glasses are for poseurs

I just had my annual eye exam on my one-year anniversary of needing and wearing glasses.  Everyone my family wears glasses; my kid wears glasses, but I thought I'd go through life without them, forever.  Not so.  Last year, motivated by my father's macular degeneration and my sudden inability to see the words I myself was writing on a Mammalogy final exam, I sat myself down at Lenscrafters, let them dilate my pupils, and wound up with smart new glasses.

The good news is that today's anniversary exam reveals no trace of any issues with my macula.  Nerves look good.  All is a-OK with the ojos.

Except that they continue to get old and my near-vision has gotten worse.  Which I knew was true going into the exam since I've felt the recent need to mess with my glasses, take them off, put them back on, squint, while reading.

READING is all that matters to me, honestly.  My poor father has lost the ability to read thanks to his degenerated macula.  Frankly, I wonder what point I would have in continuing to exist on this earth if I couldn't pick up a book and read it, sit in front of the computer and write and read, watch my hands make words with a pencil in my notebook.  I would die a little death, I think. I read something yesterday about Christopher Hitchens in which he defended his lifelong smoking and hard drinking by saying that for him all that mattered was WRITING, that anything that facilitated that process, that prolonged his ability to debate with people, he would gladly continue to do regardless of its effects on him.  [Note that in his final year of living dyingly, he did give both up.]  Anyway, I think I might be a little that way with the reading.

Clearly.

Because I just spent an absurd amount of money on a new pair of progressive specs, with a stronger prescription, even on the distance-vision now.  They're cute as hell -- important since they'll be on my face every day.  But god damn it, I feel like a bit of an asshole for spending so much money on them.

Here they are:

Here's another view, of a feature that I love:

Sweet details, right?  Better be.

Researching them now, in the cool quiet of my kitchen, does it make me feel better that the manufacturer describes the Seraphin line of frames as "vintage luxury," "the Romantic Hero for our time.  The Seraphin collection embodies the essence of nouveau-retro luxury while keeping its commitment to affordability."

Nouveau-retro: are you fucking kidding me?

Yes, they're perfect on me and I love them.  But this seals it for all time: I am such a poseur asshole.  But at least I'm a poseur asshole who can keep reading and THAT, besides looking cute, is all I care about.

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