Foresight, Hindsight

by Camille Posted on March 18, 2010

I got hard contact lenses yesterday.

Image from here.

Let me take a moment here to explain to you that I have chosen to try out hard contact lenses (or gas permeable lenses, as they are commonly known to those of us in the optometrist field {I consider myself an old pro now, with how many times I’ve had eye exams in the past month}) as a last-ditch effort before having to wear glasses full time. The kind of soft contacts I wear (incidentally, the only kind thick enough to actually correct my outrageously poor vision) were denying my eyeballs of any and all necessary oxygen, and so, in order to save themselves from suffocation, they started growing blood vessels into my corneas so more oxygen could get in there.  Which was nice of my blood vessels and all, except for the fact that they got a little power hungry and are now one step away from taking over my vision as a whole, leaving me with clouded over, permanent, irreparably damaged vision…

…Let’s just say, I can never wear soft contacts again.

What’s more is that the blood vessels in my eyes leave me at very high risk for Lasik surgery—one wrong move, and POP! goes the blood vessel, which, I guess, is bad.

So now that you understand why I am putting myself through this misery (I just really don’t want to be doomed to glasses for the rest of my life), you should understand why I am so dedicated to making this work.

I really want to be happy with my new contacts, but goodness gracious, are they ever irritating to my poor little eighty year-old eyes. Every time I put them in, I get this surge of Hulk-like anxiety because the itching is so intense. It feels like I’m blinking down on sandpaper, and all I want to do is take the contacts out and throw them on the floor and smash them under my big toe and never wear them again. A few times I have come THIS close to clawing my eyeballs out altogether—in the heat of the moment, ANYTHING, blindness, even, seems favourable to this kind of pain.

When I first put them in and my eyes were watering and blinking uncontrollably, the optometrist gave me a little pep talk. He was all, “You know, gas perms (gas perms—he even has a nickname for the little buggers) are almost totally obscure now in North America. They’re really a dying art. I mean, in Japan, 90% of all contact wearers wear gas perms, and in Europe, it’s 50%. But here in North America? Not even CLOSE. People here are so reliant on instant gratification, you know? They don’t have the diligence to work hard, to fight through the pain, even if it is the best choice for their eyes.”

I blinked at him furiously, like I was sending a message in Morse code with my eyelids, and nodded my head in agreement. I can totally do this, I thought.

Before he went on his rant, I was ready to throw my hands up and quit the whole business (I am a quitter, after all), but as soon as he said the Japanese do it all the time, I was like, wait, HOLD UP. Ninety PERCENT? Well, if ninety percent of the most brilliant race on earth can happily wear gas permeable contact lenses, surely I can, too.

True, they all probably have senseis guiding them down the path to enlightenment or eternal balance or self-actualisation, but I have my optometrist. And I have my blog readers. The one sure-fire way to make me do something is to tell me about all the people who’ve successfully done it all their lives—if they can do it, by george, so WILL I.  I am going to make these dadgummed contacts feel like dadgummed roses in my dadgummed scratchy eyeballs—roses in the proverbial sense, of course. Real roses, thorns and all, would probably feel worse than the lenses themselves.

But you guys?  Not much worse.

Posted in change, failures, I hate change, woe is me | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Saturday Steals: Bringing the joy of Saturdays back to the blogging universe.

by Camille Posted on March 16, 2010

Last Saturday when I posted a few snapshots of a particular thrift store shirt I found and liked, I was expecting one or two comments, but no huge response. I mean, nobody reads blogs on Saturday, right? I was surprised, then, when I got a lot of feedback on the post, both in comment and email form: WE LIKE THE POST ON SATURDAY was the overall consensus.

Well, my friends, ask, and Camille shall grant your wish. Like a genie in a bottle, only without  Barbara Eden’s totally immaculate body.

How shall I grant this wish? I am going to make Saturday Steals a regular feature of Archives of Our Lives, but I’m adding a twist:

I’m inviting you to join in the fun.

You know how some of those big, fancy bloggers have days where everybody writes a post about a certain thing (A Soft Place to Land hosts weekly DIY Day get-togethers, for example, where anyone who wants to can write their own post about some DIY project they completed, and then they post it to A Soft Place to Land, and everyone reads everyone else’s posts to see what other fun projects people are doing)?

Well, I’m going to host one of those, only for good deals instead of crafty projects.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like a good deal, and I don’t know many people who don’t try to get them at least once a week. So as you go about your lives this week, keep a mental note of any particularly good deals you run across, and then, if you’re so inclined, write a post about it. You can post it on your own blog at any time throughout the week, but then on Saturday (Friday night, really), you can come to the designated post on my blog and enter the link to the Saturday Steal post you submitted. That way, all my readers will be able to see what awesome deal you scored, and you, in turn, will be inspired by seeing all the other deals that other people got.

We’ll all be one big happy deal-getting e-family.

Make sense?

So, what constitutes a Saturday Steal? Easy: anything you bought throughout the week that was worth (emotionally, spiritually, or fiscally) more than you actually paid for it.

