One single eyelash. An eyelash that refused to go away. Therein hangs my sad tale.
(As you can see by this image, I’ve always had a fascination with eyes. I finished this painting, “Devil’s Claw”, forever ago. There’s a surprisingly small number of buyers who want to hang a skull with an eyeball in it on their living room wall.)
Let’s start at the beginning. Waking up and barely stirred by two cups of decaf, I sat down to work on today’s blog. As has happened before, I had no idea on what to post. I was hoping inspiration might strike.
Sometimes inspiration steps up and does its job. Other times it gets all shirty and refuses to play. I only knew the blog wouldn’t be about our current projects. My writing life is currently busy but not especially interesting to outsiders. Or insiders, if you must know. It’s a wonder I struggle along.
Instead, I thought I might lead with The Indian Express’s article on why so many South Korean women are going out and about with hair curlers on their head. (**Spoiler alert** For these ladies, it’s not about the journey, it’s about the destination. They don’t care how they look on the subway as long as they dazzle their audience at the end stop.) It was vague-ish to me how I was going to segue from hair curlers into anything else but, since my South Korean audience is so limited, I wasn’t too concerned. For me and you, it’s always been about the journey.
I’d just wasted 30 seconds chasing down a gotcha link—"Jennifer Grey is 61 and the Most Beautiful Woman Alive”--**Spoiler alert** Jen is 61 years old and attractive. That’s plenty good enough. Would I have been intrigued if the headline had read “Jennifer Grey is 61 and Not Bad for Her Age”? Not for a second. I hate how the clickbait people know this about me—when my left eye started to bother me.
It had been a little irritating the night before, but I’d assumed my eyes were dry. When I checked in the mirror, I found a single eyelash clinging to the white part of the eye, the sclera. It felt a little scratchy.
Blinking didn’t move the lash along. Neither did eyedrops or bathing the area in filtered water. Relying on the advice of WikiHow, my partner in crime took a Q-tip and gently encouraged the lash to go away.
It steadfastly refused to budge. By now, I’d lost an hour I could have devoted to researching “Facts About the Brady Bunch You Won’t Believe.” (We almost had a different Mrs. Brady! Cindy’s lisp was real!) I was getting a little anxious. The ophthalmologist’s office person said he could squeeze me in later that day.
“Don’t use another Q-tip on your eye!” the scheduler chastised me. But…but…WikiHow….
Once I arrived for my appointment, the first thing the assistant did was take a Q-tip and try to dislodge the stubborn eyelash. She didn’t do any better than we had. When the doc joined us, numbing my eye so that he could use a pair of forceps to pull the lash out, he told me that it was unusual to see one trapped under the eye skin. Not “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” unusual. More of a “It Sucks to Be You” unusual. Then he told me to put medicated eyedrops in the injured area for the next week.
Does the eye have skin? It seems unlikely. The doctor was probably dumbing things down for his audience. He hurried away before I could ask him.
I’ll bet this kind of thing never happens to Jennifer Grey.
(As you can see by this image, I’ve always had a fascination with eyes. I finished this painting, “Devil’s Claw”, forever ago. There’s a surprisingly small number of buyers who want to hang a skull with an eyeball in it on their living room wall.)
Let’s start at the beginning. Waking up and barely stirred by two cups of decaf, I sat down to work on today’s blog. As has happened before, I had no idea on what to post. I was hoping inspiration might strike.
Sometimes inspiration steps up and does its job. Other times it gets all shirty and refuses to play. I only knew the blog wouldn’t be about our current projects. My writing life is currently busy but not especially interesting to outsiders. Or insiders, if you must know. It’s a wonder I struggle along.
Instead, I thought I might lead with The Indian Express’s article on why so many South Korean women are going out and about with hair curlers on their head. (**Spoiler alert** For these ladies, it’s not about the journey, it’s about the destination. They don’t care how they look on the subway as long as they dazzle their audience at the end stop.) It was vague-ish to me how I was going to segue from hair curlers into anything else but, since my South Korean audience is so limited, I wasn’t too concerned. For me and you, it’s always been about the journey.
I’d just wasted 30 seconds chasing down a gotcha link—"Jennifer Grey is 61 and the Most Beautiful Woman Alive”--**Spoiler alert** Jen is 61 years old and attractive. That’s plenty good enough. Would I have been intrigued if the headline had read “Jennifer Grey is 61 and Not Bad for Her Age”? Not for a second. I hate how the clickbait people know this about me—when my left eye started to bother me.
It had been a little irritating the night before, but I’d assumed my eyes were dry. When I checked in the mirror, I found a single eyelash clinging to the white part of the eye, the sclera. It felt a little scratchy.
Blinking didn’t move the lash along. Neither did eyedrops or bathing the area in filtered water. Relying on the advice of WikiHow, my partner in crime took a Q-tip and gently encouraged the lash to go away.
It steadfastly refused to budge. By now, I’d lost an hour I could have devoted to researching “Facts About the Brady Bunch You Won’t Believe.” (We almost had a different Mrs. Brady! Cindy’s lisp was real!) I was getting a little anxious. The ophthalmologist’s office person said he could squeeze me in later that day.
“Don’t use another Q-tip on your eye!” the scheduler chastised me. But…but…WikiHow….
Once I arrived for my appointment, the first thing the assistant did was take a Q-tip and try to dislodge the stubborn eyelash. She didn’t do any better than we had. When the doc joined us, numbing my eye so that he could use a pair of forceps to pull the lash out, he told me that it was unusual to see one trapped under the eye skin. Not “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” unusual. More of a “It Sucks to Be You” unusual. Then he told me to put medicated eyedrops in the injured area for the next week.
Does the eye have skin? It seems unlikely. The doctor was probably dumbing things down for his audience. He hurried away before I could ask him.
I’ll bet this kind of thing never happens to Jennifer Grey.
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