The Candy Formerly Known as Eye has -- gasp! -- set a move in date. I never thought it would come.

So, I've worn bifocals since I was 5, and, yeah, you're kind of jealous since only the very coolest kids in grade school wore glasses and the non-spectacle wearing kids -- the ones we mocked horribly with our taunts of "Two-eyes!" and "Non-freak!" -- slunk along behind us, hoping to be caught up in the wake of our popularity. But it's cool, we're all beyond the 6th grade bitterness and hard feelings and plots of poisoning our classmates, right?

Anyway, as a member of the coolest of the cool, the Bifocalnati, I enjoyed popularity that rose to unparalleled heights. The only possible downside was the line across my lenses, the one that people would suddenly notice, exclaiming that I had broken my glasses! Both lenses! In the same place! Perfectly in half! And, and, and . . .!

I maybe got a little tired of that.

Also wearying was the unfortunate stereotype regarding middle aged people and the wearing of bifocals. Absurd, of course. No one over the age of 25 could ever dream of aspiring to such coolness, but some stories just can't be killed, I guess.

Yesterday I picked up a new pair of glasses, my first pair ever with progressive lenses.

Whoa.

I will be the first to tell you that never in my 26 years of bifocals had the line bothered me. Not at all. I didn't even notice it.

And yet, the aforementioned whoa.

If you've had a pebble in your shoe for 26 years, and you can't remember a time when you didn't have the pebble, you'd probably claim it didn't bug you at all either. Until the day you took it out. "Oh my," you'd think to yourself. "That's quite a difference, isn't it?"

But I'm not you, and my reaction was a bit more along the lines of "HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT! WHAT THE HOLY FUCKING FUCK HAVE I BEEN MISSING!"

It's a pretty big difference to me.

The Candy Formerly Known as Eye has been out of town for 4 days, and I'm experiencing withdrawal. We've been hanging out quite a lot lately, and going cold turkey like this is giving me the jitters. He compared us to an old married couple the other day, and he might be right. Here's a typical conversation:

Setting: Target

Him: All right, I've got the deodorant, the party hats, the travel-size KY -- oh, twine. I forgot I need twine.
Me: What? Twine? You don't need twine.
Him: How do you know if I need twine? Of course I need twine.
Me: No, you have twine.
Him: No, I used the last of the twine.
Me: No, you still have half a roll in that tool box you converted into an art supply bin.
Him: My god, you're right. I do have twine.

And so on.

Being part of an old married couple without the benefit of old married sex is not awesome, but he's a good pal.

My crotch

My crotch is not in a happy place right now. I've done a lot of biking this weekend, and the crotch had to stand me up for a serious discussion this morning:

Me: Wait, can't I sit for this serious discussion?
My crotch: Oh, you want to sit? Okay, fine, you go ahead and do that.
Me: Fine, I will and -- AAARGH!
My crotch: How'd that sitting thing work out for you?
Me: I hate you! Why do you hurt me like this?
My crotch: Me? ME? Why do I hurt you? You're the one who did this! I'm the victim here!
Me: What did I ever do to you?
My crotch: 8 miles! 8 miles you did to me! On that - that - that CROTCH KILLER! (My crotch starts sobbing.)
Me: I didn't know it would be like that. The seat looked . . . okayish.
My crotch: You have ridden that bike before, miss! You knew this would happen!
Me: . . . Maybe. Or, maybe I thought you were tough enough to take it. Pussy!
My crotch: Exactly!
Me: Fine, I'll look for a new seat, but until I find one I like, you're just going to have saddle up, because I will not miss a single Farmer's Market this summer.
My crotch: No. Ohhhhhh, no. You want to go anywhere? You take the feet.
My feet: Whaaaa? I heard that! I have been carting this bitch all over hell's half acre since last fucking summer! I want a break!
Me: No! No breaks for anyone! You people will work for your keep!
My crotch: Oh, I thought I already was. Or you think that nightly workout is all fun for me?
Me: Hell, yeah I do.
My crotch: Oh, it's not bad. I'm just saying, it would be nice not to have to do all the work every time. Maybe bring in a helper?
Me: Oh. That was low. That was really low.

Now we're not talking to each other. We'll have to see how this works out. Maybe make-up sex?

I've been home sick for two days now. Both days I've sent an email to my supervisor telling him I'm sick and I won't be in. Both days his response has been "okay."

You know, I don't give a fuck just how emotionally stunted you are. At the age of 40, you should have somehow, somewhere, picked up the idea that if someone tells yout hat they're sick, you should say "Get well soon" or some equivalent.

"Okay," my ass.

I hesitate to reach into the kitchen sink’s drain although I have no hand-mangling garbage disposal; I’m all too aware that the Blob could at any moment, in defiance of all laws of physics, seize my arm and pull me right through the pipes for a little afternoon nosh. Frogs and turtles are to be avoided whenever possible, lest they attack you en masse. One never knows when one will be confronted by a horde of amphibians under the influence of some sort of radiation that has suddenly given them a taste for human flesh. Spiders, despite this hippy-dippy claptrap I hear about them eating nuisance insects, are simply waiting for an opportune meteor to land and infect them with some sort of virus that will blow them up to the size of a three story building. Best to squash them all, PR be damned.

I believe what the movies tell me.

I used to think that I hadn’t seen as many movies as everyone else because of our repressive childhood, but really it was some form of mental self-defense. I just keep believing everything in them has happened or will happen to me. I freely confess that anytime I watch House, I get a little teary when Wilson enters the room, alive despite having committed suicide in Dead Poets Society. You’re alive, Wilson! I sob into a blanket. Thank God! Despite such occasional moments of joy, my unwilling suspension of disbelief is a crippling factor, keeping me from enjoying all the movies my friends love – Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, Halloween.

Flatliners.
With Honors.
The Care Bears Movie.

I think the problem is getting worse.

No matter how hard I try to convince my brain that this is fiction, not reality, I remain unconvinced. Frankly, I know me all too well -- I can’t be trusted. And, not to run the old brain down, but the cells responsible for gasping, crying, and all other forms of freaking out are seriously gullible. “Just a movie, just a movie,” I whisper to my teddy bear from the safety of my bed in my brightly lit room, laying on the side facing the closet so that I’ll notice immediately if the chair wedged under the knob should twitch. The cells ignore me and superglue the “Fight or Flight” switch into the “Flight” position. Can’t be too careful, they caution themselves. That’s how the Mothman lures you into a false sense of security.

I can’t see any cure for it. God help me if I ever lose my teddy bear.

I was on the phone this evening with my 3 year old niece, having a lovely conversation of which I understood only about 25% of the words. At the end of the conversation as she was handing the phone back to her mom, she said, "Bye, Megan. Love you. See you soon!"

The "see you soon" part has me worried, since, to my knowledge, she won't be seeing me soon. On the other hand, I really didn't catch most of our conversation, so maybe when I thought she was saying "And I love Dora and Boots and I have a brown dress and I was in mommy's tummy but I didn't watch TV because there's no television in there and you so funny, Megan . . ." she was really saying "Right then, using the credit card I stole from mom's wallet, I've booked you on a redeye tonight out of O'Hare. Pick up the rental car I've reserved for you tomorrow morning in Las Vegas, and we'll see you here at the house around 10 am."

Could go either way. She's a tricky one.