Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

After a variety of discussions about eyeglasses fogging when people wear anti-viral masks of whatever sort, and ways to avoid or reduce the problem, I decided to try just not wearing my glasses when I went out today.

This worked because I didn't need to read or look closely at anything while I was out, and it was cloudy (these are self-darkening prescription sunglasses, in part for astigmatism). That's a solution for everyday, or for everyone--including the me of a few years ago, before the cataract surgery--but I'm mentioning it in case it might be useful to anyone else.

I don't know whether it would be worth trying this if I was going shopping, or somewhere else where I would have to bring the glasses and put them on when I got there. Putting my glasses on would mean touching my face; my thinking is that if I have touched nothing other than my face since I washed my hands and/or put on gloves, it's safe to touch my face in order to put on glasses or to make sure the mask is covering my nose and mouth. For me, just walking around my neighborhood, it's easier to avoid touching anything other than my face or coat, and them as little as possible, than to completely avoid touching my face. (I should grab the Clorox wipes and clean the railings on the front and back steps, once I post this.)

I have ordered a pair of prescription sunglasses. I walked into the place where I got my current pair of regular glasses, and showed the saleswoman my non-prescription sunglasses, which don't fit over the snazzy regular bifocals. She pulled out several frames that she thought might fit under them, and two pairs of sunglasses in that general style—blocking light from the side. One of those fit pretty well, and I decided that actual sunglasses without the need to nest were a higher priority than a spare pair of glasses, which would have been a side effect of doing it the other way. (My prescription being what it is, getting both would have been an unreasonable expense.) I should have the new glasses in 7-10 business days, which will be nice. (Either way would have meant carrying sunglasses around with me at least some of the time; this way I don't also have to decide in the morning which pair of glasses to wear indoors.)

( Then I went to the gym. )

I finally ordered new eyeglasses on Saturday. I say "finally" because the prescription is dated April 12, 2010. I'd hoped to find an optician I liked locally, and wasn't getting anywhere. So I went to the one adrian_turtle uses, in Arlington Center. If I'd realized, I could have ordered these back in May and had them by now. As is, I don't know how soon I'll be able to pick them up, because of my travel schedule and the optician's (not yet certain) vacation schedule.

In the end, after looking around for someplace else that had the frames I'd liked when I tried them at his place a while ago (the same shape as the ones Adrian has, but hers are tortoiseshell and I was looking at silver), I wound up getting a pair of titanium frames instead, mostly silver with bits of purple on the earpieces. About the same size lenses, and the frames are half the weight.

I also had a good conversation with the optician. I think he thought I was joking when he adjusted my current glasses and said something about them being off-balance, and my response was that yes, I tend to be. I didn't go into details on all this knee/balance/proprioception work, but it doesn't surprise me that the glasses wander from the horizontal. In the course of ordering a glare-resistant coating that is also more water-resistant than the current one, I mentioned that the skin around my eyes tends to be dry, and that I use vaseline to soothe it. No, that will stick even to this, though much dirt won't. He also said vaseline is fine, but almost anything else would be problematic in case it got into the eye). I also told him that I'd been considering asking my eye doctor about laser surgery, since the best they can do for me with glasses is 20/30 vision. Apparently if that's true, it's also the best they could do with surgery. OK, that's answered, keep the lasers away from my eyes.

Part of why we had time for such a long conversation is that I'd stuck the wrong piece of paper in my pocket when we set out, and Adrian kindly offered to go back to her apartment, grab my notebook and the eyeglass prescription, and return. (I also had time to read everything that interested me in the Saturday Boston Globe.) But part of the conversation was after Adrian got back with the prescription; I asked her opinion of both frames, and she said that the silver looked better, but both were fine, and I decided to go with comfort over looks. (Is anyone surprised by this?)

I left the optician my cell phone number (he wasn't going to ask for a number, he said) and Adrian's address because it's local to him. His response: "My stepmother lives next door." So he has a couple of ways of reaching me, if need be.

For my future reference, idea borrowed from flick:


D.V. O.D. Spherical +4.50 Cylindrical -2.00 Axis 50
D.V. O.S. Spherical +3.50 Cylindrical -2.00 Axis 95

N.V. O.D.+2.00
  O.S. +2.00

(That is, for the N.V. section it just has "+2.00" scrawled in the "Spherical" column over the O.D. and O.S. lines.)

I am fairly sure that D.V. is distance vision, N.V. is near vision, and moderately sure that O.D. is the right eye ("dexter") and O.S. the left ("sinister").

[This is from two days ago; I haven't filled it yet.]

My mail-order eyeglasses arrived this afternoon. I tried the spare pair of progressives, and was not delighted, but given that I was already tired and a bit headachy, I'm going to give them a longer try later. I haven't tried the sunglasses yet--that will require a sunny day, and this time of year I don't leave work until after sunset.

A couple of people I know have reported good results recently with ordering eyeglasses cheaply online. I'm tempted to get either a spare pair of the progressives; a pair of distance-only prescription sunglasses; or even both. The only thing is, their lenses are all polycarbonate. I had trouble with glasses a couple of years ago, which the optician suggested might have been because of the material. "Might" because it was also a different prescription. At that time, I went back to the other kind of plastic, and I made a point of ordering that for the pair I had made a month ago.

