wrap me up against the cold

Alright, first of all, I would like to whine because it is COLD DEATH HORRIBLE COLD and has been for weeks.

Look, I know that by choosing to live in the mountains of Virginia, I run the risk of both boiling in summers and getting at least one good snow a year in the winters. But it is cold and terrible and death and I think there’s a definite risk of frostbite at this point. I never lived anywhere colder, so having temperatures in the teens and twenties–that’d be in the -12 to -5ish range for you celcius lovers–for more than a day or two at a time brings out unprecedented levels of whining. Also, the radiator? Not so hot. Space heater ftw.

This wasn’t actually intended to be a long whinge about how cold it is, except that that lyric got into my head, so here we are.

What I intended to write about is how much I want some wooden glasses. See, my job does not yet know I am leaving–something I plan to leave to the last minute–but I do. I know that it took me 8 months of varying degrees of intensity of searching to get a job back in 2008. I know that I am pretty much disqualified from buying private insurance because of the migraine issue, not to mention this pesky autism stuff, and I’m too old to get back on my mom’s insurance (also, not a student right this second). Between trying to remember to make a dental appointment and worrying about how the gabapentin, rather than making me drowsy, is making me an insomniac, I got it into my head that I need to drop a couple hundred and buy some glasses.

My insurance is good, as far as insurance goes. The copays are not horrible, the premiums are not horrible. I have vision and dental, which is more than most people (should have taken advantage of this earlier, but I only remember going to 2 dentists–I’m sure I went to one as a small child in Atlanta, but I have no memory of this–and seeing anyone else scares me). I bought glasses pretty much as soon as my insurance kicked in when I started this job, but since my ‘scrip is stable, I’d like to get another pair before I quit. Insurance pays for 40% of my total, flat. My lenses are cheap, because I am largely not blind, and the only special stuff I like is anti-glare.

After trying on a bunch of glasses and coming across a pair I quite liked, I started to really think about wooden glasses and how badass that would be. My first stop was Urban Spectacles, which involves hand-carved custom awesomeness (my favourite pair are ‘gold star’–love the asymmetrical bridge!). However, apparently prices start at $500, and I’m not even sure if he’s making them any more–even if he is, I doubt he takes my insurance. So. Second stop was Herrlicht, a German site with very little by way of information (linked directly to my pair of choice, in the reddish wood plzthx?); I’ve no idea what they cost or if they’re still operational. Third stop, however, may have been a victory. On page 6 or 7 or 8 of my google search (“wooden glasses”) results there came this website, an online glasses retailer with a pretty good-sounding return policy and super cheap. Yeah, they’re not wood (I’d want them in brown, as it’s most wood-like), but they’re probably the closest I can afford for now. I see no mention of taking insurance, but since they’re about $60 all up I guess I can’t whine.

Is getting two pairs of glasses exhorbitant? I’m thinking yes.