New Specs!

My 2010 Specs

I got some time off around the December holidays and didn't have to report back for the day job till Monday, January 4, 2016. On Sunday I started tensing up and growing anxious about going back to work the next day. By the early evening I had a headache. Around 8 o'clock I noticed lights flashing in my peripheral view, in my right eye. Sort of like a bunch of paparazzi had shrunk themselves into a submarine (which'd been shrunk first, obvi) and were then injected in me, only to wind up behind my eyeball and go to town with their cameras as though Beyoncé, Jay Z, and baby Blue Ivy had just taken residence there.

An old broad wearing her old specs.

This has happened before, over the course of my adulthood (such as it is), but not frequently. I wasn't clear on what caused it, but as I'd been more regular about my eye exams and no doctor had predicted my doom, I reckoned it was no big deal. Now, though, I realized it'd been a few years since my last exam (in point of fact, it'd been OVER FIVE YEARS) (tsk). So I made an appointment with some doc at some joint near my place of employ and brooded over whether these folks'd make me get my eyes dilated (which I hate) or if they had that machine that takes a pic of the inside of your eye and could work from that alone.

The thing is that my eyes are already sensitive to light. With the pupils widened, for HOURS, I'm extremely uncomfortable—disoriented, even. Last time my eyes'd been dilated was YEARS ago, on a blindingly sunny day. Even with sunglasses on, I was miserable. (Well, more miserable than usual.) I found myself walking to the bus stop with super-slow comical caution, lest I wind up stepping into the street and getting run over. Took me forever to get home.

So yeah, they had that piccie-taking machine but, yeah, after the doc heard the main reason that'd brought me to her examination room, she encouraged me to consider getting dilated anyway (the cost of which was already included in the exam and covered by my insurance) and she could then follow-up with piccie-device if I wanted (which I did, though that was not covered). Whatevs—I did both things and was relieved to learn that all was well. Doc diagnosed ocular migraine (which surprised, as I do get headaches with weather changes and whatnot, but I wouldn't say they're bad enough to qualify as migraines). Since my prescription changed from the previous one, she recommended I order anti-glare whatsit for the lenses of my new specs, what with my vampire-like abhorrence of (sun)light and ocular migraines and shit. (I'm paraphrasing.)

I did that and as I headed for the subway to get myself home I patted myself on the back for having scheduled the appointment so late in the day that it was night and so not as hard on me as daylight would've been. Still, I felt a bit weird as I stood on the platform awaiting the 1 train, as even the dim light down there bothered me a little. The train was going to be a bit so I texted My Dear Friend Nikki.

Me: Had an eye exam, had to get pupils dilated. Opium eaters would envy my look right now. Ugh.
Nikki: Aw...I bet you look like those big eyed paintings of little kids.
Me: I DO!!!!!
Nikki: You should take a selfie

So I did.

I looked like a motherfucking vampire, for realz. (Rawr.)

When I got to Grand Central Terminal there were some cops chillin' by the Shuttle exit, doing bag checks. I thought, "Great, this will be the time they pull me aside to check out my shit, all because of my weirdly doped-up pupils." But they didn't. Which, in hindsight (haha, geddit, hindsight?), is a bit of a shame, 'cause that'd improved this story by, like, a zillion percent. I mean, I could make some shit up, but that's not my style.

Anyway, made it home all right and got my new specs about a week later. The attendant at the eye shop cautioned me that it might take some time to adjust to the new Rx, which every attendant has always told me upon delivery of a new pair of glasses, and I'd never had to "adjust." I did this time, though! It was weird to feel eye fatigue for a few hours on the first couple of days I wore them, but adjust I did and I kinda dig 'em. Not sure if the anti-glare stuff's really made much of a difference, though...

Contrasting the old with the new. What a difference 5 years makes!

They feel fine on, but dang, they look HUGE on my face!

Don't they???

Yep, still seem mighty large, to me...

Whadda y'all think?

Duran on Film!

On September 2 (the 50th birthday of Keanu Reeves, which, due to the smashing text I received, became my birthday too, yeah), I had the following text exchange with My Dear Friend Nikki:

NIKKI: Are you around say about 7:30 on September 10th?
ME: Lord willing and the police permitting!*
NIKKI: We are going!
ME: Where???
NIKKI: Chelsea cinemas on 23rd
ME: To see what?
NIKKI:

DURAN DURAN!!!!!

ME: WHOA!!!!!**
ME: SWEET!!!!!
ME: We should probs get tix in advance, if we can.
NIKKI: Yeah babe.
NIKKI: The music's between us!***
ME: Reach up, gurl!!!***
ME: Did u buy or shall I?
NIKKI: I already bought em
ME: Yay! what do I owe you?
NIKKI: Your presence. That is all I require. :-)
ME: Aw! I went all swoony just then. ;-)
NIKKI: Aw shucks...Go on...
ME: <3

*I can't take any credit for that, as it's one of the bizarre sayings of my people.
**That was absolutely unrelated to the aforementioned birthday boy.

