Abbie's Real Life Blog

I have been neglecting my blogs over the past few weeks, but I hope you’ll forgive me.  I got the flu and was sick for a week, so that’s part of it.  Add in the malaise and then the recuperation times, and that covers about two weeks of the neglect.  But there are still several days unaccounted for, so I have no excuse to give.  Oh well!  I resolve to not worry about it too much!

I would update you on all my goings-on, but there really hasn’t been much going on!  I finally took down Christmas decorations this past weekend.  That’s how behind I am.  I haven’t sent thank-you notes for Christmas presents, which are terribly overdue.  I have no idea where I’ve been for the past two or three weeks, but it seems like I haven’t been doing anything at all.

Except seeing movies.  I’ve been going through a real spate of movie-watching, both in the theater and at home, because of the aforementioned TiVOing of Turner Classic Movies regularly.  I finished reading The Tipping Point and have been working to finish up a couple of David Foster Wallace compilations (I like his essays more than his short stories, but that’s just because I’m in a nonfiction place these days, while fiction leaves me cold) that have been sitting on my bedside table for months and months now.  And I managed to sit down and get through Sophie’s Choice a couple of weeks ago, which I had been dreading but is on the AFI list, so it was necessary.  I already knew the horror of it, but I was surprised by the romantic elements.  I wasn’t expecting romance, just the Nazi horrors.  Anyway, feeling good with the whole quarterly-resolutions thing.

Other movies watched: The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus (which I loved), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (which was ridiculous), and Up in the Air (which was a lot of meh).  And I was going to list here all of the movies that I’ve rented or watched in the past few weeks, but I can’t think of them all.  Seriously, I’ve seen a shitload of movies this month between the TCM and the Netflix and the rentals from 9th Street Video.  Some of them: Slacker, Extract, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, Take the Money and Run, Aliens (the first half), Inglourious Basterds, District 9… I think there are more.  I can’t remember.  Clearly they all made a huge impact on me.

I went to the eye doctor earlier in the month to update my prescription with the goal of buying a pair of cheap glasses online.  I know we probably don’t hang out in the same part of the internet, but where I hang out, people have mentioned great success at purchasing cheap eyeglasses at places like Zenni Optical.  I had perused the options and decided that $40 for a complete pair of glasses was too cheap to ignore.  Too many people had had great experiences.  I bought a ridiculous trendy pair made of red plastic on Zenni, and they came last week.  It was a success!  They look a little silly, but they’re fun.  Full price at Lenscrafters would be about $400 for a complete pair of glasses, and I paid $40 for these, which you can’t beat with a stick.  (There are other online places to buy glasses too, and some of them are listed at the Glassy Eyes Blog.)

Let me just point out a couple of things.  First, you can’t try out the glasses at Zenni.  You have to figure out what will look best on you, and what size you wear, which is best determined by going by Lenscrafters or Pearle Vision at the mall, and trying on a bunch of glasses.  If you have a giant head like I do, you will want to figure out what size range works for you.  I can’t believe I never learned any of this until this month, but they list the sizes right there on the sticker, so you can figure it out for yourself.  It’s still a crapshoot, because every pair is different.  You can determine that you like a lens width of 53″, but really you might just prefer a total width of 140″, and sometimes you see lens widths of 53″ on glasses with a total width of 133″, so it’s hard to guess if they will look right on your giant melon once you’ve shelled out the $40.  But you can learn to have an educated guess about it.  Another thing: Lenscrafters and Pearle are always crowing about their 2 pairs for $99 sales and the like, but if you want High Indexing on your lenses (which makes them thinner if you have a strong prescription) or you want Anti-Glare coatings or whatever, you aren’t going to get that deal.  Or, at least, the deal never works for me.  And it may look on Zenni that you can get the glasses for $20, and you might could if you have a really low prescription or you don’t mind Coke-bottle lenses, but I’m telling you that I paid $40 each for the two pairs I’ve ordered from there so far, and that’s including the 1.61 indexing and the anti-glare coating, and the fact that I tend to like the more expensive ($30) frames on that site rather than the $8 frames.  So, if you’re willing to be totally frugal, you probably can get an even better deal than I got.

And of course you need to have your prescription handy, and you want to make sure they’ve written everything down for you because there are several sets of numbers and you don’t want to get them mixed up (though you may only need some of the numbers if you have astigmatism).  You also have to get your pupillary distance measured, which they will do for you at a frame shop if you ask.  My optician didn’t want to do it, but the frame shop lady did it for me.  I’m surprised at how little I know about eyeglasses, and the measurements, and all of it, since I’ve worn glasses since age 8 and I tend to be the kind of person who wants to know everything about things.  Usually I’ve just picked out a pair at whatever frame shop is attached to my optician without too much thought.  But there they are, attached to my face!  I put much more thought into every pair of shoes I purchase and every hairstyle that I wear than the glasses that sit on my face day after day.  And the glasses are much more important.

Anyway, I am pretty impressed so far.  I like my silly red plastic ones, and I bought a second pair that also have some red in them, and I look forward to seeing if they’ll work out as well.  But I also fell in love with some Ray-Ban frames at Lenscrafters when I was testing for sizes, and I think I probably will get those as a good solid everyday pair to replace the good solid everyday pair that I’ve had for years and years now.  Because the $40 set will probably not last forever, honestly.  Still, though, I can order the Ray-Bans online for pretty cheap as well!  I have priced them at about $160 with the high index lenses, the coatings, and all the extras, but still that is much cheaper than Lenscrafters.  I am liking how online changes up the optical game!  Rock on, Internet.

So.  That has been what I’ve been up to, I guess.  That, and the fact that the new silly red plastic glasses made me feel self-conscious about my undereye circles, so I found myself at Sephora on Saturday, buying expensive makeup to make myself feel adequate.  Just concealer, though.  I am not much of a makeup person and I have yet to learn any fancy tricks, but the Sephora lady was nice and practical and showed off a couple of tricks so that I can use the concealer without looking like I slathered myself in pancake makeup.  In related news, I have so far managed to successfully fight off my hair stylist when she tries to woo me to hair coloring.  Hair coloring is one of those things that becomes an expensive habit, one that is hard to break once you’ve started, and I want to put it off until I can’t put it off anymore, like with a full makeup routine.  I mean, honestly, I know that neither of these things are truly inevitable, that I can embrace my aging without resorting to chemical treatments and expensive face goo.  It’s just all about balance, in my mind, of what is necessary with what is expected (my expectations of myself, anyway).  La la, oh well.

I will write more this week!  More to come!  My life is fascinating!