My orange hippie vest, for example, was $5.99 at a thrift store, but when it first came out at Target, it could have easily cost $20 (I’m not sure of the exact price, though).  I probably would have paid $10 for it, but I didn’t have to, because IT WAS A STEAL.  Get it?

You might find steals at thrift stores in the home decor section, you might find steals on clearance at Target, you might have some especially good luck at yard sales or flea markets, you might create your own steals with coupons at the grocery stores, you might run into them on Craigslist or Kijiji…steals are everywhere, just waiting to be stolen and blogged about for your Saturday reading pleasure.

As an added bonus, if enough people join (I’m shooting for ten to start), I will draw one submission from each Saturday’s entries to win a prize.

Just for fun. And hello: a free prize would be yet another steal to add to the joy of the first steal. Steals all around; steals for all mankind!

So spread the word, tell all your friends, and most importantly, keep your eyes peeled for your next Saturday Steal!

You in?

Posted in blogger finger, It's All Good, Overall Good Things, Saturday Steals | Tagged | 13 Comments

Fact: Bagels with Butter

by Camille Posted on March 16, 2010

Normally I prefer my bagels with cream cheese…

…but last week I bought low-fat cream cheese because, well, do I really need to explain why (I’m looking at YOU, spare tire), but when I smeared it on my toasted bagel and took a bite I realised it tasted so horrible that eating my bagel plain would’ve been a better choice, so I scraped all the low-fat cream cheese off but I couldn’t rest at that, so then I slathered it with salted butter and I gotta say…

…it’s growing on me.

What’s your quick-and-easy breakfast staple?

Posted in change, health and vitality, It's All Good, Overall Good Things, thisandthat | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Daylight Savings Trauma

by Camille Posted on March 15, 2010

Daylight Savings Time is for the birds.

Image from here.

In Arizona (a state that does not subscribe to Daylight Savings Time), where I lived for 21 glorious years, the concept of Daylight Savings Time was sort of like the Tooth Fairy—I knew that the idea of it existed, but I couldn’t imagine anybody dumb enough to actually believe in it.

“Set the clocks back and forward twice a year? But…why? That doesn’t even make sense. I mean, how can we all just decide that all of a sudden it’s not the time that it actually is? Just because the whole country says it’s 10:00, that doesn’t change the fact that it actually IS ONLY 9:00.”

It threw my poor desert-rat mind into all kinds of terrible confusion. Finally, I had to force myself to put it out of my head completely, and thank the heavens that I was from a sane state and would never have to deal with the real complexities of such a horrible institution…

…ha.

Now, of course, I live in Alberta, a province that does subscribe to such lunacies, and every time Daylight Savings Time rolls around, my inner desert rebel comes out to fight.

Saturday night was the spring forward switch, which meant that when I went to bed at 11:00 p.m. it was actually midnight, and when I woke up bright and early at 6:00 a.m. it was already 7:00 and I was late for church. Dadgummit.

Daylight Savings Time screws with my mind. It hurls me so deep into the throngs of confusion that I can’t tell up from down, black from white, real from fake, or yes from no. My house becomes my own personal Shutter Island, and let me tell ya, Leonardo DiCaprio was going through hell.

Here’s how it went down for me yesterday morning:

Beep, beep, beep. Poor Kyle’s alarm tears me from my troubled sleep. I’ve had a restless night, waking up four or five times over the evening for fear of missing the time switch and sleeping through church (which might not be a big deal if I wasn’t the organist for my congregation every Sunday at 9:00 a.m., but I am and it is, so let’s not waste time on hypotheticals).

Me: Babe. Babe! What time is it?

PK: Muhhhhhhhhhmbf.

Me: Kyle. Kyle! Wake up. Your alarm’s going off. What time is it?

PK: Guuuuuuuuuumbf. Six o’clock.

Me: Six o’clock real time or six o’clock fake time?

PK (clearly too unconscious to be dealing with such philosophical conundrums, and who can blame him): Leave me alone.

Me: I can’t leave you alone, I need to know if I can sleep another hour or if I have to get up and get ready. (By this time I was really starting to feel stressed, because if it was actually six o’clock, I could sleep for another hour, but if it was really seven o’clock, I needed to be in the shower.)

PK: Our phones switched in the night. It’s six o’clock.

Me: I know they’re supposed to switch, but are you sure they switched? How do you know?

PK: Leave me alone.

Me (unable to let it rest for fear of being an hour late to church): I’m gonna go check the other clocks in the house.

PK: I don’t care what you do, woman, so long as you stop this insufferable noise you’re making.

Me: It’s called talking.

PK: Yeah, and I can’t stand to hear it.

I stumbled wearily around the house, checking our digital atomic clocks first: they both read six o’clock, which meant I still had another hour to sleep. Sweet. As I trudged past the kitchen on my way back to bed, though, the oven clock caught my eye: 6:00.

Wait, what? That one’s not supposed to switch on its own.

I redoubled my house search, only to find that all the old-fashioned wall clocks with hour and minute hands read 6:00, too, or various stages of 6:00—they’re all wrong on a good day. (I have battery problems.)

