It's a slow day because it's so goddamned hot.

I wear very dirty glasses. Somebody should do something about that.

Remember, sucking on ice cubes cools your blood via your tongue. More effective than drinking ice water. I almost did a post on that, as well.

Two years ago I got my vision tested for the first time in something like a decade to see if I could finally have glasses, which I have always wanted. No dice. (Yes, people who actually need glasses usually slap me at this point.)

I got glasses the first time my vision got tested, the pre-K screening. My son was the same way.

1: The heat sucks. I came home so tired that I was barely coherent.

I had to walk kind of far to a nursing home/skilled rehab facility. When I asked for some water, I got told "In this heat, you should really carry a water bottle." They did eventually give me some water.

I was sort of disgusted, because my client did not have air conditioning in his room, and getting him something to drink was kind of a challenge too.

I didn't need glasses til I was my late 20s or something and reading teeny-tiny-accent-and-diacritical-having ancient Greek all the livelong day. Now I have proto-bifocals (prescription up top, nothing on bottom).

I miss contacts -- they never bothered me until I hit thirty, and since then they've been unwearable. (Every few years I try again, in case contacts have changed, and they still drive me nuts.)

I kinda barely need glasses. I wear them all the time now, except when running. This morning I accidentally forgot to take them off before going running, and it was annoying, because I got incredibly sweaty, and I hate sweating a lot while wearing these glasses. So I carried them in my hand. Good story, right?

9: I bet you walked right by a blurry five dollar bill.

Two years ago I got my vision tested for the first time in something like a decade to see if I could finally have glasses, which I have always wanted. No dice. (Yes, people who actually need glasses usually slap me at this point.)

I don't want to have to always have bad eyesight, but sometimes I'd like to wear glasses, only I'd want to need them on those days so that I'm not an Urban Outfitters asshole who wears clear glass glasses as an affect.

Surely sucking on and drinking an equal number of ice cubes would cool your body the same amount.

8: Me also, except that they started bothering me at about 27 or so and I stopped trying them completely by 30.

One of my eyes is less than perfect. I blame the bad eye when I can't catch a ball, etc. I've never needed glasses, though lately I have been finding that when I increase the font size in my terminal windows, things become... oddly easier to read?

I bet the ice cube trick goes double for dogs, since they cool themselves primarily via the tongue! My dog loves ice and ALSO she has one bad eye (a congenital cataract). I blame her bad eye when she can't catch a peanut or when she's afraid of walking on certain stairs - but she's also just a spaz.

I ate a ginormous almond croissant this morning (because I needed quarters for the parking meter, see). But now I get to go do wall balls and stuff to undo the horrors. What do I hate the most, burpees, wall balls, or jumping rope (not because it's grueling but because I'm terrible at it)? Probably burpees, but wall balls suck, and usually all the 10 lb balls get taken and I have to use a 12 lb :( :( :( :(

Glasses. I'm extremely short sighted, to the extent that I'm non-functional without them and if I can't find them in the morning I get sent into a panic. I wore contacts for a brief while in my late teens, but a combination of being incredibly lazy and so astigmatic that (at the time, maybe it's changed) I couldn't use disposable contacts meant I've never bothered since.

I got glasses in grad school. Only one eye actually needs a corrective lens. The other is 20/20. Unfortunately monocles are out of style.

Last year I got my eyes checked for the first time in many years and my vision apparently hasn't changed since I first got the glasses.

The real question is do pretty girls look better with or without the glasses. Maybe the subtle distortion from the non 20/20 eye adds some je ne se qua.

I should investigate.

Yahoo's new CEO appears to be a stone fox. I'm not sure how looking that good would affect your career in Silicon Valley. It would attract nothing buy harassment and jealous misogyny from slashdot type nerds. But maybe things at the executive level work more like regular boardrooms than slashdot.

I also noticed that Salon refers to her by her first name, which I don't think they'd do for a male executive. On the other hand, I'm in no position to criticize, since I probably wouldn't have even noticed this story if a pretty woman weren't involved.

I'd buy a set of William Gibson-novel-esque genetically-engineered replacement eyeballs with a speed rivaling that of the progress of a Fiona Apple CD through a mid-'90s women's college.

