oh, look, I’m officially elderly
Because I’m getting …. bifocals!!! Yes, I’ve finally had enough of the shoving my glasses on top of my head and putting whatever I’m trying to see against my nose. I’m also tired of reading glasses, but sadly I can’t do anything about that. Well, I could get bifocal contacts, but according to my eye doctor (who to my perpetual amusement looks like the love child of Tom Waits and Jim Jarmusch):
{see??? I’m not making this up!!}
they do make gas-permeable bifocal contacts, but they are not nearly as comfortable as normal contacts. (It’s something to do with the way the lens moves around on your eyeball which I found too icky to follow.) And I’m not yet ready to sacrifice comfort (or vanity) for vision. So I’ll keep whipping out my reading glasses and then I’ll have…. bifocals… as my regular glasses. Which I only wear in the evenings. Or if I’m sick. Or perhaps if I want to break my neck, as I hear that’s quite easy to do until you get used to bifocals, which takes weeks. Probably years if I only wear them in the evenings.
And despite having insurance that covers a certain amount of the lenses, and despite using a pair of frames I already have because I really like them, it’s still costing $180. I imagine that’s largely because when they asked if I wanted the lenses that have an invisible bifocal line so you can’t tell you’re wearing bifocals and not normal Young Trendy Hipster glasses, I said YES!!!! YES, YOU BET I DO!!!!! without inquiring as to how much extra that would run. Whatever it was, though, it’s worth it.
I also go to the Insanely Expensive Eyewear Shop In The Mall, that has a ratio of approximately 15.8 young, uber-hip, trendy, cool-glasses-clad employees to every customer. I keep saying I’m going to go somewhere else next time, and I keep going back to them. Because it’s trendy and hip and cool and they have all this gorgeous antique furniture interspersed with the trendy hipness that I just love. And it’s ridiculously convenient and takes evening appointments. And there’s never much of a wait since there are way more trendy employees than there are customers. Because obviously most people in this town have better money-management skills than I do and just go to WalMart.
Well, back to work, so that I can pay for my Old Lady Eyewear – happy Friday!
LOL: you know lots of younger people also have to wear bifocals just because their vision sucks. Your are SOOO not elderly. And yes, the gas perms are very different and if you’re not used to them, it’ll suck. (I used to work for an O.D. and an opthamologist). I would never get my eyewear at WalMart. Lol again, who knows whether they even have an L.O. in their stores! Glad you’ll be getting something you’ll be able to like the look of!
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Just a suggestion from one who knows, no matter how cool the tiny oval glasses make you look, get the normal sized ones. The bifocals I have now, without the line of course, took a lot of getting used to, in the matter of an inch the entire world changes, aspects of it getting fuzzier as others get sharp. Next pair I want there to be at least two inches for that to happen in.
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As far as elderly goes, you’re not there yet, once your my age though … heh it’s a 46/47 joke, just like our eyesight.
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Yes, lots of younger people wear bifocals. Yours truely wore them from 6 months to 3rd grade. I remember having to concentrate on negotiating steps with my first pair of single lense glasses. Of course all my early childhood pictures have a nasty line across the lenses. Just don’t go to Pearle vision. I had trouble with them 10 years ago and true to our family tradition of never letting goof grudges, I am here to tell you to boycott them. BD had good luck at Lenscrafters but it’s pricey.
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fyi – my opthomologist, who looks no where near as good as yours says the average age for bifocals is 42.
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Oh, I couldn’t do the bifocal contacts. It was too weird and one eye would focus on distance and one on close up and … it just didn’t work for me. And I can’t do bifocals because of my vertigo so I have two pairs of glasses that I change back and forth and a pair of fishterman flip up close glasses for when I work on jewelry! HA! Those are pretty amusing, actually.
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If it makes you feel any better I am paying $210 for trifocal progressives in my own frames with insurance next week. It is taking them a few weeks to make them. I hated bifocals and went back to two pairs of glasses, close up and far away but that wasn’t working either so I am stuck in the muck of major getting used to it all. Actually, I love my computer glasses which are bifocals with the line, my screen doesn’t laugh at me because I look like a dork but I can’t see a thing when I get up to go to the bathroom. They can make speakers so you can project sound from one’s iPod to one’s bathtub, why can’t we just get new eyes in our mid forties I ask you?
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Congrats on your old lady eyewear. Sideler finally started using reading glasses not too long ago, and we both have pretty much the same problem with being nearsighted although he’s almost legally blind. So, the contacts work great but then you can’t see up close and have to use the reading glasses. If my contacts are out I can see up close great. I also have an astigmatism in each eye so I have to wear Toric extended wear. I can’t imagine the cost of extended-wear-Toric-oldlady-contacts!! Whatever the cost I’ll pay it. Toric lenses are bigger than normal and they take a few seconds to stick to your eye, but when they do, dang it’s weird at first. Here’s to living long enough to need those glasses/contacts B!!
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Here’s to all of us old ladies that look so posh in our Crouching-Librarian/Hidden-Books glasses!!
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Get those gradient bifocals. With a fashionable frame, no one will know the difference!
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I finally succombed to the invisi-line progressive bifocals last year. They are awesome! I have contacts for it as well (one eye for close, one for distance). They took getting used to and they don’t work well in low light or night, but I am doing okay with the adjustment. My glasses are better but I don’t want to wear them all the time. And I fear loosing them, they are expensive!
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and you are right, your doctor looks like a combo of those two for sure.
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Oooooo I didn’t know you could get bifocals that have an invisible line – now that’s very interesting because I suspect I might have to face up to this transition in the future myself – jolly nice of you to do some research for me first – thanks very much!
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Heh heh heh.
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I had to break down and get reading glasses this year. I have to wear them to read when my contacts are in. I feel really old when I have to put them way down on my nose and look over them. Geeze. I didn’t know there were glasses with the invisible line. I agree that any price is worth it for them.
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Yep, I’ll be doing the same thing before too long. Nothing makes me feel old more than having to hold things really close-or really far away-to read. ryn: thank you, that is so good to hear, because most days I don’t feel I handle it well, or give myself credit for doing so when I do.
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Oh my GAWD …. THAT IS HILARIOUS! Wish I had thought to take a picture of Dr. Elf while I had the chance! Now please stop making me laugh, cough, sneeze … before I do all of the above and need another pain killer!
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I need bifocals, too. They call them ‘progressives’ here. I think the new name is supposed to make everyone feel better.
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