The Alternate Lexicon » glasses

that’s kind of why I liked you at first

Ali — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 01:11:42 +0000

It is time for me to get some new glasses! I really love the price, ethics, and quality of Warby Parker, having just gotten my first box of at home try on pairs. The ones I expected to love were not right at all, and my last-minute “couldn’t hurt to toss these in” are pretty fabulous. I think I’ll order another box with a few more pairs, but in the mean time, head over to flickr and see if you like either of these options!

between the dust and the debris

Ali — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:51:19 +0000

I’ll update later today (it’s after midnight, it’s today!) with hair and cat photos, if I don’t completely forget. As you do. It’s snowy snow snowing outside again. Another 4″ on top of the 8″ we had (that, to be fair, had melted down by half at least) over the weekend, with possibly a couple of feet due over the coming weekend. Cannot. Escape. Fast. Enough. I like snow, but I am so sick of the whining and the not having good vegetables and the slush in my house because my door opens in a weird way and there’s no place to keep a doormat.

Have you, O Reader, ever felt like you can’t catch a break? Every time you turn around, something is happening that prevents you from advancing? Yeah. The last few months have felt like that, and I was bitterly convinced that 2010 would be better because it couldn’t be worse. I stand corrected. It can be at least the same level of suck.

Things that have happened in January since my last substantive post:

1. I fell down the stairs outside my apartment, bruised myself up.

2. I told the neuro the gabapentin wasn’t working and got very little help from him (I’m trying a hefty dose of magnesium and will be adding riboflavin shortly, as reccomended in the best book about migraines I have ever read even if she does think accupuncture isn’t a total sham).

3. The glasses I found and wanted were sold out (I ended up buying the ones with the real! wood! sides!, we’ll see if they’re as badass as they seem)

4. I negotiated/weeped my way to a resolution on my MRI bill (short version: Them: “You don’t qualify for the fee reduction because in the past 3 months you made X with would mean your yearly salary is Y, about $8,000 over the limit.” Me: “Can you not see the part where I did, in fact, make a salary under the limit? This is stupid math.” Then some weeping, and an agreement to resubmit my claim in April with all new paystubs).

5. I had to pay over $400 in taxes because my job sucks at doing their job witholding. Seriously, how could I, at around 200% of the poverty level, owe the feds money? WTF?

6. Prosper sprained his little kitteh wrist and was all limpy until the vet gave him (an expensive) shot that made him a little loopy.

7. Dollhouse ended and the finale sucked.

8. I DID NOT HAVE INTERNET AND IT WAS HORRIBLE DEATH. The internet has now been restored. You can tell, because I am alive.

9. At this point I should make a 10 point list, don’t you think? Uh, I had a serious lack of therapy. Further, my asshole insurance decided I probably only need 6 more sessions. This won’t be a catastrophe because of the moving and all that, but if I wasn’t? Jerks. Therapy is waaaaay better than drugs, even if it is more expensive. We’re working on my awareness of my tendency to be rigid and how to think my way through that. We had a really good one this past Monday about thought planning in new social situations that was super helpful. Fuck you, insurance!

10. My job continues to suck.

I am so looking forward to going down to Dad’s next week. Here’s hoping I don’t get snowed in.

wrap me up against the cold

Ali — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 08:51:29 +0000

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.