Somebody should make shirts where the fabric of the belly is specially designed to clean glasses by friction alone.

Unfortunately monocles are out of style.

Be the change &c

17: She has spent circa 10 years building her brand as a personal one in and out of Google and SV, so the media identifying her in personal terms at this crucial career juncture is, I think, identifiable as a mark of success for that strategy.

Unfortunately monocles are out of style.

Change has to start somewhere, AL.

20: In this case, let's just don't.

Surely sucking on and drinking an equal number of ice cubes would cool your body the same amount.

Thermodynamically, that does seem like it would be the case. I can only assume the chill escapes through your belly button, sabotaging the the drinking cold water method.

prescription up top, nothing on bottom

Gentlemenz.

I can only assume the chill escapes through your belly button, sabotaging the the drinking cold water method.

And fogging up your glasses.

Monocle is fun to read while traveling. Also, I enjoy the irony of its assimilation of contemporary shibboleths of sustainability, locality and livability into the usual executive-class pretensions.

17: I'm not sure how looking that good would affect your career in Silicon Valley.

This story on "Tales from the Trenches" really left me gobsmacked. Knowing that some nerds are horrible people does not prepare one for just how horrible it can get.

No glasses. Nearsighted in one eye, farsighted in the other.

Somehow I was under the impression that Marissa Mayer was only like two years older than I am, which made "CEO of Yahoo" sound kind of insanely precocious. But it turns out she's older than I thought. And then I found 5 dollars.

I wear glasses. Never tried contacts.

30: Try wearing two monocles as an intermediate step to contact lenses.

Apropos, I have never met an ophthalmologist (and, for reasons associated with the unequal radii of my pupils, I've met several over the past few years) who had had, or recommended, laser eye surgery.

I've never met an orthodontist who said, "fuck it, your teeth are crooked but it doesn't hurt anything."

two monocles

"Bicles"?

"Bicles"?

And "hoes"?

I guess I wound up falling for the vision insurance thing - I didn't realize what I'm getting is the same one Knecht was talking about. But does anyone know whether it's a similar situation (or, perhaps, a ripoff for different reasons) with insurers other than EyeMed/Luxottica? VSP, for example? Benefits election time is coming up, so this could actually help me.

Of course, since I used the same pair of glasses for several years, and just used my insurance to get a new pair, perhaps I should just cancel it altogether now.

an Urban Outfitters asshole who wears clear glass glasses as an affect.

I bought some but felt funny wearing them so I never do.

I used to wear glasses, from about the age of 14 up to 32. Then I got laser eye surgery. Still the best money I ever spent. As a bonus, I looked better without glasses (not necessarily true for everyone but true for me). I've noticed though that the guys I am attracted to are often wearers of glasses.

Nearsighted (-4.something). Got glasses in 4th grade, contacts in 6th grade, switched to rigid gas permeable contacts in 8th grade, which I still wear now.

32: my surgeon was/is a consultant ophthalmologist & a professor.

36: It's not really an insurable kind of risk, so I don't see how any other insurer could do it differently from what KR is talking about. The person buying the insurance knows their need for glasses prior to buying the insurance so the insurance is priced by assuming everybody using the insurance gets treated.

I end up wearing glasses for a good part of the day in June, when allergies make my contacts all gunky, and sometimes in the winter when my eyes get too dry. Shopping for glasses reveals what a freakishly narrow head I have. I got an amazing pair of green frames a few years ago for way cheap because it was too small to fit any other adult's head. But now my Rx has changed, and it is way cheaper to get entirely new glasses for $90 from Warby Parker than it is to replace the lenses in the green frames.

My glasses are getting all dirty and scratched up and hard to see through. Is there anything that can be done? Run them through a belt sander or something (using only fine-grained sandpaper, obviously)?

It was a slow day / And the sun was beating / On the soldiers by the side of the road

Thinking about pretty women, reminds me that I've been mulling over a conversation that I overheard at the gym. I should note that when I first started going to the gym I felt uncomfortable and out of place, as I was, and that this feeling was always exacerbated when I would see people, of either sex, who clearly spent lots of time making themselves attractive. I also felt vaguely nervous around the serious body-builders, but the people who are not just attractive but who clearly go through life being the most attractive person in the room, make me anxious.

