Wednesday, 10 December 2014
Who are you calling 'four-eyes'?
Are we all sitting comfortably and wearing our glasses? Did you
put yours on just before you came here, or were you already peering
through them? Or are you half-and-half, looking over the top of them
while they're perched further down your nose, like those of a stereotypical imperious
head teacher? Perhaps you just need to put them on to read the tiny
type on the Branston Pickle jar ('once open keep in the fridge and
use within 6 weeks' - it's a pickle for fuck's sake! We used to
keep jars of pickle in the larder that were older than me that never
did us any harm...) Or maybe you've worn your specs daily for years,
since childhood, and they're just something you're used to? I'm a
varifocal girl these days.
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Being horribly short-sighted (and still getting worse), I've had to wear glasses all the time since I was six. My first pairs were those really bad NHS round 'pebble' specs with the springy bits to go around your ears. I could have made a killing as the Milky Bar Kid. I then moved on to variations of the NHS horn-rimmed style in black or tortoiseshell. I must have owned hundreds of specs over the years and have been through most of the styles. I did have a few years in contact lenses, which was a great relief, but my eyes dried up, so no go there now. I used to love being able to wear sunglasses! There are times when I am happy to be shortsighted: for instance, when you wake up in the morning you are given some extra time to adjust to reality before popping your glasses on and seeing the world for what it is. I sometimes take them off just to enjoy everything going very blurry for a while. Can't see a thing, though! I recently had to get reading glasses for the first time. I was offered varifocals and bi-focals but there is no way I could go there. I forget to put my reading glasses on nearly all the time, so now have a terrible habit of pulling my specs down the bridge of my nose to read. Very OAP! Good topic and nice pics. It's great how kids can wear glasses these days and not feel too self-conscious about it. In my day it was 'four eyes' this and 'goggle eye' that. That's probably why I became an aggressive little bastard.
ReplyDeleteAh so yes it's familiar territory to you. I think you'd have made a wonderful Milky Bar Kid from the pics I've seen - very cute - I bet you had a cowboy outfit?
DeleteIt's a relatively recent thing for me - started off with readers and now it's the varifocals, started off with occasional wearing and now it's virtually all the time... the downhill slope I suspect as I'm sure my sight has got worse the more I wear them. I would recommend the varifocals, though, if you could ever go there... plus I got the prescription sunnies which are really rather cool and have the added advantage of actually allowing me to see at the same time...
Aggressive little bastard? Surely not! But I agree - glasses are cool now, weird to think people buy them with plain lenses just for the way they look! (I considered it myself once, before I needed them, as I thought some of the men I worked with at the time might take me more seriously!) So that's a good thing in so many respects although of course it also makes them susceptible to the vagaries of fashion... I'm aware mine are starting to look dated... like it's not enough to just *need* them.
I've had to wear reading glasses for the lwst couple of years. I got my eyes retested last month, Needed stronger glasses. Darn.
ReplyDeleteActually, part of me quite likes them
Perhaps you're a bit of a textbook case, like I was?! Hit your forties and need the readers... ? Then the next prescription up a few years later... And did you used to have 20/20 vision up 'til then?! The good news, so I hear, is that apparently as we get *even* older our distance vision can actually start improving, so I'm holding out for that...
DeleteI do think glasses look good on many people these days. They add a certain, well, a certain "je ne sais quoi"...
Oh that's hilarious, Yve - I can perfectly picture Pryd and the reactions to her too. I must say I'm relieved to know it's not just me with the make-up issues and I probably already look l ike Pryd much of the time without realising it... Because I'm now wearing varifocals I've had to adapt my methods; start off applying it without them on (it's a bit like pinning the tail on the donkey and hoping for the best, and several trips to A&E for stabbing myself in the eye have only just been narrowly avoided thus far), then I put them on to check the results in the mirror, then any tweaking I have to do to my eyes I have to do by lifting the glasses up slightly with one hand so I can see through the bottom section (the close-up vision bit) and reach up behind them with the mascara stick/eyeliner. What a palaver... I'm sure one of those mail-order companies like 'Innovations' or 'Bettabuys' or something used to make glasses with independent flip-up lenses so you could do one eye at a time... Need to look into that one (literally).
ReplyDeleteYou also reminded me of once seeing a self-portrait that a very elderly Barbara Cartland had done in which she pictured herself looking like a perfect,beautiful little soft-focus doll. Now I understand why what SHE saw and what WE saw were two different things.
But... I have been advised in the past to try life drawing without them on as a way of losing my inhibitions (drawing, I mean, not posing, although that could be an option too) and going for the Monet approach... Blurry vision does have its advantages, as you say!
Yup. Turned 40, everything started to fail. Well not everything. And yes my eyesight was 20/20 previously.
ReplyDeleteSwiss Adam
It's a bit of a pain, isn't it? I still find I have to read the small print at arm's length half the time and seek out the brightest lights....
DeleteLuckily everything else is still working fine... I think!
I'm a bit naughty. I was prescribed glasses a couple of years ago (I even blogged about it), but I never got around to buying a pair and now I can really feel my eyesight failing. I've made another appointment with the optician for January. This time I won't leave empty handed.
ReplyDelete(Your post reminded me of Andy Kershaw's great introduction to Elvis Costello at Live Aid - '...four eyes, one vision...)
Indeed I remember your post and had imagined that perhaps by now you were a seasoned spectacle-wearer! I do think it's a double-edged sword - your eyes get more reliant the more you wear them but, on the other hand, it's really nice to actually be able to see...
DeleteHope you get on well at the opticians in Jan.
Where's Bo Diddley?
ReplyDeleteBranston Pickle...Ha. I started buying that stuff for my cheese and cracker plates on Saturday's watching the games. A little bit of it on some strong cheese...I love that stuff.
Ah Bo looks great in his glasses but I'm afraid he didn't make the final cut because I wanted people who you don't normally see in them. I'll have to find a reason to put him up here some day, though, I've a few categories on the back burner!
DeleteYou'd love a Ploughman's then! Do you have Ploughman's there?
We do not....but, I got it bad for that stuff now so...we may start having them in my kitchen. Adamparsons helped me pick that out. We have a British section at the grocery and I was looking for something different...so I bugged him with the text.
DeleteAs an aside...if you ask for pickles over here you are going to get gherkins every time. Even down South where we pickle everything...okra, green beans, quail eggs...pickles are always cucumbers. Everything else is pickled x, y or z.
Had to laugh, Flycasual was visiting a few months ago and found a tin of Popcorn in a cupboard, It was 28 years old and must have come with us from Saudia Arabia to the U.K. and now to Spain...the naughty lad put a pic on Facebook. I need glasses for reading and PC when the going gets tough.
ReplyDeleteHaha, vintage popcorn! Did you eat it?
DeleteThose glasses might also be useful for checking sell by dates... :-)