So she and I, like, TOTALLY went to see this last week. I admit to feeling a bit of trepidation, wondering just what the fuck David Lynch would do to my Wild Boys. What he did was simply superimpose sometimes freaky images over concert footage from their performance at the Mayan Theatre in L.A., back in 2011. On the bright side, 4/5 Duranies were in concert together (ANDY! WHERE ARE YOU, ANDY?! THEY NEEEEEEEEEED YOU ANDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!). On the weird side, David Lynch.

Now, don't all you Lynchers get your crimson crotch-less knickers in a twist; I like Twin Peaks, and its damn good coffee, as much as the next gal. But there's no denying the man's vision is...hmmm...more surreal than Dali on angel dust (and how's THAT for a yardstick?). (Mind you, I've no idea whether Dali did the stuff or not. I'm just sayin'.)

Case in point: the shit Lynch put up over the lads as they performed the 2004 single off the Astronaut album, (Reach Up For the) Sunrise. It was the year I'd gone from a difficult job to the one I'm still at now. For me, that the boys released this fucking rocking and inspirational tune the summer in which I started the new gig revved me up in ways I can't coherently express. My Dear Friend Nikki has this song wake her up every morning, it's so friggin awesome to move one's booty to. (The bits in our text exchange with the three asterisks are lyrics from the song, except for the "gurl" part.) I can even get over the fact that, in chord structure, it follows the format of verse in minor/chorus in major that The Reflect and Electric Barbarella, and probs plenty of other Duran tunes use, I heart it so much. And here's Lynch, throwing up, of all things, a motherfucking Barbie-doll type thing, in the "nude," black circles with the letter "D" covering her tits.

WTF?

I'll admit, I LOLed the first time I saw that, which was when the chorus first played. A bunch of us in the (disappointingly small) audience did. Then it repeated and I decided I had to break out my phone so I could capture this shit. And guess what? The first image I caught was:

Count 'em, y'all—that's TWO dollies dancing over John Taylor's face. But two dolls weren't enough for Lynch—oh, no:

Nick Rhodes got THREE o' them bitches all up in his grill! But that didn't quite satisfy Lynch, because they rapidly multiplied until:

Simon LeBon was overrun by a horde of the ungodly things, all reaching up for the motherfucking sunrise. Or his soul. Couldn't be certain, because soon after it was like a Barbie apocalypse and I may have fainted.

Now, if this shit had happened during, say, Girls on Film or, even more fittingly, Girl Panic, there'd have been some logic to it. But what the fuck am I thinking, expecting logic from the director in question?

ANYWAY, the music was pretty fucking fabulous (their dramatically slow intro into A View To A Kill, from which lyrics I derived the title of my book, THAT FATAL KISS, had My Dear Friend Nikki and me in raptures). In fact, it irked me to see only a few folks so much as bobbing their heads to the tunes, much less dance in their seats, as I did. It's like they were just Lynch fans, there to see his work, which is possibly the most surreal concept of the entire night.

I've been trying to find a video of this bit online and the best I could turn up was but a mere snippet. Instead, I decided to embed live concert footage which successfully conveys why My Dear Friend Nikki and I heart the tune so very much.

The B-52s & The Go-Go's (A Mostly Crappy Pictorial)

Gawd, I hate putting that superfluous apostrophe in that second band's name. Blerch.

My Dear Friend Nikki and I smile for her infinitely superior phone camera.
Little did we know that within a half hour of the Go-Go's starting we'd
narrowly avoid a brawl with the drunken dudes dangerously
swaying into us. Tossers. We think Security may have escorted them
the hell out of Roseland Ballroom later. At least, we hope.
Douchebags.

Jane Wiedlin, rhythm guitarist for The Go-Go's (damn that apostrophe!),
being all adorbz in her Star Trek science officer uniform. Unfortunately,
I couldn't get even minimally decent pics of the rest of the gals.
Too, our enjoyment of the 1st half of the concert was greatly
diminished by the aforementioned altercation, as well as our mutual
realization that we didn't actually know a lot of their music!

We were in better spirits after a break and when The B-52s finally took the stage.
Poor Cindy Wilson was still getting over some illness which rendered
singing tricky and her voice periodically cut out, which was a shame.
But Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson more than made up for it, with
Fred cracking lines in between tunes like, "...when we weren't busy inventing
New Wave..." and "...here's one of our world-famous ballads!" and Kate
swingin' her arms & flashing her pearlies with true aerobic instructor
enthusiasm. Lah-lah-LOVED their set. They opened with Planet Claire and
the hits just kept on coming. They wrapped up with Wig and Love Shack,
during which Nikki and I had to bugger off, so as to get our 11:40 train back
into the 'burbs. Alas. Responsible adulthood sux.

My only complaint about The B-52s is that they didn't play Summer of Love which, with the first day of summer coming up, wouldn't have been amiss. Or, which would have been even more fun, one of Fred's solo efforts, as uploaded by some lovely fan on the Youtubes. (Not I, so you can't blame me.) (OK, I am posting it here, so you can blame me for that, if you must.)