So, a couple days ago I was listening to a conversation between a gorgeous woman in her early 20s and an attractive man who was a couple of years older and she made a comment about working at [some place I didn't catch] and that, "I stand around and look good. That's basically my job." Then she made a comment about hoping to do [something] which would let her get tips and then the two of them started joking about how well she would do on tips, and then I wondered off.

It just struck me as an example of the fact that people respond to incentives. She wasn't lazy (she made a comment about going to the gym every day) but she correctly realized that there were significant incentives available for her to "stand around and look good." That still a perspective on the world that I have a very difficult time imagining or empathizing with, but listening to that conversation I understood the rationality of it, rather than seeing it as an affectation or vanity.

Can we have a thread where people teach me about "vapor lock"? Because I was driving down a mountain yesterday and my engine started repeatedly cutting out. Many terrifying minutes later, I found an exit ramp where there was a tiny general store and nothing else except my savior, a random dude who told me it was probably vapor lock and to loosen my gas cap.

The rest of the trip was uneventful but I guess I should go to a mechanic or something before I try to drive back to the east coast...

Run them through a belt sander or something

There is no way this can go wrong.

46: oO? What if he doesn't take them off first? Didn't think of *that*, did you, smartypants?

I started wearing glasses at this job because I couldn't read license plates and other text at distance. Never tried contacts, don't like the idea of touching my own eyeball. Thank god our heat is dry here. Kevlar + navy blue uniform already makes for a sweaty summer. Doing it with humidity on top would make me want to shoot myself.

It's one of those Catch-22 situations. If you actually want to shoot yourself, you don't wear Kevlar.

I wear glasses for driving, although I think technically I'd just about pass the standard for vision without them. I certainly did when I took the driving test, and my eyesight is only slightly worse now. The only other time I need them is at the cinema [if a long way from the screen], or when someone has a presentation going on a projector and they're using small type.

I wear glasses for driving, although I think technically I'd just about pass the standard for vision without them.

Same here, though I was just slight worse than the required vision without glasses.

I feel like it's probably silly on my part to not wear glasses, but I just don't like them.

Also, like Blandings, I'm nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other eye. My nearsighted eye is dominant.

If you actually want to shoot yourself, you don't wear Kevlar.

What if it's for science?

http://www.break.com/index/bulletproof-vest-test-goes-wrong.html

Glasses since twelve or so, but managed to pass eye exams for driver's license up until about my 30s. That seemed like a defeat at the time, but the extremely rapid onset of my need for bifocals in my mid-40s was worse; I thought I had suffered some serious ocular malfunction. Turns out it is generally a threshold thing where your ability to focus up close basically deteriorates from childhood on, but is not that noticeable for most people until it moves past their normal reading distance, Presbyopia. Maybe everyone already knows this.

So most of you probably have that to look forward to.

"like us sitting here right now, talking about where we're from, it's like divine interception" right, interception.

Cockblocked by God.

45: You have the older pickup truck, right? Much more common with carbureted engines than newer fuel-injected ones. Gasoline turns to vapor in the fuel line and cannot be pumped. Heat and altitude are contributing factors, so it may not be anything that wrong that needs to be fixed. Might be worth having it looked at although I'm sure they will recommend a tune-up no matter what.

I don't see how any other insurer could do it differently from what KR is talking about.

Well, my research suggests that the one KR mentioned owns all the retail chains and steers business to them, whereas others contract with independent providers. But I suppose the core problem - that insurance is meant for unpredictable costs, and glasses/contacts are predictable - still holds.

I might have to pay for cable again just to watch this.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/54485747-80/jessop-virgin-diaries-dating.html.csp

Not many 34-year-old men admit to being virgins. But Orem's Scott "Skippy" Jessop, a devout member of the Mormon church, is proud to share his "no-sex-until-I'm married" story with the world.

The Orem resident will be featured on the "Virgin Diaries," a TLC special that airs July 18 at 8 p.m. "Instead of the awkward virgin you would normally think of, I want to tell the story from a Utah perspective of what it's like to be a virgin," he said in a phone interview.

