Author: Chris

Writer, journalist, wanderer. "Gnashing," a blog about stuff — cultural, personal, important and frivolous. Lots about wanderlust and books and movies and memories. Much about travel and social observations. Hopefully entertaining, a little insightful, forever random and rambling.

Oral apprehensions

~ Chris ~ 3 Comments

In a feat of magnificent self-control, the dental hygienist did not flinch. There she was, peering into my gaping maw, inspecting, poking and scraping teeth and gums, and miraculously she didn’t throw up.

Pro that she is, you wouldn’t think she would. But my mouth hasn’t been examined by anyone with “dental” or “dentist” in their job description since the Obama administration for a plethora of reasons, none of them interesting, credible or justifiable. “Massacre” is the word I figured would spring to her mind as she toiled in my mossy abyss.

I’m a mad brusher and flosser, but I dumbly dropped the ball on getting my choppers checked, and after a while I just let it slide, perhaps the least responsible thing I’ve done since paying good money to see that Spin Doctors tribute band.  

Going into the eons-belated dental appointment, I braced for catastrophe. I entertained Dantesque visions of cavities, gingivitis, cracked crowns, mouth cancer, hairy tongue syndrome, or worse. I imagined my teeth encrusted with piles of plaque, towers of tartar. Dentist? Get me an archeologist.

Dentistry isn’t gorgeous. It’s violent, invasive, queasy, medieval. Still, dentists don’t scare me much. I’m not one of those characters who whines and quivers over the periodic oral exam. My mouth has been through a lot, including braces, a few crowns, scads of fillings and wisdom teeth extraction (all four). 

When I was 14, a dental surgeon propped up a few of my receding gums by slicing strips of skin from the roof of my mouth and using the flesh to support the sliding gums. That happened.

I’ve rode merry clouds of nitrous oxide and been jabbed with novocaine needles the length and girth of bratwursts. I’ve seen my own blood smeared on the minty-green dental bib. What else can they do? I’m pretty much ready for anything. 

And so I went to the dentist this week, steeled, as I said, for that scene in “Marathon Man.” I pictured drills and pliers, sandblasters and buzzsaws.

Instead, I got teddy bears and lollipops. The hygienist couldn’t have been more pert and welcoming, a living bubble machine. (Not only that, but the ceiling television was set to “The View”!) 

She proceeded to do the poke-and-prod routine with hooky metal utensils and rather than recoil at my neglected mouthful, she actually complimented the super job I’ve been doing maintaining my oral health. Clearly, she said, I take my toothsome hygiene seriously. I would have smiled if seven of her fingers weren’t jammed in my mouth. 

And so I won Round One in the dentist ordeal. Of course I had more in store, the big stuff: the x-rays and the photos and the exam by the capital-D Dentist. This gig wasn’t over by a long shot, and with my luck I’d be getting some kind of shot with the longest needle available. 

I was ushered into a new room, where the official dentist’s chair spread before me, the full-length recliner straight out of Torquemada. Once you lie back in this chair, it’s over. Once you open your mouth, you’re doomed. Rinse, spit, repeat, scream.

As it’s been 135 years since I last saw a dentist, the young doctor who eventually entered, after a pair of technicians took x-rays and photos, was of course new to me. And to my delight, she was just as chirpy, enthusiastic and calming as the angelic hygienist — a human puff of nitrous oxide. 

But she was serious, too, and got down to business. The upshot: I am a fastidious cleaner, but I grind my teeth and need a tooth guard for sleep; I have two slightly cracked molars that will eventually require crowns; and I have one “baby” cavity that did not concern the good doc a bit. 

In fact, she practically laughed it off. And at long last, relieved, disabused of my festering fears, and with no fingers and pokers clogging my mouth, so did I.

Traveling totally alone. Plus one.

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With an air of mock bluster, a studied wink, arms comically akimbo, I often sniff that I walk the earth alone. I mean that this avid globe-trotter travels the world solo, sans companionship, just me and the open road, sky and sea, cultivating fun, adventure and experience without the burden of a fellow traveler who so often becomes one big people-y crimp in my one-man style. 

