Sunday, August 22, 2004

"Agh! My ocular eye organ!"

I can't remember which one of my friends used to say that, but we'd all bring it up all the time. The redundancy made us chuckle like the little idiots we are were. ^_^;;

Since nobody could come up with any suggestions as to what I should write about, I figured I'd touch back on something Solo remarked upon.

Ben wears contacts?

Yes. I wear contacts. I used to have glasses. Actually, I still have them in a case somewhere in my room, but I never wear them. The prescription is outdated, and my head has since changed shape. The glasses are really of no use whatsoever to me anymore.

I didn't find out that I had trouble seeing until fourth grade. Well, either that, or I hadn't damaged my eyes sufficiently until fourth grade to make a noticeable difference. I read a lot at night by flashlight when I was younger. >_>

I didn't realize the damage until part of the way through the school year, when we were copying down spelling words from the board. Or maybe it was a test or something, I don't quite remember. In either case, the words on my paper came nowhere near matching those on the board. I didn't notice the difference until I moved up closer. I remember having one thing on my paper, and then "snowman" on the board. My word was nothing like "snowman." :p

So I went in to the optometrist and got glasses prescribed. My first pair I thought were really cool. I picked out ones with blue, brown, and goldish marble coloring on the sides, and a sort of intricate vine design on the metal near the lenses. They were awesome.

Eventually, though, the colorful sides that I coveted grew to be too small for me, and I had to have them replaced. By default, they replaced them with utilitarian metal ones, with no special markings of any kind. :(

A few years later, when I started doing soccer and track, I got a new pair of glasses. What was really neat about these glasses, was that they had a special feature to help keep them from breaking. The sides of the glasses, the little sticks of metal that hold onto your ears to keep the lenses on, they could bend out.

Not just flex outwards, but they could actually shift into a position horizontal with the lenses. They looked liked somebody had run them over whenever I pulled them out. It was fun, as I could take off my glasses, extend either side, and poke somebody a foot or two away with it. =D

Also, I could bend the sides out, and then balance the glasses on my nose. If I was lucky, I could manage the feat while sitting upright, and I would have the sides of my glasses sticking straight out on either side of my head. This continued on until shortly after eighth grade.

I had glasses up until my second day of high school. On the first day, Freshman Orientation, I was still wearing my glasses. After school on that day, though, I had an appointment to pick up my contacts and learn how to put them in and take them out. I'd spend one day of Freshman year with glasses on. Nobody even remembered that I had worn them the first day. ^_^;;

Putting contacts in for the first time is a very tricky business. Your eyes, at first, instinctively close every time you put something within a close distance of them. So, I blinked the contacts off of my finger many times before I learned how to secure my eyelids with my fingers before putting the contact in.

The employee who was supposed to show me how to do it acted a great deal like Ben Stein. He was bored, and disinterested. He stared off into space, and absently refreshed the dish of contact solution I had to keep rinsing the lenses in. He didn't offer and help, really, but instead mouthed the obvious over and over again.

You're supposed to do it this way.

I know, I'm trying! >:o

When I finally managed to get both of them in, I was teary-eyed and my eyes felt raw. At first, it really stings to be poking yourself in the eye. But after putting contacts in them for several years now, I don't really feel a thing. I can poke my eye right now, eyelids open, and not really feel any stress.

Heh, then I had to show the guy that I could take the contacts out. Taking them out was a bit easier, especially since I was more adept by that point in maneuvering my eyelids and the rest. Taking them out is just a matter of sliding them to a side and having it sort of fold a bit. Then you just gently pull it out, rinse it off, and store it in a container of solution for the night.

I've considered getting laser eye correction surgery or whatnot, but at this point my contacts don't bother me all that much. Every now and then they feel rather dry and icky, but then I can just take them out and store them for the night. Sleeping with them in is moderately awful, as well. Not only is it hard, as the contacts tend to prop my eyes open, but waking up with them in is a rather bad experience. The normal tiredness you feel in your eyes after waking up is amplified several times, and you can't get rid of it for what seems like too long a time.

One of the bad things, I think, about wearing contacts, is that they sort of prop my eyes open. My eyes don't get tired as easily, or at least they don't feel so tired. This contributes to several late nights, as I rarely take out my contacts anytime except right before I go to bed. Perhaps if I took them out earlier I could get to sleep earlier? Maybe. I don't know.

Remind me next time, to tell you about the "Superior Sayings."

They're worth a good laugh.
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