Goggle Weather

Do you ever find yourself saying, "At times like these I really wish I had a pair of goggles." You know the times I'm talking about: when the weather is angling to tag you in the eyes, the rain and sleet are whirling into your face and you are forced to squint and blunder around, forever in danger of running into low obstacles, passing moose, or off of nearby cliffs. Your last thought, before dying a gruesome death on the rocks below, is always, "I really wish I had a pair of goggles. I would have been all right if I did."

This problem occurs most often in the evening. It can be argued that sunglasses serve the same eye-protecting function as a good pair of goggles might. And this is true, in the sunshine. But come night, and the horrors of whistling wind whooshing white whorling snow into your gawp rise up to howl, sunglasses only compound the problem. Perhaps you can open your eyes all the way, but to what end? Now the dark world is further darkened by darkly darkened dark glasses. At which times above chain of low obstacles, moose, and nearby cliffs is no less a danger than if they were hunting you. (For further meditations on the social problem of moose hunters see elsewhere.)

No, fair night-time excursors. We are all, in this age, ill-equipped to face with fortuity all frowsy frights, frolicking freely from first flight of day till the end of night. It may seem from this speech that my advocacy is with a retreating spirit. This is not true, nor close to true. I believe that this societal epidemic--this gross shortage of necessary accoutrement--can be repaired. We must band together, fair excursors. Call your senators. Mail letters to the school board. Begin petitions. Complain loudly and often that you do not have goggles, that you need goggles, and that you will not stop whining until you have goggles! Together we can accomplish great things. Let your voice/grasp of language communicated via writing be heard/read. We can make a difference.

Goggles are the tool we need to survive.

Wobble and Emphasis

One thing that I don't miss about wearing glasses is the wobble. The phenomenon that occurs when I wag my head--too look to my left, say--and the things I see are crunched a little in the edges of the lense. Thereby the swift moving of the head simulates a wobbling or wavering in what I see, because the oddity isn't apparent except when I'm moving.

I've just noticed that I reflexively blink every time I shift my gaze from the screen to the keyboard and vice versa. I wonder if I might have developed a sort of reflex to not see this wobble. An odd sort of testament to us humans trying to keep the world from appearing strange because it unsettles us, if one develops a reflex to block out an odd visual imput.

One thing that I do miss about glasses is the range of emphatic gestures that they include. Taking them off with the sternness of stern looking, for instance. I never utilized my glasses in the emphatic gesturing as much as I now wish I would have. I did do the incredulously looking over the top thing. And I would take them off and rub my eyes tiredly, then leave them off to give weight to my fatigue thing. But such avenues as the poking myself in the eye twice because not everyone noticed my humiliation the first time move I never managed.

Glasses.