Sunglasses, Racism, PRK Redux

I did something vaguely political this morning and listened to the Sarah Palin speech all the way through. I think that's enough serving my country for this year. To prove it, I'm not even going to tell you how I feel, but direct you to read this guy because I basically agree with him and he's funnier.

Ok back to talking about me, so I was going to tell you more about my brand new face, but now I'm embarassed because I have two brand new zits. Thanks, face, right in time for my birthday too.

Anyway the story about the sunglasses lady goes Last week my mom took me to buy my first pair(s) of sunglasses, so we went to Sunglass Hut at the mall. I love that. We were the only ones in there, so the super nice Russian shopkeep started helping us and telling me what she liked and when things came in other colors. At one point, though, these two kinda hoodlum-looking Latino boys came in. One was short with this oversized Fubu jersey and the other had this bad moustache. Anyway, they weren't in the store for two seconds when the shopkeeper excused herself, went over to them, and said "You had better not steal anything. I'm not stupid, and I'm watching you." Then she came back over to my mom and I and was all "It's always the same type. They come in here and look around and when they leave, things are missing." And she's saying this LOUD and wanting my mom and I to agree, which we can't do and still be considered decent people so I was like "I dunno, I've never owned a store mumble mumble..."

I also have an online friend who's Russian who HATES blacks and latinos. I wonder if it's a thing. (Actually he's not a friend, he doesn't talk about anything but broadway musicals and the twinky 18-year-olds he likes, but I keep him around because sometimes his broken English makes funny sentences. Would believe he ACTUALLY said to me once "Too bad you're not a cute 18-year-old" as if to imply that we could have some sort of RELATIONSHIP if I were? I was like "Bitch, in that case turning 19 and growing my 5 chest hairs is the best thing that ever happened to me!")

Anyway, I guess you gotta respect the woman for putting her notorious racism right out on the table, but those kids left and we were trying to check out and the woman kept talking about "that type who steals." Whatever, I'm over it, I got two pairs of awesome sunglasses.

Oh and let me tell you my joke I made up while being ignored under the laser. Stop me if you've heard it (which you have multiple times if you've spoken to me in the past week).

Q: Where do you go when you're blinded and need to be cured?

A: The Peek-a-Boo ICU!!!

AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! I slay.

I really can't begin to tell you how happy I am about my eyes now. I feel like a brand new person... more confident (but for my BREAKOUT), more awake. The world is bigger, and I feel like I'm connecting with people more when I talk to them. It's really amazing! Ok I'm done.

PRK

Hello, blog! I've missed you but obviously not enough to take 5 minutes to update you even though I've been able to for like a week now. So much has happened.... let's see, what can we talk about?

Blah, in short I got my eyes lasered and have perfect vision, but in doing so I have rediscovered the plague of undereye circles and puffiness that I can no longer hide with glasses. I've always had this problem, but add to that the fact that I haven't slept properly since I got back to New York, shake, chill, and basically I look way scary all the time so instead of people going "OMG YOU LOOK AWESOME WITHOUT GLASSES!" they're like "Oh, you're back.... so are your eyes ok?"

But to give you the full story, yes. My eyes are fabulous.

For years, my dad had been pestering me to get LASIK surgery because of the cool kids, and I finally relented and got a consultation this summer. The consultation said I have thin corneas (yeah, I know, losery) but that I was still a candidate for PRK (photorefractive keratectomy), which is similar to LASIK. The difference is that with LASIK, they cut a flap in your cornea and flip it up, do the laser thing, and then flip it back down. PRK creates no permanent flap, they just remove a portion of the out layer of your cornea (a WEIRD sensation, I might add) and then let that heal. PRK takes longer to recover from, and is supposed to be painful, but it's techincally a less invasive procedure.

Anyway, so they give you a pill of the calming variety and then numbing eyedrops, thank God, because the next step is lying in the chair and having those Clockwork Orange eye opening clamps put in your eye and being forced to watch as the doctor cuts and scrapes away the top layer of your eyeball. It's completely bizarre. It bunches up like cellophane, and then they pick it up with tweezers. It's about as close to you as anything you've seen, yet there's still this sense of distance like it's happening a centimeter or so from your eye. Vision's a funny thing.

Anyway, then all you have to do is stare at this red dot for 30 seconds to a minute. It's got a big white circle around it. As you do this, try not to think about the fact that the dot is actually a sizzling laser melting your eyeballs. My doctor was really good at making me feel at ease by ignoring me and talking to the nurses about sports. I figured "If he's not worried, I'm not worried," though by the end I started to feel ignored and said some inane things to draw the attention back to me like "This is fun. I wish I had a third eye."

Going into this procedure, I was a little nervous because people on the internet reported major pain the few days after the surgery. They were all "OMG TAKE YOUR VALIUM BEFORE YOU GO IN OR YOU WILL REGRET IT!" My cousin Kevin had PRK too, and he said he was so sensitive to light for the first few days that he couldn't even look at the clock on his stereo and had to sit in complete darkness in his basement. So imagine my surprise when I woke up the next day with no pain and walked upstairs into the sunny kitchen for a bagel with no problem. It was like I was a normal person, except I couldn't read or focus properly or watch TV or stare at a computer. So I listened to my Harry Potter audio books for 3 days before I was comfortable enough to watch the entire last season of Charmed in a day. (OMG, the girl from that nerd sitcom was in it and she was a witch looking for her lost sister but then they turned EVIL, it was so awesome and shitty!) A little light sensitivity prevented me from a sunny afternoon out, but that passed too! And now I can see perfectly, and it is only getting better every day! Also, I have a bottle of codine I never used if anyone's interested.

The last part of my story is about the woman at the sunglasses store, but I will tell it later because it is coffee time and this is long.