
The trouble is, I'm not sure that I'll be able to find another pair of frames like that -- I was amazed when it was possible last time (2001), and the style I picked then was the only one like that in the store. A bit of poking around online reveals absolutely nothing I like the look of, and indeed the latest thing seems to be even worse than the little oval lenses that were all the rage for a while. I have an old-fashioned prejudice in favour of plain old low-tech glass lenses, too; I like the weight on my face, and feel naked without it, and I like being able to clean the lenses with an ordinary tissue.
On the other hand, I may be more receptive now to the idea of a change of image than I have been the last few times I needed new glasses. I've been slowly changing my look over the last couple of years, but the hair and glasses have stayed pretty much the same for most of the last quarter-century. (The glasses might actually have been in fashion, back in 1980 or so; the hair, not so much.)
