One Angry Monkey

The ability to see causes serious side-effects in certain people. The government should pass a law; all glasses should be labeled. “Warning: May cause compulsive throwing-out of stuff.”

Why is that bad? I like all my stuff, damn it. I don’t want to throw it out. I emptied out half of my kitchen yesterday. Sure, it’s tidier. It’s a small space so sure, maybe it frees up room for me to, you know, cook and stuff. I don’t care about having room to cook. I care about having my stuff. Were it not for my natural and entirely understandable reticence to fossick through my rubbish bin, I’d take it all back in a second. In fact I might even go so far as to beg my poor, discarded stuff for its forgiveness.

Today it’s the bedroom. That’s a way bigger task than the kitchen. Why? Because I hoard clothing, and so does the Man of the House. The greatest crime (other than the sheer ugliness of some of it) revolves around my pants. Most of them were a gift from a friend who had outgrown them after a couple of pregnancies. Most of these pants lacked the catches which hold them closed. A year and a half later I still never wear them, but I still have them. I think I have a problem.

So anyway, I’m tossing out the wrecked stuff and I’m going to donate the rest of it because sure, maybe I think they’re ugly as sin but obviously somebody liked them enough to buy them, right? It’s a huge task. I’ve already filled one box and three-quarters of a rubbish bag. My closet and drawers are looking a bit pathetic.

Time to go shopping!

Two posts in one day! Lucky Internet! Don’t get too used to it, I figure this means I can go a couple of weeks without updating now.

When I walked in the front door after picking up my new glasses I realised something. My house is a bomb site! So I barricaded myself in my computer room, where it’s much neater, so I wouldn’t have to look at it. Eventually my neuroses got the better of me though so I emerged and started straightening things up.

I picked up a pile of papers from the floor in front of the sofa and very nearly shrieked at the brown thing on the rug underneath them. Fortunately for me (and it) I retained some sense of decorum and the only sound was a muffled “mmmph”, which is the noise I make when really I want to shriek but for whatever reason my pride gets the better of me. I thought it was that spider the Man of the House vanquished a couple of weeks back returned to extract its freakishly oversized vengeance on me and my house.

A closer look and I wasn’t wanting to scream any more. I was saying “awwwwwwwwwww”. With exactly that number of “w”s I might add. It was a tiny gecko, no larger than my little finger which, I might also add, would be terrifyingly large if it had been a spider. He was in a dangerous spot there, my little lizard friend. If I let him stay there it would only be a matter of time before either I or the Man of the House stomped on him on our way to the sofa. But he was so little. I didn’t want to pick him up because I was afraid I’d hurt him.

Internet, you proved to be no help. One suggestion was to feed him iron filings and use a magnet. That might work, I’ll grant you, but how was I supposed to let him go again, hmm? Another was a tale of grass lassos. Also probably effective but there’s not all that much grass in my front yard and I didn’t feel like traipsing around the neighbourhood looking for some. That left only the good, old-fashioned upturned glass.

When I saw him up close against the stark background of white from the paper I used to cover the glass I wanted to keep him. Have you ever seen a tiny gecko up close, Internet? I have now. They’re just so precious. Unfortunately the aquarium has fish in it. Short of flushing them and earning the wrath of the Man of the House I had nowhere to keep my little friend. I took him outside and put him in the leaf litter under the tree in our front yard.

My little dragon now guards my front door.

I was minding my own business, messing about on my computer, trying not to squint too hard at the screen lest it become frightened and attempt to flee, when the phone rang. I shrugged and went to answer it, something I don’t usually do during the day thanks to telemarketers. I was so glad I did.

“Hello! This is your optometrist calling! We have your vision!”

I was so excited I thanked the lady a little bit too profusely. We hung up after an awkward set of goodbyes and I flew off on wingèd feet to make myself at least a little bit presentable. I emailed the Man of the House to see if he’d like to meet up for lunch but was fobbed off with a flimsy “I’m very busy at work.” Pshaw! I learned the truth when I arrived in town only to discover it was hosing down. Bastard.

I picked up the glasses and mentally dismissed the receptionist’s warning that the new ones might be a little much to handle at first. It wasn’t long before I learned how right she was.

My right eye was much worse than my left eye. That’s fixed now. Have you ever been conscious of the sensation of sight? It’s a little uncomfortable, to tell the truth. Then I put my sunnies on. You know, just to test them out. I was delighted to realise that the brown tint renders everything in sepia tones like an old movie.

It’s like living in an arthouse theatre.

Oh, and one quick clarification for YoungBoobs. My old frames for my regular glasses are about 5 years old. I got them when we first moved over because the arm of the ones before them broke. The sunnies, however, had frames closer to 8 or 9 years old. Mikey was still in a pushchair when I got them, I remember that much.

Smartarse.

I finally went and had an eye exam today. Boy, optometry has changed in the last ten or so years. Before I went in the receptionist did some preliminary tests, one of which was (unless I’m mistaken) a glaucoma test. That’s where they test your eyeball pressure. The last time I had one of those I was still in high school. Back then what they did was spray some anesthetic into my eye and press this thing against it. I hated it at the time.

What happened today made me long for the good old days of numbing spray and big blue light-things. What they do now, at least where I went, is get you to look at a flashing green light and then they blast a jet of air into your eye. Into. Your. Eye. And if you flinch they have to keep doing it because if you flinch they can’t get a reading. What I want to know is this; who could have a blast of air to the eye and not flinch?

As it turns out I’m even more skittish than most people when it comes to having jets of air blasting at my eyeball. After five failed attempts on each eye (before you reach for the calculator, that’s 10 in total) she finally gave up. I wiped the tears from my face and stumbled after the optometrist. Everything went well. I discovered I can’t see squat through my right eye even with my glasses on, and my left isn’t much better. Guess those headaches aren’t so mysterious after all. Then came the really really fun part — a check of general eye health. That’s where they shine a really bright light in your eye, then put up a magnifying glass to make it even brighter. It took quite some time before I managed to blink away the after-effects of that. Ever looked directly at the sun for more than a couple of seconds? It was like that.

Long story short, take care of your eyes or your optometrist will blind you himself.

As I mentioned I’ve been editing lately. I’ve been doing rather a lot of it. The second work of art has fallen by the wayside a bit while I re-work the first. It’s all-consuming. It just takes so much time to do. I don’t know how real writers do it. I’ve mentioned before how hard it is to write a book. Well, I take it back. Any monkey who can be trained to use a typewriter can write a book. The trick is writing a book other people would pay to read.

So far I’ve spent three days working on this thing and I’m only two-thirds of the way through chapter 1. That leaves 45 and a third to go. It’s really a huge task. Hopefully it will get easier as I get further in and the first-draft writing gets less rough. But for right now, one thought is haunting me. Sure it was just the Man of the House and the Matriarch, but I let people see this?

Boy is my face red.