Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Monday, April 22, 2013

Another Brief Glimpse Inside My Brain

I was cooking yesterday -- yes, this is a thing I do occasionally -- and I discovered I was out of thyme. This disturbed me ways it really should not have. Stupid homophones.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Dodging The Presbyopian Bullet

Just got back from the annual eye exam I'd been so diligently putting off. Which featured the following conversational snippet, after the doctor got the funky lens-switching machine to a setting where things looked pretty good:

Doctor: Try this. *makes one final adjustment*

Me, pleased: Hey, that's even better! That looks pretty great!

Doctor: That's the bifocal strength.

Me: Shit.

Fortunately, however, possibly partly in response to my pitiful puppy-dog look, he allowed as how I could reasonably put off switching to bifocals for another year. Well, it's not like I've actually been having any trouble reading or anything, and with as much reading as I do, you would think I'd notice. Reprieve!

But, man, there are just not words for how much I do not want bifocals. It's not really the fact that it's an annoying acknowledgment of advancing age, although that certainly doesn't help. It's that already any time my prescription changes significantly, I feel queasy for a week, and my confidence in my ability to adapt to bifocals, of any kind, is thus extremely low. I also really didn't want to have to spend the money right now, to be honest. Next year, I will hopefully have to buy fewer plane tickets to oblige relatives who for some reason insist on me visiting them.

Also, when I told the optometrist that I really didn't know whether progressive lenses or regular bifocals would work better for me, he immediately replied with, "And you won't until you try them." Great. Just great. I mean, that's kind of a lot of money to spend only to find out you've made the wrong choice. (And I don't have insurance that covers my eyeballs. My work does offer an optional vision plan, but since I've generally only needed new eyeglasses every few years, it hasn't really seemed worth it.)

Oh, well. I'll worry about it all next year.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

How Is It That We're This Far Into April Already?

Well, since it's past the usual time for this:

Current clothes: Dark gray sweatpants. A blue t-shirt with a picture of a caffeine molecule on it. (Mmm, coffee!) White socks. Brown leather boots.

Current mood: Not too bad. This is a weekend for me, so I'm in a very weekend-y sort of mood. Kind of relaxed, that is, but with a little voice in the back of my head telling me I should really get some more stuff done before I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Current music: Imagine Dragons' Night Visions.

Current annoyance: Lately we've been having extremely high winds or rain on all those days, and only on those days when I am a) off work and ready to do household chores, and b) desperately low on clean laundry. The vast majority of the time, one can do perfectly well without a clothes dryer in New Mexico, as a clothesline in the backyard handily provides a cheaper, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly alternative. But then there are days like today...

Current thing: I've been playing a lot of Kingdom Rush. I even paid for the premium levels; it's a pretty good entertainment value for six bucks. Then again, I think I often get more hours-of-entertainment-per-dollar out of video games, just because I'm so bad at them that it takes me ages to finish.

Current desktop picture: Oh, gawd, it's still Rumplestiltskin. This is getting downright embarrassing.

Current book: I've just finished Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World by Tom Zoellner. It's, um, about uranium.

Current song in head: "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons. Given the combination of current music and current book, this was pretty much inevitable.

Current refreshment: Green tea chai.

Current DVD in player: Most recently, Robot & Frank. Which was cute, although I kind of get the impression they didn't quite know how to end it.

Current worry: Well, there's always the worry that my house is going to fall down.

Current thought: I really do have some more crap I ought to get done today. But maybe I should have some lunch first.

Saturday, April 06, 2013

The Continuing Memoirs Of A Biblioholic, Continued

Just got back from the local Friends of the Library Sale (which is where I was this morning when I really should have been sleeping, but oh, well). I bought seventeen books. I regret nothing! Although I probably will in a minute when I have to find somewhere to put them all.

You know, between the "I'd Rather Be Reading" bumper sticker, and the fact that I tend to think of it first and foremost as a means by which to transport myself to book sales, I have begun mentally referring to my car as "The Bookmobile." Possibly by analogy with the Batmobile, because, in my head, I would kind of like to think of myself as some kind of book-themed superhero. Too Many Books Woman! Okay, the name clearly needs some work.

Also, something I was thinking about the other day: every time I get into the elevator at work (which I do pretty much only when I have to haul a new jug of water for the water cooler), I experience this tiny moment of fear, because there is an infinitesimal possibility that the elevator will get stuck, and I do not have a book with me. Yeah, I'm not the slightest bit afraid of being stuck in an elevator. But I am afraid of being stuck in an elevator with nothing to read. That... may tell you a lot of what you need to know about me, actually.