eyes, eyes, eyes, yeah

I finally did it. I made the call. I set up the appointment. I carried my glasses in a little bag. I printed out the reimbursement forms and filled out the top section. I conquered years of terrible fear...

I went to the eye doctor.

I HATE going to the eye doctor. Give me the gynecology appointment, the dentist, the endodontist, the regular doc, any day! At those appointments you pretty much just have to sit there. But at the eye appointment, you have to answer questions, lots of questions, about what you can and can't "see." This is a very difficult emotional exercise for me; I feel extremely anxious about whether or not I'm getting the answer right. I feel it goes back to Dr. Fligman. Fliggy, we called him. His style kind of reminds me of Dr. Jacoby from Twin Peaks. Kind of kooky and evil. He judged me and my human worth by how well I could read those lines of letters, tsk-tsking, sighing agitatedly, and shaking his head alot throughout my exams. I was in sixth grade when I was subjected to a grueling regimen of appointments with Fliggy as he tried to conquer my shameful astigmatism. One day my friend, also his patient, called me as I was getting ready to leave for an appointment. "Are you still going to Fliggy today?" she asked. "Because I just saw in the paper that he died." We went anyway, and no one in the office ever mentioned that he had just died. The receptionists and assistants were chipper. A different doctor saw me that day, and from then on. I began slacking on the eye-exercise routine prescribed by Fliggy, abandoning the translucent red and blue disks and other psychedelic tools used to strengthen my eyes, and the new doctor didn't seem to care.

The dude who looked at my eyes yesterday seemed about ten years younger than me. He took one look at my glasses and could name the designer, style, and approximate year. He had zero sense of humor. "Can you read anything on the next line?" "Yes, I'm absolutely sure that those are letters," I said, in a clever display of wit. No reaction. He also wanted me to look at the red dot as he administered a puff of air in each eye. "I can't see a red dot," I said, in all honesty. "You'll see it in a second," he said. "Keep looking."

Reader, I never did see the red dot. But I did order new contacts and am excited about how my world may be about to change.

I CAN'T WAIT until Alice is a practicing opthalmologist and I can go to her! She always laughs at my jokes!

****

It is mid-winter break, starting today. I have been craving beer lately, good beer, and so I bought a special India ale to drink last night. All the fancy beer comes in big bottles and I can't take them on on a school night. But I looked forward all day yesterday to drinking my fancy and celebratory beer. I started off strong around 7, grading a few book reports and sipping. I moved to the couch to watch the Buffy musical, sipping away like there was no tomorrow. I covered up with a blanket, put on Veronica Mars, and sipped from a prone position. Soon I was dead asleep.

I only drank half the beer. Damn!