That style is all about space, quietude, being beholden to no one, operating at my own pace and serving my own proclivities. In a word: freedom. It’s traveling with baggage — a carry-on and a small backpack — without baggage. I’ve of course traveled many times with others, from lovers to family to folks I’ve met on the road. Solo is better, and that’s how I’ve been doing it for years, blissfully à la carte.

I don’t get lonely, that’s what everyone wants to know. I have a busy mind, a busy schedule, I make acquaintances, I get lost in the environment, devouring the culture, the cuisine and travel’s crazy curveballs. I wander backstreets and byways just hoping to get sucked into the local labyrinth, to stumble upon the next astonishment. 

With my usual meticulous care, I just booked a nine-day trip to Rome and Naples for late March. Solo, of course. Flight set, tours and meals reserved, a full itinerary. I have plans, firm and unflustered.

And they have just been crashed.

My older brother, hands down one of my best friends, approached me the other day, meekly, and suggested, asked, wondered if he might just maybe, perhaps, possibly join me for a few days on my Italy excursion. 

Normally on hearing those words, my heart would have sunk to the ground, burned through the Earth’s crust and dropped into Hell itself and turned into molten ash. 

But this is my brother, a proven fellow traveler on several journeys. And so I did not flinch. At least not enough that he could see. I have amazing control of my facial muscles.

Really, he’s a fine travel companion. Besides our family trips growing up, he visited me numerous times in Austin, Texas, where we would pal around at a major film festival for several days. 

When he had business in London once while I was traveling there, I welcomed him to join me for a few days and, except for one rather farcical Underground mishap, we got along with impressive synchronicity. We also took a week-long road trip through the American South — Monticello to Montgomery — with scant friction and abundant laughs. 

So it’s not like he’s some monstrous style-cramping interloper upending my delicate plans in Italy. In fact, I predict he’ll be an asset, great company. For one, he’s a whiz, far smarter than I am, with a cooler temperament, possessing a surgically logical mind.

For all my strategizing, he’ll probably be the one assuming the role of tour guide. He was in Rome a few years ago and he knows, for instance, the lay of the land and where to see the greatest Berninis and Caravaggios. I’d likely figure all that out on my own, but not without the furious crumpling of maps and some spicy language that would turn nettled Roman heads.

And yet I’m not wholly abandoning my need for space. Separate hotel rooms are the rule, costs be damned, and I’m taking at least one tour on my own. Whether I “accidentally” lose my travel mate has yet to be seen. One goal is that I’ll never have to huff the rueful words: “This, brother, is why I travel alone.”

This intractable introvert would be lying if I said I didn’t prefer to voyage solo, untethered, with no one to report to or share every moment with. The claustrophobia of enforced camaraderie is something to be wary of.

Yet there’s much to be said for having a co-pilot in uncharted terrain (neither of us has been to Naples). It creates a handy support system and allows experiences to acquire more weight when shared. (He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother, as The Hollies sang. Although I have no intention of trying to lift my brother.)

I just re-read those last lines and wonder if I’m being too optimistic and ingratiating, slathering a shine on things to conceal shuddering apprehensions.

I don’t think so. Travel is too exciting, exhilarating and gratifying to be so easily sullied, especially when one’s unexpected companion will be as pleasant and profitable as my brother. Am I my brother’s keeper? I am not. Vice versa? Maybe.

So this party crasher might be my safety net, an insurance policy. But better yet, he’s a sidekick for the joys of worldly jaunts, and for, we hope, shared ecstasy.

Off to Italy. Shark not included.

Why I’m never going to my high school reunion

~ Chris ~ 3 Comments

My high school reunion is fast approaching. There is no way in hell I’m going. 

The reasons are obvious: the cringing awkwardness, the burning mortification of being reacquainted with people you could barely stand to look at decades ago, the screaming wish to not be there, the horror, the horror.  

I’ve skipped all of my high school reunions and have no plans to attend future ones. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed a coterie of close friends in high school, not to mention several satellite buddies and many gal pals. I was popular with all kinds, even though I generally abhorred the conceited, pathetically delusional jocks and cheerleaders. 