Jessop is a recent graduate of Utah Valley University who works at a pizza shop near where he lives in his parents' basement. On "Virgin Diaries," producers film him taking his mother country dancing, hoping her presence as a "wing mom" might help him pick up women. "Any woman that can't get along with my mom is a horrible person," Jessop said.

The show also filmed Jessop on what he referred to as an awkward first date and in his "40th makeout session."...

Jessop has another dating strategy that some might find questionable: bribery. Women who go out with him receive a custom-made Skippy T-shirt, that proclaims "Skippy is my friend." He has a second shirt for girls who will make out with him for at least three minutes.

My glasses are getting all dirty and scratched up and hard to see through. Is there anything that can be done? Run them through a belt sander or something (using only fine-grained sandpaper, obviously)?

I'm pretty sure I've already told this story, but that's never stopped me before, so: after I got pinkeye in the vast mud-covered hellscape that was the Southside Music Festival near Freiburg, I decided that I needed to not merely clean but thoroughly sterilize my glasses. I figured, hey, why not just drop them into our electric water-kettle; boiling water will do the job! And I imagine they were indeed sterilized; alas, they were also melted. Luckily they had only cost about $40. And I learned a valuable lesson!

"Skippy's fingers have been beneath this shirt while I was wearing it."

No boiling water. Got it.

Maybe "no plastic frames" is the lesson?

On the more general glasses issue: I've had them since I was 15 or 16 or so, and never worn contacts--I worry I'm too irresponsible to properly care for those, and would be risking an eye infection somehow--but lately, I've found that my eyes become really *tired* after wearing the same glasses for too long (around 6 hours, give or take). I'm not sure what to make of this, aside from the obvious "maybe my prescription is out of date."

I'm embarrassed to admit that what's keeping me from laser surgery (aside from cost) is the firm conviction that without glasses I won't look smart.

Maybe "no plastic frames" is the lesson?

I think even the lenses melted out of shape, though.

"Skippy's mom has got it going on."

64: Then I learned a valuable less on also.

"Skippy's shirts are sized such that I can only assume he expects D cups."

Skippy has his own website.

Monocles, Chiba City version, once as farce.

I think that VSP is better than EyeMed. EyeMed does claim to offer more generous contact lens coverage at their outlets, but they charge a lot more than the online discounters.

EyeMed is a total pain in the ass. I ordered a 6 month supply. Then I filed a claim. Then I ordered another 6 month supply. They denied me saying that I had already filed a claim even though I hadn't spent all of the money.

Also my benefit is on a calendar year, but if I get contacts in April, I can't order new ones (even if my prescription changes) until April. I can't get my examined in November if my last appointment was in December etc.

It's a lot like dental coverage which doesn't pay for much other than cleanings, the value is that it's pretax.

If something won't come off your skull without special tools, doesn't that mean somehow you found a surgeon willing to drill some sort of hardware into your skull?

It's a lot like dental coverage which doesn't pay for much other than cleanings, the value is that it's pretax.

I find the big advantage of dental insurance is it makes me think I should make a dental appointment to avoid wasting money spent on dental insurance. It turns out that not going for many years mean that a little problem becomes a root canal.

I've had glasses since I was 8. Couldn't read the board at school, but God forbid the teacher would say anything to my parents. Nope, took going to a stadium soccer game and my friend's stepdad being suspicious of why I kept asking for the binoculars to get me to an opthamomologist.

What was up with kids' frames in the 80s, anyhow? Everybody, especially me, looked like a complete dork.

Just got some new glasses. Lots of compliments, but then the old ones were about 4 years old, so I'm sure everyone was just happy to see something new.

They're these:
http://www.globaleyewear.ca/default1.asp?PageMode=itemdetails&qgid=1&qmid=8&qiid=343

Except blue, with a wood grain finish.

Kids's frames in the 70s were all the same. Black plastic monsters.

Course, we had values then. Values like "thrift" which meant that wiring together a broken frame was completely acceptable.

Frames seemed a lot more fragile then. Tape & paperclips were a constant companion in my quest for vision.

Tape didn't work well, but the optometrist could fix broken lens-holders with wire. He had a special drill.

