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Glasses
Thursday, February 09, 2006

Originally posted on Spacegirl on Thursday 28 June 01

I need new glasses. I'm not only bored with my old frames (rectangular faux tortoise shell), I can no longer focus through them. That's a problem. It's also very scary, since my eyesight has steadily deteriorated since I started wearing glasses in the fourth grade. Back then I only needed them to see the black board, now I can't even read a book with out them. And I'm not talking a book held at arms length. I need to hold the book nearly 3 inches away from my face to miraculously change the rows of fuzzy caterpillars into lines of text.

When I was a kid I had no real choice of what glasses I ended up with. Medicaid covered them, but I could only choose from the three cheapest, ugliest frames the eye doctor kept hidden away in a dusty drawer, ready to spring on some poor, disadvantaged kid such as myself. I grew up hating glasses. Each year my eyes appeared smaller and smaller as a result of the reverse magnification of my myopic lenses. I rejoiced when I was old enough to get contacts, which I have worn sporadically over the ensuing years. Since I now work almost exclusively on computers, contacts have become an annoyance. My eyes dry out from all the staring that's involved in what I do for a living. But it's summer and I hate the feeling of hot, heavy (remember, my lenses are thick) glasses sliding down my sweat drenched nose. I've also never been able to find frames that look "right" on me. I wanted to find the perfect pair: glasses that would enhance my over all look, not stick out like they were a detriment pasted on my face like a tragic afterthought.

Today I decided to shop for the perfect specs. I braved the 95° weather and walked down Spring Street in search of an optometrist. I knew there were several in my neighborhood, but I can never remember where. I see vision stores every where I look, until I really need one. I walked all the way down to West Broadway and into Morgenthal-Frederics. I'd been there last year, when I wanted contacts, which I was politely informed they do not sell. Okay. So today I walked in and was immediately pounced on by this bald, gay man who asked if I needed any help. I gave him my usual noncommittal smile.

"I'm just looking."

"Yes, well the frames we have out are not all the frames we have, they are but a fraction of our inventory. Let me know if you would like to see something specific."

I smiled and walked around looking at, well, sunglasses mostly. That's what they had out. 'Tis the season. There was a pretty woman at the counter trying on these rather odd looking glasses; they were small and perfectly round, with a long nosepiece in between the lenses. The conversation between her and the salesman was intense. It was more like she was looking to buy Manhattan real estate, not a pair of glasses.

The bald man accosted me again.

"Are you looking for plastic or wire?"

"Plastic."

"Any particular style?"

"Yeah, I want something cat-like, but not too harsh."

He started opening little metal drawers, the kind that look like they belong in an olde tyme apothecary shoppe.

"What color do you prefer?"

"Brownish."

He selected five frames, then walked over to the counter and took out a sixth pair, which he showed to the other salesman with a knowing smile.

"We can use this mirror over here."

I sat down on an old metal and wood school chair in front of large, beveled mirror. He gave me the glasses one by one, all the while appraising the effect they had on my face.

"Oh, those look very nice."

"No, those are too angular for you face."

"These are like the other pair, but less angular."

I knew I hit the jackpot the second the right pair slid up the bridge of my nose. Cat-eyed, but not terribly pointy, no awkward upward swoop at the outer edge. Thankfully there were no rhinestones, although they did have glasses with rhinestones in the window. I'd like to point out that these particular glasses were the ones my bald salesman was so subtly emphatic about when he took them out of the counter case.

"Yes, we just made them in that color, they come in several other colors as well."

"Can I see the other colors?"

"Of course!"

He walked away and I put the glasses on and took them off again. A man wearing thick black rims and holding a camera looked at me. For moment I thought I looked so fabulous in the glasses that he would surely take my picture. Of course, he didn't. Then I noticed the price tag affixed to the inside of one of the arms.

$365.

That's more than I paid for my last pair of glasses, frames and lenses combined. My glasses tend to be very expensive, thanks to my insanely poor vision. I always splurge on high index lenses, the ones that whittle my coke bottles down to, well, thinner coke bottles. Anyway, the last frames I bought cost $150. For a moment I considered taking my wallet and running out of the store.

He came back with four variations on the perfect-glasses-theme and, one by one, I tried them on. None looked as good on me as the original pair, although the navy blue ones were pretty spiffy.

"These look nice," I said.

"Yes," he sighed, "I don't know about you, but I have forty pairs of glasses at home, like I have forty different ties. Well, not that I'm wearing a tie today." He wasn't. "But the navy blue, they're seasonal. They look very nice because you're wearing short sleeves. The brown will go with more outfits."

While he was rattling on and on all I could think was that at $365 a pop–just for the frames–I can't imagine I'll ever buy another pair of glasses. Ever again.

I was somehow deluding myself that the lenses wouldn't cost that much. I mean, the frames already cost more than my last pair of glasses, the lenses couldn't be that expensive, right?

Right.

The total topped off just over, Lord it pains me to say this, eight hundred dollars. Is this how the other half lives? Spending eight hundred dollars on glasses? Have I gone insane? I think I just might have, because the next thing you know, I was handing Mr. Forty-Pairs-Of-Glasses my MasterCard.

Could it be that I am making up for all the ugly nerd glasses I've had inflicted on my face for the past twenty years? Maybe. But damn, those frames make me look good. And I don't just look good–I look good in glasses. I guess that's my rationalization. Uh, yeah. Sure. That's it.

Good thing Oxford Health Care has that vision $120 reimbursement. I think it will definitely take the edge off. Yeah. Right.

posted at 6:24 PM . link to this post .