I had the time of my life with those friends, especially my best friend, Ian. The two of us even went to the same college, where he met his future wife, gleaned new interests (like money), then our paths began to diverge. 

We were doomed to lose touch. By late college and beyond he’d become something of a boor, intellectually incurious, cerebrally inert. His cultural immaturity, which manifested itself as an irrational hostility towards the arts, books, fine food and world travel, made him a hopeless philistine, a materialist contented with easy mediocrity and smug conventionalism. (I can only imagine how he’d deem my very different life.) Except for wine, women and song, so to speak, we had zip in common.

It’s a shame. We’ve exchanged occasional emails over the years, but nothing’s clicked. We are different people, only vaguely relatable, and that happens. Still, if there’s one person I’d go to a high school reunion with, it’d be him. 

But that won’t happen. From what I’ve gathered, I think he’s also boycotted the reunions, those sad, saggy assemblies of forced jollity and shattered dreams. Now, I know oodles of people genuinely enjoy these things, going so far as to head organizing committees and track down fellow alumni and all that crap.

What a dismal business. High school was mostly rotten, with the exception of my friends and our extramural activities (huh-hum), the rock bands I played in, and my junior year English teacher, who taught me about 80 percent of what I know about art, life and literature. Recently I wrote this about those days:

“My California high school was a miasma of mediocrity: Clorox-white, suburban, middle-class, filled with dullards and animated by cliquey teen clichés — jocks, stoners, nerds, punks, cheerleaders — ‘The Breakfast Club’ writ eye-rollingly real. This callow pimple-verse was of course dominated by the chest-thumping jocks, those entitled, vainglorious meatheads, who actually believed they were special and that anyone but them gave one goddam about a Friday night football game.”

I was an angry teen, see, which is scarcely uncommon. And it sounds like I hold a grudge, which I kind of do. Yet I’m not blaming anyone for my misery. People are who they are, and who they are as teenagers isn’t necessarily who they become.

But all I know are the characters I knew in high school. And yet maybe that bullying jerk is a benevolent, cherub-cheeked pastor now. And maybe that overbearing chirpy cheerleader is an amazing New York sculptor. Could be. 

I’m not chancing it.

Next stop … Naples?

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The headline reads “Why Tourists Skip Naples: Debunking Common Misconceptions,” and the story that follows presents a catalog of corrections to perceived biases against the southern Italian city, which suffers, to begin with, a reputation for crime and grime and Mafioso shenanigans. It’s known as the “messy brother” or “crazy uncle” of other Italian cities, two descriptions I totally relate to.

So while many tourists skip Naples, I will not. Even if some travelers expect it to be a “mafia-infested crap hole,” writes one travel blogger with zesty candor, I will embrace its raw, rough edges, tuck into its world-famous pizza, drop by the frozen-in-time tragedy of Pompeii and stroll the lush Amalfi Coast. If I feel like it, I might just hop over to the resort island of Capri. I’m capri-cious like that.

This is all in spitball stages. I haven’t bought a ticket, I haven’t nailed a date. I am digesting the possibilities. And as I do, I discover persuasive tidbits. Like that Rome is a measly one-hour train ride from Naples, instantly making any plans a two-city trip. Now I’m thinking four days in megacity Rome, three or four in Naples. (From the Colosseum to the Vatican, Rome, where I’ve been twice, needs no introduction.)

What’s in Naples? The city sits in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius, which legendarily vomited ash and lava over Pompeii, a macabre pilgrimage for those of us who want to see ancient charred bodies in various poses of molten distress. There’s the almost holy National Archaeological Museum; the tomb of the poet Virgil; and Underground Naples, a subterranean slice of preserved ancient Greek and Roman life. Food is of course paramount, as the birthplace of pizza, probably my favorite food. (I’m a lucky guy: pasta is a close second.)   