I got glasses in the second grade, and contacts in ninth. I wear gas permeable, which are great until they aren't (also, allergy season means I'm often looking through a haze), but I can't wear glasses for more than a few hours without getting a headache as they don't correct my vision as well as glasses (yay, astigmatism!).

Prescription: Nearsighted. -7 in my right eye, - 9.25 in my left. It's no wonder I walk into things.

56: Thank you! Yeah it's an 87 Toyota. And I was on a pretty high pass, and it was pretty warm out.

What was up with kids' frames in the 80s, anyhow? Everybody, especially me, looked like a complete dork.

No kidding. My fourth and fifth grade glasses were transluscent blue on top and transluscent pink on bottom, and the lenses were shaded to match, fading to clear in the middle.

71: Yes, he's lightly cyborged.

The interesting parts of that fracas, I thought, were that

a) it may be illegal to film people in their places of work, but

b) there are already digitizing prosthetics for people who can't see without them, are they illegal? and

c) everything in a McDonalds is probably on their CCTV already, so citizen filming might balance the survellance society.

everything in a McDonalds is probably on their CCTV already

Lemon juice on your face means that cameras won't see you.

80: I was gonna say! I don't remember a black pair among them, but the girls' frames were multi-colored, tinted, and yoooooooooge!

He has a second shirt for girls who will make out with him for at least three minutes.

It's good that he clarifies that he isn't awkward at all.

82: I'd never heard that story. Apparently it triggered the work that led to the identification of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

That's why the first words in the article are "David Dunning."

Yes, I learned it from the article and thought I'd make it explicit.

Apparently, you wanted to make it explicit.

I was not going to take just Errol Morris's word for it, and I also wasn't sure why you were apparently burying the lede.

But yes, not a particularly well-thought out or necessary comment.

90: at least you know that.

90: But the alternative is working on something titled S/trategi\c Frame|work for O/rganizationa\l D\evelopmen/t.

Speaking of explicit, isn't paying a guy with an airplane to tow a banner saying "Take the statue down or we will" an illegal threat that is easily traced.

I am occasionally haunted by the suspicion that I'm a candidate for Dunning-Kruger type specimen. Then I tell myself that this is the kind of feeling only someone alert to the possibility and therefore more resistant to the effect than average might have, but that's exactly the sort of rationalization a Dunning-Kruger type specimen would engage in, isn't it?

Impostor syndrome: a maze of mirrors. Put lemon juice on them.

The blog linked in the original post gives me all the horrible reactions that the warm-sugar-cookie and karaoke posts didn't.

I do kind of share your hostile reaction to the model/blogger. I'm not sure exactly how to pick it apart -- a bit "If your life annoys you that much, you sound well-educated enough to be doing something else."

Admittedly, someone could say the same thing to me.

Also, it seems to me she's cruel about almost everyone she meets in NYC and LA, although there's so much ha-ha-just-kidding nasty talk that it's all deniable. Ick.

The punishment is apparently borne with the crime, but I don't actually want her to be unhappy either, just to stop already yet.

97: Sure, but you could rip them a new asshole, rhetorically speaking.

72: That's why I think that it should all be included under medical care.

I have to go 4 times a year now, and I had deep cleanings done. I kind of wish I'd gone 3 times a year before. (I don't know how much they cost, but my co-pay was $75 for each.) I put off going to the dentist for financial reasons, but I made up for it in about 2 years. I had 6 cleanings in one year, and she had to put sealant on my baby tooth. I also had to get a mouth guard.

I haven't read the link from the OP, but perhaps she's caught in Ron Jeremy's dilemma. He has a masters in education, and would like to go back to teaching kindergarden, but can't stop fucking porn stars long enough. (And knows that few parents would allow him to teach their kids.) You could simultaneously know that what you're doing isn't great, but it is so easy and rewards so well financially that you can't give it up for something more demanding and rewarding in other ways.

Parenthetical, I wear Air Optix for Astigmatism (monthly disposable) which are silicone hydrogel. You don't get as many cylinder options for the astigmatism as you do with glasses, but they're a lot better than the ones without.

I'm embarrassed to admit that what's keeping me from laser surgery (aside from cost) is the firm conviction that without glasses I won't look smart.

