In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Glasses

Lauren

It’s finally time.

After years of gazing at the computer screen, 1 1/2 years of knitting, and realizing that I can’t read anything five feet away from my face, I absolutely have to get glasses.

In fact, the problem is so bad that I need them today. Today. I’m tired of the headaches and the strain. Unfortunately my eyeballs are so oddly shaped I can’t wear contacts, so glasses it is. I can’t even afford the things, but I can’t put it off any longer.

My wish is that the shit place in the mall will have some cute, funky frames that I can rock without too much shame. Glasses have always been something that other people can wear and wear well. But me? I just look like a tool.

For the first time in years I will able to see my pores. Wish me luck!


UPDATE: You mean, my yard is made up of individual blades of grass? Go figure.

22 thoughts on Glasses

  2. Ms. Lauren wrote: Unfortunately my eyeballs are so oddly shaped I can’t wear contacts, so glasses it is.

    OK, so first you claim to have a weird shaped haidbone – now it’s yr peepers? you are a Sleestak, aren’t you?

    seriously, i’ve never heard of anyone not being able to get contacts because their eyes weren’t the right shape. i mean, your eyes are round aren’t they? like, you do have eye balls, right?

    anyways, good luck finding frames. it can be a hard search. one pair will make you look like a tool, another will make you look… umm… really cool! ok, that sounded dumb, but you know what i mean. one piece of advice i can give you: ignore all the posters with Beautiful People™ wearing glasses & looking like they’re about to be whisked away on some bespectacled european adventure. these posters lie lie lie.

    in case the shit place in the mall has only tool frames maybe you could find something on the Intarweb?

  3. I first got glasses when I was 12 or so, and I made the mistake of getting cats’ eye frames. I thought they were cool and funky and ironic, but the irony was lost on my classmates. They just thought I looked like a nerdy loser librarian, which was what they all thought I was anyway.

    Anyway, I have had good glasses luck at Lenscrafters. I have all sorts of issues that you don’t, though: one of the nice things about Lenscrafters is that they can make my lenses on site. A lot of places can’t, because my prescription is so strong. But they seem to have a wider frame selection than the other mall places, and they can take digital photos of you trying on the glasses, so you can compare.

  5. oddly shaped eyeballs? do you mean you have astigmatism or is it something else?

    i have astigmatism (in my left eye for sure, and possibly in the right, a little. every eye doctor says something different.) i can wear toric contacts but most of the time i do without either my contacts or my glasses because i can see pretty well up close.

    glasses aren’t so bad. i’m sure you’ll find frames to die for 😀

  6. Are you sure you need prescription lenses? Maybe you just need magnifiers (super cheap to not so very expensive at most drugstores, bookstores, and even at better department store counters these days). That’s the usual progression — magnifiers to prescription lenses. I got away with magnifiers for reading/sewing/close-up work for about 3-4 years. I only just got my first pair of prescription lenses this year (supercute Burberry frames — but I have the much coveted VSP insurance plan where I only pay a $10 copay for the exam, a $10 copay for the lenses, and then I have a $140.00 allowance towards frames, so I could afford to splurge a little.

    If you’re not sure you need prescription, try the maginfiers. You can save yourself a few bucks for a coupla years if they work for you.

  7. Two good things about glasses: first, they totally protect your eyes if you are prone to walking into things (…er, like me) and second, -no one- has more authority than a woman looking over the tops of her glasses. It’s true. It is a 100% effective way to subdue both students and potentially interesting mates. And what other fashion accessory can do all of that?

  9. Actually, the last eye doctor I went to said my eyes were pointy. Weird, eh?

    No, I’m very near-sighted, have astigmatism, and am incredibly sensitive to light. I really started noticing it this week while driving, dangerous enough to incite this panicky trip to the eye doctor.

  11. I have had glasses for years: since I was 12. The last time I went by myself and picked out cool chunky black frames. I love them.

    Now I’m both near-sighted and far-sighted, so much so that next time I will have to get noline bifocles. I’m only 29.

  12. Negative. I have no vision insurance, but I do have health insurance. My question is why these things, including dentistry, are supposedly unrelated.

  13. I’ll second the “woman looking over the glasses” thing. One of the sexiest things I can think of.

  14. You mean, my yard is made up of individual blades of grass? Go figure.

    I had the same reaction when I first got glasses with tree branches – it was wintertime and I couldn’t believe I could see each twig!

  15. I have vision insurance, and I’m using it this month to get new glasses myself. I wear contacts, but the contacts I have have worn out. I like contacts better, but I have to take them out now about five to seven hours after I put them in because one of them starts irritating my eye. Contacts aren’t covered by my insurance because they’re considered cosmetic. That sucks. I hate glasses because mine smear up so easily. I see better with contacts.

