Overheard in the elevator

Girl: ...cows are just stupid.

Guy: So that makes it okay to eat them?

Girl: Well, yeah.

*pause*

Girl: You know, what would solve the world hunger problem is if we ate all the stupid people.

Guy: There'd be very few people left.

New glasses

My new glasses came in today. They are going to take some getting used to. My long-suffering old glasses have these big, round lenses, but the new ones have small, rectangular lenses, so that if I'm looking straight ahead, I can see just fine, but if I look up or down, I can't see shit. I think they'll be fine once I get used to them. They look much better on me than the old ones did! They have sort of a sophisticated, scholarly look to them. I guess I'll be wearing them most of the time now, so I hope I get used to the new lens shape soon. The real test will be driving in them. Yikes.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night...

Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night

Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

(Sarah McLachlan)



Wow, you're a black bird. Blackbirds hold the
gateway between the natural and spiritual
worlds, ever urging us to become more
self-aware. Your melodious song calls to the
twilight and will keep you safe during
difficult changes.


What druid animal are you?
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Happy Birthday to me

First, a haiku:

Thirty-five -- at least
half a lifetime slipped away
never to return.


Well, it wasn't a bad birthday, as birthdays go. I spent the morning at the eye doctor, undergoing all kinds of freaky tests with flashing lights and random instruments being jabbed into my eyeballs, and such. The verdict is that I can still wear contact lenses, but sparingly. When my new glasses come in, I am supposed to wear them most of the time, but may wear contacts on occasion. I suppose the news could have been worse. I'm high-risk for glaucoma, but so far, so good. I'm supposed to go back every six months for a check-up. I did manage to get a good start on Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire while in the waiting room in between tests, so the morning was not a total wash.

I got to work at around lunchtime, and found some gifts and birthday cards from my co-workers on my chair, which was nice. Last year, absolutely nobody remembered my birthday except for my message board friends. One of the attorneys had lunch at Katz's and brought back a positively sinful birthday cake for me -- a chocolate cake layered with white and dark chocolate mousse. I ate half of a slice and I believe I got my chocolate quota for the entire coming year. After work, my parents took me out for dinner and we had a nice time catching up with each other -- I hadn't had the chance to see them much over the past few months.

So, all in all, not a bad birthday.

My eyesight may suck, but I'm smart!

While I was meeting with the optician yesterday, trying on glasses frames, etc., she mentioned something to cheer me up about my shitty eyesight. I have a ridiculously high degree of myopia, and she told me that studies have shown that the greater the myopia, the higher the IQ. I decided to Google this today, and found several studies online which back up what she told me. Here's one of them:

It is also known that myopia is associated with higher IQ (see Cohn et al. 1988 for a review). Empirically, it does not appear that this association is caused by a greater degree of "nearwork" (e.g., reading) in higher IQ subjects. Furthermore, behavior genetic studies point to a clear genetic influence on variance in ocular refraction (Cohn et al. 1988). In contrast to the situation for height and IQ, the myopia/IQ association is also found within families. Cohn et al. (1988) showed that higher IQ siblings also tend to have a greater degree of myopia, even though the lower IQ siblings tended to spend more time studying and read more books on average. A pleiotropic relationship, in which genetic influences on IQ also influence the incidence of myopia, would appear to be the most likely explanation in this case.

Everyone in my family is nearsighted as hell, but we're all pretty damn smart. I guess that explains it. :)

A brief reprieve

Whew!

When I returned to the eye doctor's office today, I was given a pair of temporary contact lenses to wear until my new glasses come in. Thank G-d! I was really afraid that I was going to have a traffic accident if I had to continue driving while wearing my ten-year-old glasses.

These new temporary lenses are great! Much better prescription than the contacts that were confiscated yesterday. Oh, and, um... it turns out that the confiscated pair, which was given to me in June of 2003, was meant to be worn for only a month and then discarded. It was never meant for long-term wear. It seems I was supposed to return for a follow-up two weeks after they gave me that pair, to receive a prescription, and I never did. I have no idea why not. In my own defense, that was shortly after I'd been diagnosed with RA and I was getting used to all sorts of crazy drugs and had doctor appointments and lab work out the wazoo, so I guess it just slipped my mind. Oooops. No wonder Dr. Henderson was so ticked off at me yesterday.

Anyhow, I return to Dr. Henderson on the 17th for more tests and stuff, and vow to henceforth take my eye care much more seriously.

He confiscated my contacts!

Ack!

He's been threatening to do this for years.

Sigh.

It seems that my eyes don't do well with contact lenses. They don't get enough oxygen, or something, so the blood vessels in my eyes have started growing underneath the surface of the contact lenses, to get more oxygen under there, which is apparently a very bad thing. He warned me about this several years ago and said that if the blood vessels continued to grow inward over the lens of my eye, they would eventually interfere with my vision. It seems that they are now close enough that he doesn't want me wearing contacts any more. Goddammit.

He told me that he has other patients with this same problem, but that mine is by far the worst he's seen.

Why? Why? Why me?

He wrote me a new glasses prescription, and the lady in the, um, optical? The place where you get your glasses? Whatever. Anyway, she helped me pick out some frames that actually do look pretty good on me, I think, and she promised me super-thin lenses, but they won't be ready for about three weeks, and in the meantime, I have to wear my old glasses. And when I say "old," I mean really old. These things are nine or ten years old. I think I got them in 1995. They are not very flattering, and the prescription is so outdated that I had a lot of trouble driving home in them and was afraid I was going to have a wreck. I hope I make it through the next three weeks without an accident! Yikes!