What's keeping me from laser surgery, apart from the cost, is the fucking lasers in my eyes. Assuming my type of myopia is even treatable, which on past history it probably isn't, I would love a permanent treatment and gladly pay for it. But with current technology/practice there's a roughly 5% chance of
it fucking you up. Which is a little too high for me to be spending thousands of pounds on.

I first got glasses in the 7th or 8th grade ('87). I got contacts by the 9th. I always had these oversized tortoise shell glasses. I always got the ones with the adjustable nose piece. They really took over my whole face.

28 - Was it use of the phrase "all extensive purposes"?

I got glasses in the second grade, contacts in H.S., gave up on contacts towards the end of college. Glasses make me look slightly less beaky.

I told myself that I would allow myself to splurge on having multiple pairs of glasses since I don't have a lot of accessories, but I like the ones I wear and I haven't found anything much better the few times I've gone shopping.

I sort of want real tortoise shell glasses. I'm not sure if that is too expensive or illegal or something.

I want Malcolm X style glasses, because I'm hopelessly twee like that. But, lack of justification.

But with current technology/practice there's a roughly 5% chance of
it fucking you up.

Yeah. About ten years ago, I was thinking of getting it done, and got as far as the initial appointment where they told me I was an excellent candidate. Then I asked what the odds were of a bad outcome, and was told that that doctor had never had a bad outcome. But they didn't count things like dry eyes or persistent halos at night as bad outcomes, and didn't have stats for them. And then I heard a couple of horror stories, and figured that glasses weren't so bad, even though I do think I'm better looking without.

108: CA wears those, in tortoise, not black.

For years I thought that Elvis Costello's "Buddy Holly" glasses were a deliberate tribute to 50s Rock 'n Roll. It was only a few years ago that I realized they were more likely NHS frames that he just kept on wearing after he was rich enough to buy his own.

109: My bff's brother's strategy for dealing with these fears was going to the guy who does all the laser eye surgery for the Lakers. When I was teaching at Northwestern they offered us all a sharply discounted price so they could practice on their new machine, and that's just not the kind of bargain I'm after.

I got the Lasik surgery (and absolutely love it, and regret every second that I didn't do it sooner) when I realized the risks from the surgery were about the same as the risks from wearing contacts.

I got glasses in fourth grade, contacts in ninth, then went back to glasses for the first two years of college, then switched back to contacts and have stuck with them ever since. I think I look much better with contacts.

Lasers in your eyes are gnarly, but they give you Valium so you don't care.

I bet they don't give you a lifetime supply of Valium.

when I realized the risks from the surgery were about the same as the risks from wearing contacts

There must be risks from contacts that I don't know about.

117: well, they're highly flammable.

Contacts get infected rarely, at about the same rates as laser eye surgeries go wrong.

But don't infected contacts give you some warning? Eye irritation, which you get checked out, and then you stop wearing the contacts before permanent damage is done? Whereas once the laser surgery goes wrong, in some cases you're just stuck with it.

119: Anecdotally, I doubt the rates are actually all that similar. I know a shitload of people who wear contacts, and I think I've heard one infection story (and that was back in high school). I'm pretty sure I don't know nearly as many people who got the surgery, and I've got two or three bad stories offhand (partner's wife at my first law firm had something weird happen so she had double vision with one image smaller than the other. Don't know if it got fixed, and a couple of people with persistent annoying halo effects around light sources at night.)

Wearing contacts has about the same risk of permanent eye damage as playing "Moe" in a live musical version of the The Three Stooges. Laser surgery is up there with playing Larry or Curly.

108: Malcolm X is twee?

Or is it just his glasses?

Glasses. Of course.

Left eye is around -9 diopters. Right eye is around -2.5. The difference means I have to be sure the optician knows the trade and it makes me ineligible for military service. I am worse than 20/400.

Everything was fine until I turned 13!

But I can read the micro-print on the redesigned currency. So, there's that.

||

I can't really think of a good way to ask this, but can any New Yorkers come up with the addresses of schools with street-facing playgrounds surrounded by high, preferably non-cyclone fencing? Thanks!

|>

You want visible playground equipment?

Reply via email and cc Chris Hansen.

126: right, something where you could see the playground when driving by, but behind a fence.

