After I more than failed an eye test during a recent physical, my pediatrician recommended that I get glasses.  My eye doctor had been saying for years that I was on the verge of needing them, and now there was no more denying reality.

    When the doctor’s assistant had me cover one eye at a time and decipher the letters on the chart, the problem behind my poor eyesight became all too clear.  While my left eye was able to go for the gold and nail all but the smallest letters, my right eye had no choice but to come up with creative suggestions.  Everything looked like a “P” or a “D.”  Apparently, my left eye had been picking up the slack for my crazy, underachieving right eye.

    On my way home from the doctor’s office, I kept covering my left eye to examine the world.  Allow me to assure you, a MUNI bus is a much scarier thing when seen through a bum right eye.  Not only was seeing street signs difficult, but my perception of the people around me was shaky.  I could smell the homeless man walking toward me, but with everything a bit blurry, I couldn’t look him square in the eye to search for telling signs of schizophrenia.  
When I got home, my mom explained my eye condition in more scientific terms.  My left eye does distance vision and my right eye, the weaker eye, does close-up vision and was becoming more and more near-sighted.  Glasses would force my reading eye to see better in the distance and simultaneously slow down its near-sighted tendencies, while my better eye would continue seeing long distances.  Thanks, mom.  Science is one thing, but looking good is another.

    It’s not that I think glasses make people look unattractive.  On the contrary, when the right kind of man, let’s say Johnny Depp, puts on a pair of black, square glasses, I can’t describe my happiness.  However, I just never thought they would look good on me. After all, I don’t wear makeup, I don’t have any piercings and I’ve always looked like Weird Al when I wear hats.  Accessorizing just isn’t for me.  I couldn’t even control the puffiness of my Jewish mane of hair until high school, when I found the perfect brand of curling cream.  If I’d worn glasses before that discovery, I definitely would have been a throwback to Joan Cusack’s character in Sixteen Candles — minus the neck brace.  With Cusack in mind, I always managed to shake off teachers’ efforts to get me to wear glasses, even when they suggested that not having them was affecting my learning.

    When math teacher Wilson Sinn suggested that I get glasses, I gave him the most absurd response of all: “I’ll get glasses when I’m married and I don’t have to look attractive anymore, Mr. Sinn!”

    But when my parents and I walked into West Portal Optical, I knew I would have to change my attitude.  Maybe I could get a pair that wouldn’t make me look like a stereotypical 80’s movie nerd.  Within 30 seconds, my dad showed me a pair of red glasses with some black detail that I found surprisingly attractive and stylish, especially considering my dad’s heterosexuality.  When I put them on and looked in the mirror, I was really pleased with what I saw.  My hair didn’t look puffy, the glasses weren’t huge and horn-rimmed, and they didn’t magnify the size of my eyes or my eyebrows. 

    I was both excited and nervous when I went to school with glasses for the first time and really happy when everyone seemed to like them.  Even a few teachers expressed gratitude that I could finally see the thoughtful words they wrote on the board.  And as for my classmates, you know that old saying:  “Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”?  I guess it just isn’t true.