    I wonder too why visual and dental aren’t considered important enough for a lot of medical insurance coverage packages. I can’t afford to pay out of pocket for another set of contacts, so new glasses it is. My current glasses are red. I look like Sally Jessy Raphael when I have them on. Grrrr….

  16. i’ve tried that looking over the top of my glasses thing. doesn’t seem to work so well for men. well, for me anyway. the difference between my nearsightedness and farsightedness is so much that the no-line bifocals made me really dizzy. the cool thing about modern glasses is that you can get high tech dark clip-ons. choice of colors and uv shielding and polarized. the ones that cling magnetically seem best. very good for light sensitive eyes. i’ll guess your eyes are blue.

  17. I never needed glasses and was the only member of my family not to wear them. I’ve always had astigmatism, but my sight was fine. However, years of computers and reading did my eyes in.

    I realized it was going to be a problem when I went to get my license renewed at 25. I knew the next time I renewed it I would have to be wearing glasses at the time. I have no idea how I passed THIS time. (Interestingly enough, it was the DMV that initially diagnosed my astigmatism.)

    So, at the ripe old age of 26, I got glasses. They do give me the librarian look, but that works for me. *grin*

    I got mine at the optical department in a Target. Target has deals all the time where the whole shabang can cost you less than $100. I paid less, but that was only because I was an employee at the time.

  18. I should feel bad for you. But, having gotten my first pair in kindergarten, my usual reaction to adults complaining that they need to start wearing glasses is to do the eeeeevil laugh.

    Yes, I’m petty.

    But keep in mind that having such god-awful eyesight also means that my lenses have always been so thick that there was no way I could pull off the “sexy librarian’ look (even, you, know once I got old enough for it). When your eyes are distorted that much, it’s never sexy.

    “first, they totally protect your eyes”

    One of my biggest fears as a child was that my glasses would shatter and cut my eyes and blind me. Yes, they were shatter-proof, and my parents told me that, but that didn’t seem to hold as much weight as getting knocked in the side of my head countless times on the playground (will balls, not fists), and accidently popping out the lenses of who knows how many pairs, although that was usually by sitting or stepping on them.

  19. Actually, for glasses, since you replace them every 2 years (or 5, ahem, in my case) on average, vision insurance is a waste of cash. It doesn’t cover the whole cost usually, so whatever you were paying into it over time, you don’t get back. And if you had an actual opthamological emergency–like an eye injury–that *is* covered by most medical insurance, not vision. So it’s pretty much a scam, unless you buy contacts often, in which case it might be worth it.

  20. I got glasses for the first time last summer because I couldn’t thread a needle as easily as I would like to. When I first put them on, I was amazed at the amount of detail visible when I was sewing by hand. I only wear them when I’m sewing or doing things about 2 feet or less from my face, but I’m *this* close to starting to wear them while I’m at the computer. Oy! At least I’m lucky enough to have gotten glasses which are cute.

    I know we’d love to see a photo of you rockin’ the new frames.

  21. Re: oddly shaped eyeballs — WAAAAY more information than you probably need

    Eyeballs are not round; they are sort of an egg shape without the big bulge on one end. Near sighted and far sighted eyes are even less round, which is why the light coming in the eye doesn’t focus properly on the retina (the “back” of the eye, like a movie screen). Anyone with an astigmatism has an even more oddly shaped “eyeball”, although it’s actually just the clear front part, the cornea, that is shaped oddly. Most astigmatism causes a disruption in the smooth, very slightly protruding, more-or-less spherically shaped cornea. Worse astigmatism causes more corneal “warpage”. When the cornea is not the “normal” shape, contacts don’t make the right kind of contact with the cornea, and all sorts of problems happen, starting with the contacts drying out or not being able to float freely enough. Also, spectacle lenses are actually ground to counteract the astigmatism by being made thicker/thinner in very specific places depending on where the astigmatism is on the cornea. Regular contact lenses free float, so any difference in prescription would end up in totally the wrong place more often than not. Toric lenses are actually soft contacts that are weighted so that they always swing back around to the right place.

    Then there are diseases like keratoconus, which is where the cornea literally misshapes itself into an even more conical shape. Difficult to correct with lenses, impossible with contacts (as I understand it). Really, really bad cases end up getting corneal transplants, I believe.

    Nope, I’m not an ophthalmologist or an optometrist. I’ve just worked in the Ophthalmology department in a med school for the last several years and picked up a LOT by transcribing letters and looking up terms I couldn’t spell. 🙂 But so much of our vision depends on minute differences in anatomy — it’s really quite amazing that ANY of us get away with not wearing corrective lenses of some sort. Me — I’ve been wearing them since the 6th grade and needed them sooner. Nothing spectacular, just garden variety myopia and astigmatism.

    Lauren: very glad you are biting the bullet and getting glasses. Those eye-strain headaches *really* suck. Would love to see pix of you with your new eye jewelry.

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