Glasses half-empty

But what about girls who mess up their sight with botched laser eye surgery? Dorothy Parker didn’t have the foresight to tackle that quandary.

Actually, the problem with my four eyes isn’t a lack of attention — it’s my growing inability to pay attention, or rather just plain see, without my spectacles or contacts. I escaped growing up without glasses, a blessing in the world of teasing and insults otherwise known as childhood. Even early adulthood wasn’t too shabby. The glasses only came out for faraway lectures and late-night driving. Now, though, I won’t be caught without some sort of optometric aid. A visit to my eye doctor confirmed that I wouldn’t be shelving the lenses anytime soon, either.

Don’t get me wrong about glasses; I have no real problem with the aesthetic and I think mine lead me to looking smarter and getting carded more often. I’d like to think my inability to imbibe without proof is because I’m holding my own during these Botox and heavy eye cream years but mostly it seems to be the glasses. The frames must cover up the bags and crows feet.

No, my frustration with glasses and contact lenses is simply needing them to function. From the minute I roll out of bed to the time I fall asleep watching reruns of Iron Chef, I require help seeing unless I want to trip over the dog, spill the coffee and squint way too hard trying to figure out this weeks’ secret culinary ingredient. Not only is the ball and chain burdensome — think having to wear contacts every time sunglasses beckon, sleepily forgetting to take the glasses off while climbing into a morning shower, trying to track down a covert smudge or piece of lint messing up clear vision — but waking up to the imprint of the glasses on one’s face is not the best look to start off the day.

My salvation, I assume, is laser eye surgery. Granted, the idea of sticking a finger in my eye to properly insert a contact lens was weird enough initially so widening the peepers voluntarily for a beam of light is a bit daunting. Yet, everybody I know who has had the procedure is happy. With my luck, I could turn out to be among the small percentage with tunnel vision or floaters along my line of site. Heck, maybe my eyeball will just flat-out explode.

But I’ve made my peace with the idea and am itching for the day when glasses are nothing more than the vessels in my kitchen — and when I can shuffle my way to the kitchen in the morning without first slapping my paw around the night stand aimlessly in the name of sight.

Alas, though, my doctor tells me I must be patient. I joke that I am a patient but maybe optometrists aren’t known for their sense of humor when it comes to one’s eyes. In any case, I am told one’s eyesight must be stable for at least a year before the Lasik procedure to ensure it doesn’t become moot if my vision changes more. Since my eyesight hasn’t been stable from the time I first caved into glasses, it seems laser eye surgery is as much a science fiction pipe dream for me as it was when radial keratotomy was the only surgical option.

I’m trying to be far-sighted, at least in my optimism. By the time my eyes decided to calm down I’d like to think the possibilities of side effects — including the dreaded exploding eyeball — will be even more marginal. Until then, the bespectacled version of myself may not meet Dorothy’s definition of a turnoff but when it comes to Lasik, I’m the one who has to take a pass.

Michelle Durand’s column "Off the Beat” runs every Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached by

e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 102. What do you think of this

column? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.