Pictured: all of our worldly possessions, plus my parents. See you in California, worldly possessions!
Gung hei fat choi!
Contacts day 2.
Couldn’t get them in after ten minutes of trying just now. Later. Also, this:
Me: “Would you still have married me if I looked like this?” (I.E. without glasses.)
Shannon: (Long pause.) “You know, I think I’m the wrong person to ask.”
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN.
There are discs inside of my face! I’m seeing through my eyes right now without wearing glasses! I have contact lenses and they are touching my eyeballs! You guys, I am blinking SO MUCH.
So weird SO WEIRD. I’ve worn glasses since second grade. They are basically my face. NOW I DON’T HAVE A FACE AND I KEEP POKING MYSELF IN THE BRIDGE OF MY NOSE.
I have peripheral vision. What is this madness?
Ahem. What happened is this: We had some money left in the medical flex spending account, so I bought a fancy pair of prescription sunglasses, as one does. We picked them up on Saturday, and on Sunday someone stole them from Isaac’s stroller in Prospect Park - with cold emotionless logic passing up the grubby sock and drained yogurt pouch. For whatever reason, I decided that that was the last straw and that it was time, after thirty years of glasses wearing, to streamline. So I went back to the optometrist this morning and then she put DISCS ON MY EYEBALLS. Then she made me do it twice, and an hour and a half later I had that down. And now I’ve done it again.
Blinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblink. If you see me walking down the street, walk on by, because you’re not going to recognize me, because I no longer have a face.
New York things I’ll miss: free street books. Just scored a hardcover “Up In The Old Hotel” & some old John McPhees.
Things I’ll miss about New York, number 3: the combo of Xian Famous Foods and the International Bar.
Things I’ll miss in New York #2:
Sitting in the parked car while Shannon nurses Isaac in the back, watching New Yorkers pass by, and wondering which of them he might be like someday.
61° yesterday and Mario Lopez is outside. Why are we moving to LA again?
Things I’ll miss in New York #1: El Rincon del Sabor
Yes, I know: Mexican food is better in L.A. Don’t even start, because a) E.R.D.S. serves Ecuadoran food, and b) my love for it isn’t about the taste or quality of the caldo gallega. I love it because it’s four flights up a cast-iron staircase in a regular old office building on Jeweler’s Row - but because it’s Jeweler’s Row, visiting a regular old office building means taking a trip to 1932. Every tiny room or suite has another jewelry-ancillary business going on, from medieval-seeming smith-type operations to a little guy behind a desk yelling into a phone in Yiddish (on my way up the stairs) and Dutch (on my way down). Going to El Rincon (where only Spanish is spoken and the wood-paneled interior is as cozy as a rec room) is my only access to that world. Plus the food is pretty good.
We’re moving to Los Angeles. In February, or maybe a little sooner, but not forever - just for a couple of years. Just thought you should know!