Plus, I have to go back tomorrow morning and then again in ten days for more tests and shit. Ugh.

I told you I hate going to the eye doctor!

The Eye Doctor

So, partly in an effort to get to the bottom of what is causing my migraines, and partly because it has been over two years since my last visit to the eye doctor, and I'm badly in need of new contact lens and glasses prescriptions, I am going to the eye doctor this afternoon.

I loathe going to the eye doctor.

I would rather go to any other doctor. Any other doctor at all. I'd rather go to the dentist.

The eye doctor always makes me feel like a failure. First, he tells me how screwed up my eyes are (I have various bizarre medical issues with my eyes), frets about the possibility of glaucoma, and threatens me with laser surgery. Then there's the glaucoma test (ugh -- the pressing of some sort of instrument right up against my eyeball), the pupil dilation, the shining of freakishly bright lights into my eyes (which always makes them hurt and water up a storm and has the potential to bring on another migraine), etc. Then, he starts in with the "which is better, one or two? Okay, two or three?" bullshit, and I can never tell much of a difference, so I end up trying to guess. "Ummmmmm, one? No, two! I think. Hell, I don't know! They look the same to me!" Then, as if that weren't enough humiliation for one day, when he thinks he has found the right prescription for me, he makes me read the eye chart. "Okay, can you read this line here?" He points at, like, the fifth line down. "Um. No. I can read the first line (the big "E") and the second line, and I can kinda make out some of the third line, but that's about it. Sorry."

Ugh. Finally, with a note of disappointment in his voice, he gives up, writes my prescriptions, and sends me on my way.

I loathe going to the eye doctor. I'd rather go to the gynecologist. It's uncomfortable, and kind of icky, but at least I don't feel like a failure at the gynecologist.

Sigh.

Philip Bourke Marston (1850-1887)

It must have been for one of us, my own,
To drink this cup and eat this bitter bread.
Had not my tears upon thy face been shed,
Thy tears had dropped on mine; if I alone
Did not walk now, thy spirit would have known
My loneliness; and did my feet not tread
This weary path and steep, thy feet had bled
For mine, and thy mouth had for mine made moan:
And so it comforts me, yea, not in vain,
To think of thine eternity of sleep;
To know thine eyes are tearless though mine weep:
And when this cup's last bitterness I drain,
One thought shall still its primal sweetness keep,--
Thou hadst the peace and I the undying pain.

The Penalty of Love

If love should count you worthy, and should deign
One day to seek your door and be your guest,
Pause! ere you draw the bolt and bid him rest,
If in your old content you would remain.
For not alone he enters: in his train
Are angels of the mists, the lonely quest,
Dreams of the unfulfilled and unpossessed.
And sorrow, and life's immemorial pain.
He wakes desires you never may forget,
He shows you stars you never saw before,
He makes you share with him for evermore,
The burden of the world's divine regret
How wise were you to open not!--and yet,
How poor if you should turn him from the door.

~Sidney Royse Lysaght

Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

Frankincense and Myrrh

My heart is tuned to sorrow, and the strings
Vibrate most readily to minor chords,
Searching and sad; my mind is stuffed with words
Which voice the passion and the ache of things:
Illusions beating with their baffled wings
Against the walls of circumstance, and hoards
Of torn desires, broken joys; records
Of all a bruised life's maimed imaginings.
Now you are come! You tremble like a star
Poised where, behind earth's rim, the sun has set.
Your voice has sung across my heart, but numb
And mute, I have no tones to answer. Far
Within I kneel before you, speechless yet,
And life ablaze with beauty, I am dumb.

To a Violet

Though not the gaudy Tulip's drap'ry fine,
Yet thou, fair plant, canst Tyre's rich purple boast;
The beauty of the amethyst is thine;
Thy neat and simple garb delights me most;
Unseen and shadowy forms of tiny size,
Delicious dew-drops from thy surface sip,
Feast on thy charms their microscopic eyes,
And breathe thy sweets, as o'er thy leaves they trip.
Emblem of innocence and modest worth,
Who lov'st the eye of rude remark to shun,
Whose lovely, lowly form still tends to earth.
Unlike the flower which courts the mid-day sun;
Thou seem'st sweet flow'ret, of his beam afraid;--
Thus merit ever loves and seeks the shade.

~Samuel Low (1765-?)

Archibald Lampman (1861-1899)

Not to be conquered by these headlong days,
But to stand free: to keep the mind at brood
On life's deep meaning, nature's altitude
Of loveliness, and time's mysterious ways;
At every thought and deed to clear the haze
Out of our eyes, considering only this,
What man, what life, what love, what beauty is,
This is to live, and win the final praise.
Though strifes, ill fortune, and harsh human need
Beat down the soul, at moments blind and dumb
With agony; yet, patience--there shall come
Many great voices from life's outer sea,
Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed,
Murmurs and glimpses of eternity.

Fanny Kemble (1809-1893)

A Petition

Lady, whom my belovéd loves so well!
When on his clasping arm thy head reclineth,
When on thy lips his ardent kisses dwell,
And the bright flood of burning light that shineth
In his dark eyes, is poured into thine;
When thou shalt lie enfolded to his heart
In all the trusting helplessness of love;
If in such joy sorrow can find a part,
Oh, give one sigh unto a doom like mine!
Which I would have thee pity, but not prove.
One cold, calm, careless, wintry look that fell
Haply by chance on one, is all that he
Ever gave my love; round that, my wild thoughts dwell
In one eternal pang of memory.