Still, this history-drenched city, once known as the “Paris of the south,” remains Italy’s unruly black sheep. That’s partly due to the Camorra, the regional Campania mafia, which tends to ignore tourists and get its hands dirty in local entanglements. In other words, it’s not a concern. Street-level crime — pickpockets and such — exists, but hardly more than in any big city. 

Authenticity is the byword. Naples’ “historical center is one of the most authentic and unique places in Italy, in spite of being quite rough around the edges — maybe because of it,” says one traveler. The city is “unfiltered and uncensored — wholly authentic,” writes another.  

I like that; that’s my style. Anything too polished is, to me, antiseptic, a bore. I can do grunge, I can do seedy. I can even do dangerous (ask me about Beirut).

So my next trip might be two Italian cities, Rome and Naples, one gleaming, one with a little slobber on its chin. A writer quotes her Italian nonna saying, “Rome is the heart of Italy, but Naples is the soul of Italy.” Which has me nodding: perfetto.

Naples, with a looming Mt. Vesuvius

Portugal postcard #2

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

The Portugal slideshow continued from the previous post …

Porto’s Monument Church of St. Francis, a breathtaking Gothic cathedral, one of the gaudiest in Europe, slathered in gold leaf. You could melt the church and make five billion wedding rings. Or five gold chains in Miami.
The River Tagus, view from the mazy, crazy Alfama neighborhood in Lisbon
Porto on the Douro River
Sé Cathedral, Porto
A spotlight of sun on cherub tile
Iberian ham and queso toast at the impressive Time Out Market in Lisbon’s Mercado da Ribeira, a dizzying smorgasbord of the best food from around the city, and I can’t argue with that. My food, from sushi to gelato, was exceptional. I went twice.
Porto. In both this city and Lisbon, stylish graffiti is king.

Portugal postcard #1

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

I about had a stroke scaling the steep medieval alleyways of my ‘hood in Porto, Portugal, last week, fuming at yet another of life’s inconveniences — precipitous hills! The humanity! — while clutching my chest and wiping my brow.

It was the same in Lisbon’s Alfama area, the capital city’s coolest, oldest, most mazy residential neighborhood, cut through with endless perpendicular hills and narrow passages. I am either desperately out of shape or the Portuguese are sadomasochists. (The former, decidedly.) 

These are not complaints. These — crippling strokes, premature heart attacks — are symptoms of the kind of euphoria travel so uniquely delivers, and what I experienced during a week split between Portugal’s two largest cities, Porto and Lisbon. Considering strokes and such, you could say the trip was to die for. I was smitten the entire time. 

I’ve been to much of the continent and Portugal reverberates with a different European tang that’s refreshingly, truly Old World. The people are amazing. And, except among many hacking, shriveled taxi drivers, English magically appears whenever you need it. It’s a country of nuance and contrast, urbanity and tradition. And with crazy luck, gorgeous January weather of cobalt skies and 60-degree days, everyday.

Both cities exude singular flavors. Sight-wise, there’s much to see but not an excess. That’s why walking tours are outstanding, taking you deep to reveal the nooks, the crannies, the crooks, the grannies (seriously: old women pop their heads out of two-story windows and chirp, “Bon dia!”). These are pleasant places, vibrant and laidback, and, with their fabled trams/trolleys, rolling hills and postcard waterfronts, redolent of classic San Francisco, my old stomping ground.

My brother asked if I missed a museum-centric city, à la Paris, but I did not. I do weary of so many museums in other cities that can, occasionally, feel like obligations. These cities are all street, with street art, graffiti, cathedrals, tavern after tavern (wifi — what’s that?), earthy food, multitudinous alcohol (Port, wine, Ginjinha!), ankle-twisting cobblestone, claustrophobic side streets, vertiginous hills and slopes, all of it intoxicating.

The streets are brilliantly bad for driving — lots of cobblestone in rattletrap cars with Model T shock absorbers. Sometimes I thought we’d been in an accident, but it was just a thump in the road. Rides are a steal: Uber lifts ran me $3 on average, with taxis still a bargain at twice the price.

