glasses

Apparently I’m A Sissy

/ Diane Henders / 48 Comments

I’d give credit to the person who originally said “Old age ain’t for sissies”, but even Quote Investigator doesn’t know for sure who it was.  Nevertheless, the older I get, the more apt the adage seems. 

It’s bad enough that my body is staging a slow and sneaky mutiny.  First my thumbs complained about heavy work.  Then light work.  Then they started whining for no reason at all. 

Next my eyes got into the act, gradually but stubbornly focusing farther and farther away.  I’d love to write some inspiring metaphor about ‘seeing the bigger picture as I age’ or some such shit; but the truth is that no matter how big the picture is, I need reading glasses to see it.

So I got progressive lenses. They’re fine when I’m focusing at six feet or less; but as soon as I look up from my task, I shove the glasses onto the top of my head because I see better without them at a distance.  It’s not how they’re meant to be worn, but at least they’re handy whenever I need them. And it’s nice to be able to see what’s on my dinner plate, so I grudgingly accepted the glasses… until I realized they’re trying to choke me to death.

I didn’t think it was possible to be strangled by eyewear unless one was intentionally seeking a Darwin Award, so at first I didn’t recognize their diabolical plot.  I had noticed that sometimes I almost choked when I was eating something juicy, but I put it down to bolting my food too fast in my hurry to get back to work.

But it was happening more and more frequently, and I started to get concerned.  Was I developing some degenerative disease, or what?  I know swallowing can get less efficient with advancing age; but I’m not that friggin’ old.  (Or so I tell myself… shhh, leave me with my illusions!) 

But everything became clear (literally) last week, when Hubby said something at the breakfast table while I was eating an orange.  I tilted my chin up so I could focus on him through the bottom part of my lenses, and promptly choked when a tide of orange juice rushed down my throat.

Damn murderous glasses.  Can’t live with ’em; can’t see without ’em.  This aging stuff sure ain’t for sissies.

Book 17 update: I’ve got words on the page, woohoo! Chapter 1 always takes a while to write because it’s hard to provide enough backstory to orient readers without doing a boring brain-dump; but at least I’ve had 16 books’ worth of practice. 😉 Onward!

Evil Eyes

/ Diane Henders / 27 Comments

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my mouth keeps me in trouble.  I’d like to pretend it’s only my mouth that’s the problem, but now my eyes are getting into the act, too.

It started innocently enough.  One day I was out for a walk when I spotted a poster advertising “CREEPFEST”.

At the time, I questioned the necessity for a festival dedicated to creeps when pretty much any ride on the C-Train qualifies as a creepfest, but, hey, what do I know?  And anyway, I live a sheltered life.  It might have been a film festival for horror movies or something.  Later, I discovered it was actually advertising “CREEKFEST”, a family fun day down at our local Fish Creek Park.

Honest mistake.

But it got worse.  I was skimming a document online when my eyeballs snagged on the phrase “making goats is the first step toward success…”

Excuse me?

Success in what, exactly?  And do I really want to achieve the kind of success that requires me (or anyone for that matter) to screw goats as a first step?

When I re-read it, I discovered to my relief that the word in question was “goals”, not “goats”.  But apparently, making goats was indeed the first step… down a sad and sordid path.  It was only the beginning of the mutiny currently being staged by my evil eyes.

I misread a quotation:  “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to the boner”.  Granted, the original quote wasn’t exactly inspirational even when read correctly, but that extra ‘r’ on the end just didn’t help the situation at all.

I misread a friend’s tweet:  “Think I’ll take up lap-dancing”. I was halfway through a bottle of brain bleach before I realized the tweet actually read “Think I’ll take up tap-dancing”.

Which, frankly, was disturbing enough, but it didn’t actually warrant a brain cleanse.

Even my favourite recipe website wasn’t safe.  I glanced at a recipe I’d printed, and misread the header as “cocksucker” instead of “cooks.com”.  You’d think that’d be a bit of a stretch, but the “-om” was covered by another sheet of paper, so the only letters visible were “cooks.c”.  And the ‘c’ and ‘o’ are quite similar in their header font.

But still.  Come on, eyeballs, gimme a break here.

If one wanted to get all persnickety about this, one might argue that there’s nothing at all wrong with my eyes, and that the problem actually originates a couple of inches behind my eyeballs.

Our theoretical persnickety commentator might also add that if one has a more-than-passing familiarity with words like ‘boner’ and ‘lap-dancing’ and ‘cocksucker’, one can’t reasonably feign shock and outrage at reading them, whether or not they’re in appropriate context (if there is actually an “appropriate” context for those particular words).

And if those were the only words I’d misread, I’d have to concede the point.

But making goats?

Nope.  I’ll admit to being slightly warped, but I’m not that twisted.

Maybe it’s time for reading glasses.