okay. this is fun.

[fflo]

Well, this this, which is my first time on the computer, isn't exactly fun. In fact it's quite tricky to type to you at the moment---or to see what I've typed, in the swirling pool in front of me. But having these progressive focus eyeglass lenses tonight has been some (mild) wild fun. "Don't look down," they told me, "on stairs or at curbs"--- but that's half the fun! Losing balance, getting dizzy. That and warping the whole world with just a little side-to-side head action. World portrait in a concave mirror. Waves and bulges and a visual reality that matches my inner vision much better than what you see through regular glasses. Here's one big surprise about why: since the edges have much less prescription, what used to be the sharp switching point between fuzzy and crisp, at the edges of lenses, is now just part of the transition. Between that factor and the waves of focus inside the lenses themselves, it's all a big fluid mess. Just like life.

Switching up the lyric I couldn't quite get behind the other day, I can get behind this: Everything is messy and convoluted, and that is beautiful. Or entertaining, anyway, since the novelty's not worn off. Novelty being a good thing, sometimes.

Not to BS too. I do basically want my glasses to be functional assistants to everyday vision, rather than poetically appropos characterizers of reality. But they really did pick me up tonight. There I'd been, leaving the office feeling all morose & dishelvelled (I can't see well enough to look that up---is that a word?) & in a bit of a funk, trying to get past it or through it or something, but thinking maybe it wasn't even the time to pick up my specs. And then I hadn't had them five minutes before the goofy fun set in. House of mirrors, roller coaster, elements of style big-time. How I managed to enjoy it I wish I knew. It's easy to forget, when you're enjoying, how hard it can be to enjoy. And it's easy to forget, when you're not enjoying, how easy it can be to enjoy.

Just to be facile in yet another offhand way.

Had a drink on Main w/E & O (E just got a great internship for a big hunk of next year) and then went w/BFD to Ikea, which was a great visual environment for this trippy whoa-wooooo lens thing. Lots of things in rows and columns, and patterns, and contrasting colors, with a great variety of focal distances to choose from to aim at. We also sat next to a big glass window looking down over the parking lot, for more good visuals. Playing with my eyeballs may have made me a less absorbed conversational partner than usual. But it was hard, even given the good talk of a sort I enjoy a lot, to stop breaking out in lens tripping.

Now this computer thing is going to be a challenge. I'm already thinking of aabassplayer's computer-distance-only glasses, and wondering whether some such might behoove. But basically what I'd like to report to ya'll from a first night with multi-focals is this: I'm not nauseous yet, or headachey, and in the "real" world they're actually kind of fun.

It's the right honeydew, btw, I found out today. With the area of concern. In case you were wondering. Doesn't seem to me any different from its sisterly melon. Though I haven't yet investigated with any great effort.

Here's to a more engaged tomorrow. In all its nauseating dizzy trippy headache fluidity.

Comments

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

Last week, I contracted a case of labyrinthitis, a fancifully-named inner ear virus (that involves disappointingly little Jennifer Connolly), so I got the fun sensation of the constant dizzies too! It stopped being fun after about half a day, though, in my case, because I couldn't stop it and it made even moving my eyeballs a nausea-inducing task... but it was kinda nifty for awhile there, so I can relate!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, yeah. Sounds limited in its pleasures, for sure! Love the name, though. And the JC line.

You bring to mind that MR's own SKB has been felled by a chronic vertigo sort of condition of unpredictable prognosis. It long since stopped being fun for her. Yes, I think I'll vote limited duration, please.

May I assume you're all better now? You know, relatively, and in terms of that one condition, anyway?

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

I don't remember an SKB, but send her my best wishes. It can be fairly unpleasant, I gather. ('Course, I'm doing the gathering by watching Liza Minelli's parts on Arrested Development, but the principle is the same...)

Yeah, I'm pretty much better. They gave me pills to take the dizzies away, pills to take the migraines away, some that just say "DRINK ME"... So I think homeostasis will be achived shortly!