Try Google Streetview at 19th and 2d. The school is next to the playground on 19th, but I'm not sure if it's the look you want.

77th and Columbus is cyclone fencing, but a playground.

104th and Lex is a cyclone fenced basketball court and bogus tiny softball field next to a school.

Yup, that's just the kind of thing!

I think it's harder to get permanent eye damage with infected contacts. It's also probably less common than it once was now that people have disposables.

Even with contacts I need glasses for reading. (I've actually got three pairs--distance, reading [didn't want bifocals] and reading over contacts. They are only about +.5 or .75, but I need the prism in them very badly.

I've been giving you places I know offhand, but if you need more, google "P.S. [Number between 1 and about 300]" New York. You'll get the address of a random NYC school, and then you can see if it looks like what you want.

There's a school on 95th between Lexington and 3d where I believe this to be true.

102: Thanks, BG! When I ran into the optometrist that I will be seeing here in England she said they didn't really use gas permeable lenses here (or at least, she doesn't prescribe them), so I have been wondering what my other options are ... now I have one to look up before I go and see her.

(The school is really on 3d but the playground and play area backs up to Lex.)

134: ooh, that's totally perfect. Thank you!

I have perfect vision, can read the chart all the way down, but my eyes don't focus together so I get terrible headaches. I wear these.

My parents first took me to get my eyes tested when I was three years old, after I announced that I could see through things. I've always been pretty impressed that they didn't just dismiss that as little-kid bullshit.

No glasses, although I should probably get readers for small print in bad light.

I've never heard of a vapor lock in a moving vehicle. That would be scary.

Hope that young woman finds something she can love doing.

The link in 28 is indeed stunning.

The Melissa woman linked in the OP I don't know what to say about. She's living in a very particular world, and it's fine that she's speaking frankly to other members of that world, but she's likely to crash and burn when she becomes older and loses her looks. I am sympathetic (in the way that NickS describes in 44); Melissa might be too young to figure out what the problem is as yet.

Oh. Sorry, 141 was me.

I take back 141.last, having just read along on Melissa's blog to the June 21 post. This is the same woman who wrote the snarky airplane hitting-on post?

Wait, so is the blog broken again or are people just doing stuff?

Oh, okay.

Because the blog was broken, I was able to just do stuff.

130: L., I don't mean to be too pedantic, but what you're really saying is that you have perfect eyesight. The not focusing thing is a vision problem. If you ever have any spare change, get in touch with a COVD behavioral optometrist.

136: I think that the optometrist put me in Biofinity before I asked to try the Air Optix.

Biofinity Toric and AirOptix for Astigmatism seem to be available here.

I confess I experienced a new and refreshing way of being when the blog was broken. (I'm having a discussion with myself about it.)

I am interested in why there is such intense disapproval of fake glasses. Why are they not just an accessory like anything else?

A friend who wore a rather serious prescription likened it to a vanity colostomy bag. It was how he dealt with what for him was a disability.

Oops -- cut off. ", so he was sort of mildly offended by the mimicry of the disability and the fashionizing of the prosthesis."

Is it comparable to using an unnecessary cane?

Lots of people with perfectly functioning colons carry bags that aren't used to collect actual feces and serve no real function. They just get called "clutch purses."

Louis Vuitton makes some fine colostomy bags, I tell you what.

140.3 She's loving being miserable. That will work until her followers wander off to the next hot thing.

125: Here you go.

A friend used to wear Malcolm X glasses [vintage ones he bought in New York] and had a very similar haircut [for a white bloke] for a while. He looked like a white Belfast Malcolm X. Sufficiently so, that a couple of naitsabeS & elleB [who have/had a habit of putting mates on covers and t-shirts] were joking about a 'By any means necessary' t-shirt with his skinny pale face on it.

119 Contacts get infected rarely, at about the same rates as laser eye surgeries go wrong.

I'm never, ever getting laser eye surgery then. I wore a contact lens (yes, one) for six years and got one really nasty infection and one milder one that still required a visit to a doctor during that period.

158: Well, in your case, it might be the risk level might be reversed. Wearing one lens for 6 years is not recommended and probably led to the infection. The surgery is a one-off risk and depends on, among other things the skill of the surgeon. teraz's contact lens care skills (or the lack thereof) have to be factored in to the equation.