Four days in Lisbon, then a three-hour train north to Porto, which resides languidly in pastel colors on the picturesque Douro River. My boutique hotel, a little alleyway charmer, was smack near the water, where it’s clotted with touristy action, even in January, but not too much. Like the guy with the explosive man bun juggling for tips. I got, but did not finish, a fish bowl of sangria, on the water, in the sun and breeze, while a hippie juggled in the distance.

In both cities the women are dark and lovely and the old men are raisin-faced, unshaven, bent over, sweater-clad, with baggy pants and newsboy caps — exactly how I hope to turn out. One day I had two female servers who possessed hairier arms than mine. As a man of Portuguese heritage, I almost cried with respect and admiration. They put my Aunt Silvia to shame, never mind my Uncle Johnny.

The Portuguese language is enchanting, musical, soft around the edges, like cookie dough. It has notes of Spanish, Italian and Russian, dappled with flower petals. It’s fragrant, easy on the ears and I know all of four words of it.

I found these twin cities fresh, novel, relaxed, uncrowded, winsome. Really, from the fine hotels to the affable people, authentic atmosphere to gushing hospitality, legendary history to rapturous food, Portugal is in my travel pantheon. It’s real Old World material. Humble but proud, and never pushy or arrogant. And always something beautiful.

Onto the slideshow, continued in the next blog post … 

Lisbon
The riverfront plaza three steps from my Porto hotel (try and spot the moon)
Alfama neighborhood in Lisbon, modern graffiti clashing with ancient tiles
Alfama
The infamous must-have Porto meal, the Francesinha, a heart-arresting cholesterol orgy of steak, ham, sausage, cheese and bread stacked and drowned in beer and spiced tomato sauce. Staggering decadence that could fell a mastodon. 
At Povo in Lisbon, where you eat and drink while witnessing fetching fado by up-and-comers in the Portuguese musical form, which is founded on soaring sentimental vocals. This singer cracked a roomful of hearts and we didn’t even know what she was saying. 
The Douro River in Porto
Street art is rampant, and almost always striking

 

Pleasures of Portugal, rediscovered

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For all my previously stated apprehensions about the upcoming trip to Portugal — I leave in four days, with unease about how wonderful it will be — I’ve found some solace reading journals from my last Portugal journey, more than 15 years ago. Poring over the pages, it comes back to me: the rolling, vibrant cityscapes, the bonhomous people, the embracing Old World charm, the generously poured Port. What am I worrying about?

Here I am on my arrival in Lisbon those many years ago:

“Beautiful, entrancing, even at night. Quickly lost in the dense street maze searching for food. I’m in the Bairro Alto warren of eats and bars — bony alleyways, pastel walls, quintessential old country. Chanced upon a small, dark, red-lit Parisian-style bar filled with young, mellow boho types. Incense burning, jazz playing, modern art, movie lobby cards. Very hip but stripped of pretense. The basso hum of lively conversation. I am jet-lagged, spaced, zonked, enraptured. I am deranged with travel. It is sublime.”

Fueled by jogged memories — just in time — my enthusiasm for this trip gladly spirals. The journal, scribbled in blue ink and dappled with doodles, proves an encouraging record of a good trip, leavening heavy thoughts of the future voyage with hope and anticipation.

The Portugal journal, discreetly blurred to conceal my innermost thoughts.

I adored Portugal, though I must admit I wasn’t totally taken with its high-altitude fairy-tale town Sintra, with its cupcake castles and princely palaces and perilously steep hills that about sent me into cardiac arrest. My visit, I wrote, felt “mechanical,” the buildings “precious,” the whole joint a tourist trap of ersatz charms. The sylvan setting was nice, however, so green and lush and tall.

We must be reasonable. Travel inevitably presents the occasional hiccup, and you can do far worse than pretty Sintra. It’s all part of the adventure. Like this meal in Lisbon I noted:

“Dinner was ‘Typical Portuguese Sausage.’ But only a third of it was the kind I know and love; the rest was wretched: red, and mushy like squash, and black with bubbles of tough fat. Didn’t eat the pasty ones and tucked the others in a paper napkin so the lovely owner lady — ‘Is it good?’ she asks; ‘Delicious,’ I lie — wouldn’t know. I threw them outside. I hope a dog found them.”

