Reading Glasses

I have new contact lenses that give me better distance vision, so I should be able to read highway and street signs from greater distances, but the change comes at the expense of my close vision - vision I need every day in the library. I had been living with a compromise, trying to balance my near and far vision in a single prescription, but it was no longer working. My optometrist thought my cornea was too steep for bifocal contact lenses, so I now have reading glasses, an inexpensive pair that I purchased at a drugstore. It has been two or three (or four) weeks, but I have not figured out yet when to have the reading glasses on hand and when I do not need them. It seems a small change in my life, but I need to stop and think about my routines - which may be a good thing.

I have amused colleagues and friends at the library in these weeks, as I am constantly putting the glasses on and taking them off and laying them down and having to find them. Several people have told me I look cute in glasses, when I can find them, which is a surprising thing to hear. I am getting fashion advice about frames as well. It has been a long time since I got so much attention.

I really goofed Saturday and left my reading glasses at home. I was able to use the computer without any problem; I could have enlarged the print but did not do so; I can sit fairly far from the screen and the back lighting must help. At arms length most of our reference books were still readable, but some circulating nonfiction books were fuzzy, the newspaper was difficult, and I had to look at a Baker and Taylor bill very carefully to distinguish an 8 from a 9. Telephone books were impossible to read. I don't know where the magnifying glass went. I also has trouble with spine labels in aisles with dim lighting. I am getting a lesson in how dependent I am on my vision.

The solution to my problem is two-fold. I will buy more reading glasses and leave them everywhere I need them, and though I have hesitated to do so, I will hang a pair of reading glasses around my neck; it will probably make me look like (gasp) a librarian.