I've gone paleo: stopped wearing glasses. Optometrist told me it wasn't a big deal.

Glasses in second grade, contacts in sixth. My prescription is -5.25 now, and still appears to be worsening. I'm ready for that to stop.

I got glasses in 6th grade, contacts as a senior in high school. I always wore ugly glasses since nice looking frames cost more than my mother was willing to pay. Switching to contacts was the "nerd girl gets noticed" moment of my life movie, and suddenly I was elected to the Homecoming court and Senior class council and random people started saying 'hi' to me who previously probably didn't know I existed. I still managed to be awkward, nerdy, a little pretentious and dateless though, or perhaps especially, because the superficiality of it all really irritated me.

After college I started wearing glasses more because I got the popular plastic framed ones, and since them I'm about 50/50 glasses/contacts, depending on whether I have a recent contact prescription, or if the super glue on my glasses holds. (Currently wearing an 8 year old pair that's been glued 4 times and is permanently crooked, but I just ordered a new pair. Unfortunately I had to do a physical and wore the old pair because I wasn't thinking and totally bombed the vision test, I think my eyes were 20/40). I like the option of both though.

Oh, also, for whomever was asking, they now make disposable lenses which fit astigmatic eyes.

They do, but they don't fit my eyes. (When I say astigmatic, I basically mean, totally the wrong shape.)

But thanks!!

NVM, I just realized the ones that BG recommended are monthly disposable and would possibly work for me; I was thinking of the ones you change weekly/daily which are for lesser cases than mine.

NVM, I just realized the ones that BG recommended are monthly disposable and would possibly work for me; I was thinking of the ones you change weekly/daily which are for lesser cases than mine.

About -7 in both eyes, and I've had glasses since I was 10 (probably needed them a few years earlier). Never tried contacts; why would I? It seems like a lot of trouble. LASIK scares me for all the reasons mentioned above, and I'm totally used to wearing glasses.

Really, what I should get are prescription safety goggles, since I too-often use the fact that I'm always wearing glasses as an excuse to not put on any additional eye protection when working with tools.

Also, for LASIK or equivalent my eyes would have to stop getting worse. It's been about another -0.25 per year for a decade and a half, with no slowing down apparent.

Parenthetical,

Yes, I have monthly disposables and the astigmatic one is a special asymmetrical shape based on its eye measurements. I don't know if you've tried them and your eye is a shape they can't accommodate, but if not, it's worth trying. I'm pretty sure they can fit most astigmatic eyes.

Of all the adult blood relatives I know in my family, only two don't wear glasses/contacts: me and an uncle who's in his mid-30s. I assume the cause is some fluke of genetics, but it's more fun to imagine that we're super-human mutants from the future, who returned in a time machine to save the world from, uh, something.

I use my glasses to hide. The come-ons I got on the street as a young adult were pretty traumatizing, and the glasses helped mitigate that. Also, contacts made my eyes itch (for the short period I wore them in my late teens).

Now that I'm older, I do sometimes think that it's only downhill from here, and it's time to stop hiding my light under a bushel, etc. But that seems like a hassle.

Oops.

Glasses, since about second or third grade. Tried contacts in high school, again later in mid-20s, without much success either time, partly allery-related. I like wearing glasses.

Am very nearsighted: -7 something, -9 something. Am warned about strong possibility of retinal detachments every time I see an eye doc.

Had surgery due to multiple orbital fractures (re thread on words, I learned the term comminuted), with permanent mesh sling upon which eye rests; blood vessels etc grow through it.

Not looking forward to cataract surgery which I'll eventually need - eye surgery of any kind is of one of my worst nightmares. OTOH I've been through it already with good results so....

I've worn glasses also since early elementary school (maybe as early as first grade, I'm not sure). I always attributed my bad eyesight to reading some Van Gogh art book of my grandfather's when very young and seeing the caption under one of his paintings depicting a fiery sun overlooking a landscape saying something like "Van Gogh, who dared to look directly at the sun..." and decided that was no biggie, I could do that too. Had to get glasses about four months later.

But at least you found out where the fun is.