Note to self: try the blood sausage again. You might like it. Older, wiser, and all. 

And that’s how I’m taking this whole trip, equipped with wider eyes and hard-earned wisdom. The last Portugal visit also included a few cities in Spain and Morocco. This time it’s two places in Portugal — Lisbon and Porto — and that’s it. Seven days of focused voyaging, all of it, I think, I hope, divine.  

In the byzantine backstreets of Lisbon

Dog day

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“They’re nice to have. A dog.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Splayed on his back like an overturned tortoise, the dog snores in staccato grunts and fluttering wheezes that are violent enough to startle. Sounds of strangled kazoos, squashed whoopie cushions, warbling carnival organs. He’s a racket, a veritable Concerto for Broken Squeeze Toys, but who would interrupt these guttural snorts of puppy pleasure?  

I, for one, enjoy the cacophony. Let sleeping dogs lie, they say. And groan and grrr and croak and rasp. In a way, it’s like the gurgling of an infant, adorable, musical, slightly alarming. It shows the critter’s vim and vigor. And his ability to emit really strange sounds while passed out and dreaming untold tales of fleeing postmen and the earthy fragrance of his fellow hounds’ sphincters. 

Cubby the dog stirs. He stretches, this bushel of gray curlicues, letting go one big shuddering whine, as if the stretch pumps out a kind of yawning release. A gusty nostril exhalation and he is awake, eyes ajar, head up, tongue licking the air. 

And there, he sees it. His toy, his fresh bone from a Christmas lode of new chews, this one his favorite: a bully bone, which is, literally, a dried bull penis. It looks like a thick rod of beef jerky. It looks, happily, nothing like bovine genitals.

The brown stick is upright between the dog’s front paws, like a cocktail straw in Cabo, and he gnaws it with slobbery gusto. Cubby is a jealous owner. If one of the cats gets within six feet of an idle bully bone, the small dog pounces and chases off the feline, who has no idea what Cubs is on about. The cat’s thought bubble is clear: Good Christ. 

Soon, a human bleats the word “out” at Cubby, a word as magical as “open-sesame” or “Beetlejuice” for its causal powers. It means, of course: Let’s go for a walk. Once you say it, there’s no going back. The dog is leaping, yelping, scraping your legs, doing the famed doggie dance that only the coal-hearted can resist. 

The walk. An exasperating stop-start excursion, all sniffs and pees and poop, with little in the way of aerobic exercise for the human, making it that much more maddening and futile. But this is for the dog. It’s all for the dog. This doggie bag is not for restaurant leftovers. It’s for dookie, see. For the dog.

Fortunately, dogs snooze with comatose abandon. They’re shameless about it. Insomnia is not a thing with dogs. Cubby does not require my melatonin; he is naturally anesthetized. A soft surface will do. Give him two minutes and he’s out, limbs jerking, squiggly noises emitting from a twitching snout.     

He is rather musical in this state. If you press his belly just so, you’ll get a fine bagpipe rendition of “Free Bird” for your troubles.

And it’s always worth the trouble, dogs that is. Barking, scratching, on that rare occasion peeing on the carpet — I can’t think of many canine crimes. Cubby’s got it pretty much down, the dog thang. He might sleep like a rumbling volcano, but he also shows a quiet nobility — an aplomb befitting his rich, regal beard (really, it’s the beard of a meth-head, or Manson) — that makes you look on in adoring awe, and indisputable respect.     

‘Tis the season to chillax

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2020 bit, hard. Somehow 2021 was just as rotten. 2022 looms — turn the page and all that. Don’t hold your breath. It’s going to be another shit show.

What’s been on the menu of wonderfulness? In short: family deaths, illness, Covid and its spawn-of-Satan variants, political/racial/social outrages, chronic insomnia, that gnarly pimple on my forehead last summer — the usual maelstrom. 

Complaining about, even inventorying, these things is by now beyond trite. So we saunter ahead and seek purpose and palliatives, things that distract and dull the pain. 

