3 December 1997: I Still Have Eyes

Wednesday, 3 December 1997:

I Still Have Eyes

Yesterday I went to the eye doctor. I've felt like my vision has continued to deteriorate (I'm nearsighted; how many fannish programmers aren't?), and since my driver's license needs to be renewed in the next month or so I wanted to get them checked out and get new lenses if necessary. I've also noticed that my vision gets a little worse as a day wears on, for whatever reason. Maybe it always has, and I just started noticing it in the last year.

Well, the doc didn't have any answers to the second matter, but as to the first, he says my eyes are fine, and the nearsightedness seems to have stabilized. But he says my current lenses - soft ones which are two years old (the physical lenses, as well as the prescription) - probably need to be replaced. So I ordered new ones and we'll see.

My eyes are probably my most precious possession, and it's always good to have further confirmation that they're in good working order. Someday I might consider laser surgery, but even though the risks these days are very small, I tend to feel that any risk is too great when it comes to my eyes. I avoided getting contacts for several years for just that reason.

Last night I finished Startide Rising. In a word: yuck. Pretty much everything about the book that interested me was basically shoved aside when it got down to it. I started The Uplift War, and I hope it's substantially better, or that may be it for me and Mr. Brin. (I have it as a goal to eventually read all the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novels.)

I also recently completed my collection of the comic book series The Maze Agency, which is a straight mystery series, perhaps the only one of its kind in comics history. It's not deathless stuff, but it has likeable characters, and its earliest issues feature splendiferous artwork by Adam Hughes (who went on to do a lot of cheesecake art, which seemed like a waste to me, although he did do a great Star Trek graphic novel with Chris Claremont). Unfortunately, one of the key issues of Maze, from a character standpoint, is marred by mediocre Joe Staton art. Ah, well.

Today I got through a hell of a lot of small projects at work - stuff I'd expected would take me until the end of the week to complete. I feel rather proud of that accomplishment, but I'm still kind of down about some aspects of work so that has marred the feeling.

Tonight I went down to the local SF group's weekly socializing thing. I was feeling kind of muddled and not very talkative, so I slipped out (sort of) early. Actually I was - and am - feeling generally pretty down. Probably I shouldn't have gone there, but I had to pick up tickets from one of the folks for a little concert that several of us are going to on Friday. Ah, well.

Oft times I feel that I haven't really clicked with these people all that well, and sometimes I wonder if it's mainly my fault. I feel that I've gotten more introverted and aloof as the last few years have gone by. But then I get together with someone like my friend Bruce, who I saw last week, and I realize that I really do click quite naturally with some people. There just aren't very many of them, especially around here. Not that these aren't fine people, but the 'click' just isn't there.

Maybe I should move. Well, except for the fact that I otherwise really like it here in Madison

Boy, how easily vacation happiness turned into workaday melancholy, huh?

Michael Rawdon (Contact)