. (5) comments

5 Comments:

hi ! i'm a french boy and i'm very attracted by myopic girls with glasses. how much is your myopia and is your sight stabilized or not ? you can write to me at grand.michel@voila.fr
i'll be very enjoyed to read you soon
kisses
Michel

By michel, at 2/11/2006 1:20 PM

Michel,

Thanks for your comments. I don't know my prescription off hand, but it's something like -8. Pretty bad, in my opinion.

-A

By Angela, at 2/11/2006 2:16 PM

Part of the problem with me liking to leave long comments is that sometimes it takes me a while to get around to doing so. I think it was Friday that I said that I was going to comment on this post. So, here we are...

[[[[[[[[ It's also very scary, since my eyesight has steadily deteriorated since I started wearing glasses in the fourth grade. Back then I only needed them to see the black board, now I can't even read a book with out them. And I'm not talking a book held at arms length. I need to hold the book nearly 3 inches away from my face to miraculously change the rows of fuzzy caterpillars into lines of text. ]]]]]]]

Isn't that amazing and disturbing at the same time? Like you, I started only wearing them on an as-needed-to-see-the-blackboard basis. I could function in day to day life without them, and I certainly could read without them. After all, my issue was/is distance. And yet, now any distance over about 2 inches starts becoming compromised. Arms-length is impossible.

I believe (my unscientific, un-researched belief) the deterioration is caused by use of the glasses. Your eyes stop trying, they become dependent on the lenses (more so). I started wearing glasses full-time in 11th grade, but I only did that because I went to contact lenses, and you can't exactly poop them in and out of your eyes all day between bouts of seeing the blackboard. Funny, I thought contacts were only for people who needed glasses 24-7, so I didn't consider them. But then I was at the eye doctor one day and he and my mother were like, "Do you want contacts?" My reaction was something like, "Um...uh...yeah...sure." My sister—whose eyes had been terrible since kindergarden—had to practically beg my folks for permission to switch to contacts. But that had been 5 years earlier and I guess a lot had changed. So, I became a contact lens wearer—and that was the last time I was ever able to do my normal routine without wearing corrective lenses.

I don't know if my eyes would have deteriorated anyway, but I don't think the full-time-wearing-thing helped. It probably sped thing up.

[[[[[[ When I was a kid I had no real choice of what glasses I ended up with. Medicaid covered them, but I could only choose from the three cheapest, ugliest frames the eye doctor kept hidden away in a dusty drawer, ready to spring on some poor, disadvantaged kid such as myself. I grew up hating glasses. ]]]]]

This is such a common story. You hear this all the time. People don't understand that "back in the day," getting stylish glasses (especially as a child whose parents either couldn't or wouldn't pony up the cash) was damn near impossible. Fortunately, I didn't experience this firsthand, but I know lots of people who did.

[[[[ I have worn [contact lenses] sporadically over the ensuing years. Since I now work almost exclusively on computers, contacts have become an annoyance. My eyes dry out from all the staring that's involved in what I do for a living. ]]]]]]

Yup, that's my story, as well. I was already starting to get sick of having dried out eyes and such before I started working with computers as much as I do, but the computer thing was the nail in the proverbial contact coffin. Last time I was at the eye doctor, he basically said it was crazy for someone with my astigmatism and tear count and other weird issues that I don't quite get to be even considering wearing them. So now I wear them very rarely. I can't remember the last time I put them in.

[[[[ Good thing Oxford Health Care has that vision $120 reimbursement. I think it will definitely take the edge off. Yeah. Right. ]]]]

Isn't it funny how little glasses are covered by most major insurance plans? Yeah, seeing is a luxury—they needn't cover that, right?

[[[[[ By the way, don't apologize for leaving long comments! I think that's great. It means someone out there is actually reading my silly rants. It's funny when the comments are way longer than the original post. ]]]]]]

That's kind of my calling card and something that a lot of people rib me about—long posts, long emails, long letters, long responses. I don't know why, I've always been like that. I'm not even all that talkative, but few people match my uneconomical writing habits. At any rate, glad to hear you enjoy getting the comments.

Did you appear in the Times this weekend?

By Steve, at 2/13/2006 10:32 AM

When I first started wearing glasses, the eye doctor said my eyes would eventually stabilize and then would probably get better! HA! That seems like a fairy tale, but my oldest brother actually wore glasses as an adolescent and now he doesn't have to. I don't know the mechanics of that, but I guess he's just lucky.

I agree that wearing glasses = needing glasses, but it happened so gradually for me. Even when I wore contacts, I didn't wear them every day, but by that time I needed my glasses full time. The last time I wore contacts was to a wedding last New Year's Eve. They weren't even the right prescription, and I cursed my stupid vanity because I was squinting all night. I have two issues with weddings: I don't wear glasses to them and I don't wear my hair curly. I only did that once and the pictures are horrid. I have another wedding to go to this July and unfortunately, I'm going to have to do both. I'm really not going to bother buying a million dollar pair of contacts for one day and there is no way in hell I'm going to even attempt to blow my hair out in July.

When I first started wearing glasses, back in the fourth grade, I wasn't really concerned with fashion. I didn't care what I looked like and I wasn't afraid of anyone making fun of me. Wearing glasses seemed like a stupid thing to ridicule someone about. I remember I got home from the eye doctor and went up to my brother's room and I looked out the window. I saw a blue jay in a tree outside. I took the glasses off and the bird disappeared. Then I put them on again and there he was. I thought it was a miracle.

I wasn't in the Times this weekend. Maybe next Sunday. I'll let you know.

By Angela, at 2/14/2006 3:05 PM

Angela,

You mentioned you believe your eye sight is getting worse because of wearing glasses or contacts. Many people agree with you. Google "vision improvement with weaker glasses" for some interesting articles. I hope this is useful for you.

By Anonymous, at 11/15/2006 12:58 PM