Like … hell, I don’t know. A stiff drink? (Yep.) Christmas carols? (Bah!) How about just a mindset adjustment, a way of looking at the world in a soft-focus haze rather than the cold, klieg-light glare we’re currently deploying? 

Things are pretty bad, but for most of us, most of the time, they’re not catastrophically bad, are they? Maybe they are. I’ve had my share of catastrophes in these gloomy times — some bad, some badder — and yet I’ve still found resilience, wisps of hope.

It’s a matter of focus and self-possession. If at all possible, we need to mellow. Take a deep breath wrapped in a sigh. We’re starting to hit the I’m-over-this-shit button, yet we’re in for more bone-cracking cold. Hang tight. But not too tight.

Maybe this is a call for self-improvement. For our quirks and foibles — our hideous flaws — to get tweaked and kneaded into something softer and more accepting. And more helpful.   

Me, for instance. I own a roiling anger that springs from fighting life, resisting and pushing, sparking off it, flint-like. I strain and recoil, writhe and seethe. It isn’t helping. I need to cork it. Clonazepam does only so much. 

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions — hardly a novel stance — but if I did one it would be to ride the next wave with the mettle and determination of that young surfer who got her arm bit off by a shark but keeps on shredding half-pipes like nothing ever happened. Limbs are missing. Still, we carry on.

Setting my sights on new specs

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At long last I need prescription eyeglasses. I figured it, the doctor confirmed it. I am the most olden and wizened man on Earth. 

And yet I am not devastated. I am hardly ruffled, didn’t even blink. I’ve been wearing reading specs for some time now, used namely for books, food labels and computer stuff, and without which I couldn’t type these words and how that would break your heart. 

I can see people, cars, trees, raccoons and the general environment with spectacular clarity. No one appears fuzzy like a gelatinous apparition or a melting snowman. In fact, I’d reckon my vision is at least 80 percent normal and healthy. 

Yet, as I have just learned, I am clinically far-sighted: objects at a distance are clear but those up close, like book pages, laptop screens and microwave buttons, are distressing smudges. They look like amoebas, or roadkill.

So this week I elected to get a fancy, full-blown eye exam, my first in about 15 years (and my second ever). I pictured, blurrily, a speedy, comfortable procedure featuring paper eye charts and other quaint peepers paraphernalia. 

Instead, for almost an hour, I was subjected to a harrowing battery of high-tech tests featuring Kubrickian contraptions, yellow-dye eyedrops, blinding photos of my wide-open eyeballs, all while being ushered in and out of apparatus-cluttered rooms by two assistants and a doctor who maintained a scary, chirpy detachment. The lab coat, an unsettling touch.

Eventually, I was done. I blinked about 585 times, wiped the gooey yellow dye from my lashes, examined, with the trio, disconcerting snapshots of my bulging, bloodshot orbs, and listened to the dilated diagnosis. I am going blind. 

No, but a prescription was prescribed: progressives. These are glasses, or specifically lenses, or, as I snatched off the web: “a type of prescription eyeglasses that let you see your whole field of vision without switching between multiple pairs of glasses.” That’s a bit reductive, but it makes the point.

The upshot: I need real glasses.

At least I sort of know what having glasses is like, what with my onerous readers and all. Those I have to fetch and fumble for, be it at home or in the tahini aisle at Whole Foods, or at the ATM, etc. (and that’s a very long etcetera). 

The new glasses I ordered will be glued to my face with utmost convenience and questionable aesthetics. I wanted dark blue, even cobalt, frames, and I selected a blue-blackish pair from the sterile racks and rows of spiffy eyewear. The frames run pricey, the lenses even more. Discounts are involved, so the damage isn’t blinding. Still, the money might be spent more festively on my approaching voyage to Portugal, on, say, museums, or octopus platters. 

Color me excited. Blurs be gone. The whole world crystalline. Granny glasses, the cursed readers, in the dustbin. I foresee all of this, and I haven’t even tried on the new glasses. I envision a brighter future. I call this far-sightedness.