Any thoughts or advice--based on optics, materials science, neurology, or personal experience--on the topic are welcome. Here's what I posted two years ago, two posts a couple of weeks apart:

The optician--not an apprentice this time--adjusted both the earpieces and the nose pads, and it seems better, though I do keep reaching to slide them back a fraction of a millimeter. She also measured the previous glasses, and compared them, to try to figure out why I've been having some headache and eyestrain.
It turns out that the new prescription is stronger in both eyes for the astigmatism, but has lessdistance correction in the right eye than the previous. The right eye is where I'd been noticing strain. The plan is to wear these for a week or so--not switching back to the previous prescription--and see if that does the job. If it doesn't, I can get the lenses remade in the same plastic as the previous set; the new ones are polycarbonate, which is lighter, but it seems that any change can cause difficulties for the eyes and brain.

I'm returning my new eyeglasses, and having them remade in the plastic of my previous lenses, and without the self-darkening coating, for three reasons:

1. I'm still not quite adjusted to them, and the optician suggested that the problem might be the change to polycarbonate.


2. The darkened lenses let in enough light to cause eyestrain, because itgets in past the edges of the glasses. They also aren't entirely clear indoors, though the shading is subtle.


3. I cannot get them to stay clean for more than about five minutes, whether I use soap and water, the special cleaning stuff the optician sold me, or just my shirttail.

This means going back to the old, heavy glasses for at least a week, but it needs doing. I'd probably be returning them even if it were only that self-darkening lenses don't work for me, but I might have kept the polycarbonate if so.

These wouldn't be my only glasses--except in the sense that if I have a spare pair, and I lose or badly damage the main ones, I would use them instead of going back to the previous prescription while waiting for a new pair to be made.

Lenscrafters just called to tell me my glasses are ready. I'm going to pick them up tomorrow, and hope they're right this time.

I really want these new, not-so-heavy glasses. And the up-to-date prescription. Yes, in that order of importance: the current pair are heavy enough to be abrading my cheeks.

It turns out Lenscrafters can't even leave a coherent message.

They called back this morning: "we'll have to charge for that coating you told us you wanted and I mistakenly thought was included" turned out to mean, not "so it'll be an extra $22.55 when you come pick them up" but "we're not sending the order to be made until you pay for it." The woman wanted me to come in just to make the payment, but when I asked, agreed that I could pay by phone. Only not right now, because her computers are down. She promised to call me back when they're up. I pointed out that I've given them $300 or so before receiving any eyeglasses, so they ought to be willing to make the glasses without getting the $22.55. It didn't help.

I also suggested that if this happens again, she should work on leaving straightforward messages.

I suspect this means I won't have the new glasses for the trip to Montreal.

I went back to Lenscrafters to get my eyeglasses remade.

It turns out that the frames I had selected originally, which hold the lenses only from above, only work with polycarbonate lenses--with ordinary eyeglass plastics, the first time you drop them, they're likely to break. It also turns out that many people can't adjust to polycarbonate, something I wish they'd told me in the first place. So I had to select different frames, which took time--and the ones I found that I liked were more expensive. That was made up for by not getting the "transitional" self-darkening coating. I made sure that I still had the anti-glare coating, and the saleswoman explained that with the kind of plastic I'm getting this time (an extra $30 for a thinner but similar version of what I have in the old prescription) it's automatic. I left with a credit card refund of $7.50, and expect my new glasses in about a week.

Once again, I decided I couldn't deal with midtown for lunch, and went down to Excellent Dumpling for my usual sweet ginger duck. Once fed, I went to Pearl Paint and bought a Moleskin notebook. (Having used one of the thin "cahier"s for a bit, I decided I want one with a solid cover and no detachable pages, which is what I got. Pearl has a new craft center, so I went across Lispenard Street, and spent some money on beads, plastic bags, and a divided tray to hold beading supplies. (I looked at, but didn't buy, various dyes.) I now have three coupons good for discounts on purchases at Pearl on April 1 or 2, which I suspect I won't use.

Thence, home via 181st Street: I have rye bread because rye bread is good, and shrimp to cook for dinner.

When I got home, I had an answering machine message from Lenscrafters--the anti-glare coating is not automatic. They're ordering it for me, but it'll cost me an extra $22.59 (?), which I think they'll have me pay when I get the glasses.

It turned out to be an entirely reasonable day to not get back until 3:00 after working out; I'm waiting for more direction on the freelance project, and email hasn't arrived yet.

I had an okay workout--I was feeling a little sore in the right hip and knee beforehand, so skipped a couple of exercises. But I mostly did well, and after asking a few questions, signed up for a hatha yoga class this Wednesday. (No fee, no commitment, but if more people want the class than there's room for, people who sign up in advance have precedence.)

After working out, I went down to Chinatown. On my way to Excellent Dumpling, I stopped at a street-corner belt seller, because the plain black belt I wear every day (I need to clip the PDA to it) is getting threadbare. I now have a not-as-plain black belt, a plain brown belt, and a plain blue belt, all for the princely sum of $9. Lunch was rice cakes with shrimp, lots of tea (I finished one pot and started on a second), and a scallion pancake for dessert.

Thence to Sahadi, where a four-item shopping list turned into $37 worth of stuff. To be fair, a lot of that was those four items, since I got a full pound of the dried cherries, and two boxes of the tangerine herb tea. But the impulse purchases included not only duck pate and a vanilla bean for the sugar canister, but two different kinds of cookie.

From there, I resisted the urge to just go home, and instead stopped in midtown and got my new eyeglasses. I think they may need a bit of fiddling, to make sure they're sitting right on my face. It's also possible that I just need to get used to a new, significantly lighter, pair. If they're still feeling off on Wednesday, I'll go back to the eyeglass place.

( gym numbers )