All the better to see you with.

I remember feeling utterly horrified when, at 8 years old, the optician told my Mum I needed glasses. I cried secretly for days and, when we picked them up a week later, I cried all over again. I simply hated the thought. They were brown. They were ugly. They made me look ugly. And everybody would notice.

Spending the majority of my formative years (well, up until about 28 as it turned out) feeling horribly self-conscious, I distinctly remember the near crippling sense of dread I felt that first day in class, knowing I'd have to put on my new and much-hated 'specs'. And sure enough, kids being the blunt, insensitive creatures they are at that age....they pointed, they laughed and echoes of "four-eyes" ricocheted around the room. Silently and choking back tears, I bowed my head over my schoolbook and hoped my long-hair might at least hide the hideous scaffolding on my face. I think I stayed that way for about the next 20 years.

If there was anything to be 'grateful' about, it was being diagnosed as long-sighted not short-sighted, which meant I'd only need glasses for reading, schoolwork and maybe watching TV. Despite my self-consciousness, I dutifully stuck with it in hope that my eyes would one day improve enough for me to triumphantly dump the specs and be able to read in class without actually missing words or whole lines of text in one go. (And for anyone who pushed me too far with the jokes, I also discovered the protective metal case the glasses came in was great for giving a swift whack upside the head.)

Besides, as much as I hated those first glasses (and I've had some hideous, fashion-deprived glasses over the years) they were still infinitely better than the geekier and even more ridiculed 'NHS glasses'. The ugly, thick blue/pink/brown glasses provided free of charge through the National Health Service to low-income families. Those poor kids who had to wear permanently wonky NHS specs always seemed to get beaten up, tripped up or were otherwise so uncoordinated that their glasses would soon be cracked, broken, missing a lens or else held together with bandaids. It just seemed to go with the territory.

Crazy thing is, the NHS-style glasses of the 70's (of which this was the best picture I could find), have become a much sought-after fashion accessory. NEVER would I have thought fashion-conscious, cool and trendy kids would be wearing NHS specs! How things change.

Anyhoooo, surprise, surprise my idea of miraculously fixing my long-sightedness didn't work. I still wear glasses for all the same reasons although I've been increasingly bad for wearing them, not least because I feel compelled to take them off when talking to people - they feel like a block, same as sunglasses do.

I've definitely always made a point to buy glasses that would be as inconspicuous as possible; plain, discreet, unremarkable, bland and even 'blendy-blendy' as the sales assistant described my last pair this week. When I bought them 2 years ago I thought I'd actually stepped out a little but looking back on it, I still went for frames that 'blended' with my hair colour and which I hoped no-one would really notice.

So, since there was money sitting unspent in my extended medical coverage at work, I decided to replace my glasses. As it happens my prescription has changed very little, if at all, for the last several years. I didn't 'need' to get new glasses this week but heck, if the money was there and about to go unused (since I'm changing jobs - thank goodness), then why the hell not get new specs? So I did. And I actually pushed the envelope a little and went outside of my regular comfort zone - mainly encouraged by the fact that glasses really have become such a major fashion accessory. Even people who don't need them are sporting funky or vintage and even NHS-like frames as a personal fashion statement.

The new, funkier pair

The 'blendy-blendy' pair

Okay so I didn't go to any extremes here, but - for the first time - I do have a couple of photos of me actually wearing them and, while normally hiding away my glasses, I even ventured so far as to put these pics on Facebook (admittedly after some gentle prompting). And now that I look at them, I actually don't even mind the blendy-blendy pair. I also have another pair where I previously tried to jazz it up a little, since I found some funky frames at a Dollar Store and got prescription lenses put in for a great discount - but I don't have a photo yet.

Anyway, that was an incredibly long-winded way of saying, after 35 years, I seem to have finally come to terms with the fact I wear reading glasses. Maybe this is all part of that wonderful sense of 'self-acceptance' your supposed to get in your forties.....is it? (Even if I do still choke on accepting the word 'forties' in terms of myself.)

Argufying and Grumbulating: What's with this April-uary weather?

Here we are, April 28th already and if Spring is in the air, it certainly hasn't shown itself here in Vancouver.

Can’t deny my pangs of envy upon seeing the floods of pre-Royal Wedding news coverage from England. NOT because I’m a royalist (which I’m not, in fact I care very little about all this gushing over the Royals and ye olde “Wedding of the Century” mallarky) but rather because everyone in England is clearly dressed in summer clothes, merrily basking in the sunlight and unseasonably warm temperatures they’ve been enjoying for the past several weeks.

And where are we at in Vancouver? Oh yeah, right on target for the coldest April in more than 75 years, that’s where! - averaging 8C when we should be nearer 14. Boo-hoo and WTF!!!

My birthday is a mere 3 days away and I’m just a tad grumpy about still wearing my Winter clothes, heavy coat, gloves & scarf and constantly feeling chilled – something is seriously wrong with this picture. (Although they do say you feel the cold more as you get old(er)….sniff!) 

If I’d ever got off my bum and learned to ski, I’d no doubt be much happier – since even the local ski hills have fresh snow…which is way more than they had during the whole of last year’s 2010 Winter Olympics. But wouldn't you know it, the one day Lorne and I were all set to lose our snow-shoeing virginity on his birthday (April 10th), things warmed up enough that particular day that non-stop pouring rain completely foiled our plans. Ohhhh, the bitter irony.

Hopefully things will soon begin to improve because mostly I'm fed-up of hearing myself sound so completely fed-up about it.  :-)

I take it back....

So those who know me - and are quite likely on my Friends list - will appreciate that my last post Facebook Schmacebook is now.....errr......water under the bridge. Although it's not that my FB page lies dead and buried, gathering dust under a pile of incomplete posts (like my blog seems to have been for the past few months), but rather that it is surprisingly alive and well thank you very much and I'm actually not even sure why or how it gained momentum.

The most surprising advantage is that I've had more frequent and regular contact with family in the UK - albeit in short, sarcastic, piss-taking bursts - than I have in years, it's great! I'm even bouncing back and forth with friends I know well, quite well or simply commenting sometimes on the comments of friends' friends. Plenty of that great British humour and it's so incredibly refreshing, as well as nostalgic. Heck, I'm in danger of becoming a Facebook Bunny - or whatever the true FB insiders might call it. Or maybe not, since my decidedly anorexic list of friends must put me firmly in the 'saddo' category but I'm fine with that. I actually have no desire to rally up a bunch of names of people I hardly know and care about even less, just to appear 'popular'.

I still find Facebook somewhat freaky and I'm not entirely comfortable with the fact I've started using it as much as I have. While I'll never be as bad as a certain friend that I've actually had to block, since he posts almost as often as he blinks, I can't deny I nevertheless catch myself briefly logging in to start the day with a quick update on who's said what and what stupid comment I can post, while I get ready for work. The time difference keeps it interesting too, with half of my family/friends finishing their day as mine begins and vice versa. Anyway, that's all I'm going to say on the subject for fear of sounding like the FB nerd I dread to become.

One unfortunate side however, is wanting to 'friend' a good friend on FB, but I don't want to be inhibited about what I post seeing that some of her friends are people I've worked with but don't know all that well. I don't want to be their friends too, just by virtue of sharing the same sterile 8-5 drudgery in a place I can't wait to leave behind. (Well, in my case and for the most part it's been more like 8am-10pm, no breaks.)

Funnily enough I still find I hate the thought of Twitter in much the same way as I steered clear of FB. AT the end of the day life's really too short to get sucked into another vortex of endless connectivity, eating voraciously into my aspirations of creativity. Huge downside to Facebook? It swallows up time!

I need to back off from Facebook and get to writing some new posts here...or at least finishing the oodles of postings I've started.....but haven't finished.

Status update?: Get a life!  Besides, spontaneity, creativity and conversations with family & friends should be presented in something greater than 120 characters tapped out mid-breakfast.