So, wait. If all the digital clocks were supposed to switch, and they all match each other, but they also all match the analog clocks, then that means that NO clocks switched. Unless someone came into our house in the middle of the night and switched them for us, which, living in Mayberry, I wouldn’t put it past our neighbor, Aunt Bea, to pull such a generous Time Fairy stunt like that.  I should call her and ask if she did. But if it’s really six o’clock, then it would be five o’clock in her head, and that’s a bit too early to be calling the neighbors. But if it’s really seven o’clock, then I really need to know. I hate Daylight Savings Time Days; this whole idea is lame, and now I’m going to be late for church, and I’m really tired, and Poor Kyle is just lounging his life away in bed without a care in the world, and DAMMIT, WHAT THE HELL TIME IS IT?!

I know it’s not nice to cuss, but I’m just relating to you my exact thoughts from yesterday morning, verbatim. I really was that stressed.

Finally I got smart and checked my trusty laptop, the only piece of technology I can depend upon in this pathetic house, and sure enough, it was actually 7:00 (well, by this time it was 7:15), which—you guessed it—meant that not only did I not get my extra hour of sleep, but also, I was gonna have to rush my shower.

In the end I was not late to church, but it was no thanks to my iPhone™, which betrayed my trust in every sense of the words, both betrayed and trust. Tell, me, Apple™, how is it that I can own the best phone money can buy (or at least the awesomest), a phone that can calculate my BMI, teach me French, and direct me within one metre to the nearest toilet, yet it cannot handle the simple yet absolutely necessary task of switching to Daylight Savings Time (which I have specifically set it to do)—a task which every p.o.s. phone I’ve owned in years past has handled with all the grace and dignity that free (with contract) T-mobile™ phones can muster? Tell me, please.

Why can’t expensive technology just perform the basic functions it promises? I could see if it miscalculated my calorie intake vs. calories burned, because, you know, that’s a hard job even for a human…but struggling to TELL THE TIME? Any garbage phone can do that.

To say I was disappointed would not even come close.

(p.s. Something really is screwy with my phone now, because even though the time on the phone is correct, the time in the text messaging function is TWO HOURS AHEAD of the real time. Even if it hadn’t switched to DST, it would be ONE HOUR BEHIND the real time…not TWO HOURS AHEAD. What in the…? Why am I using so many capital letters? Why is my life so hard? These are questions that haunt me.)

Posted in Canada, change, fiascos, I hate change, mediocrity, oh brother what next, woe is me | Tagged | 21 Comments

Saturday Steals: Hippie Short-sleeved Sweater

by Camille Posted on March 13, 2010

As per my commitment, I have been checking out the local thrift stores on a regular basis to find clothes that are a little out of my comfort zone, possibly a little trendier, or at any rate a little bit different than what I normally wear.

This week I donated ten shirts that I hadn’t worn in over a year which I secretly suspected wouldn’t have done me any favours even if I did start wearing them again…

…and bought eight new (pre-owned) shirts to replace them, all of which I would’ve never considered buying a month ago.

Here’s one that I sort of liked but, once again, in looking at these photos, I’m not convinced it was such a great deal:

I wore this outfit to church last week feeling like Esmerelda the gypsy, but I forced myself to step outside my comfort zone and try something new. Maybe I shouldn’t’ve…

Then, after church, I switched the skirt for some jeans and liked myself a lot better (what can I say? I just don’t know how to put skirt-ish outfits together, but EVERYTHING goes with jeans):

I got a couple of compliments on this outfit, though whether they were the legitimate kind or that awkward kind of “oh, Camille’s wearing something different than she normally wears, I should probably compliment her so she feels validated,” I’m still unsure.

Ultimately, though, I like the orange sweater thing (it was originally from Target™, according to the Mossimo™ tag) and will probably wear it again, though not with that Pocahontas skirt, which is good in its own right, but not so good with the orange hippie sweater.

Also, I’m thinking it’s too fallish a colour to be wearing in March-April-May, so I might have to put it on the back burner for awhile. But I still like it.  It’s a keeper.

Cost for interesting new item: $5.99.

Posted in change, fashion people, I hate change, Saturday Steals | Tagged | 16 Comments

I grade myself on a curve.

by Camille Posted on March 12, 2010

I’ve been succumbing to the seasonal glumness that I seem to contract regularly around this time in Canada. I think it’s the weather: it’s warming up and teasing me into thinking it’s spring, but nothing’s green and beautiful yet, and I refuse to be lulled into a false sense of security. The consequence of such stubbornness is a natural sort of grouchiness that seems to follow me around everywhere, and especially at school. (That’s another thing: I always burn out at school this time of the year on account of being SO anxious for summer, but also being cognizant of the great many hurdles I must leap before I can be free for three months.)

But don’t worry; I got over my melancholia.

I was feeling especially stressed because I hadn’t received any grades back from any of the papers or exams I’ve written over the past two months, but yesterday the grading gods poured down an abundance of joy upon my head, and all is well (until the next dry spell, that is).

I got an A on three papers in three different classes, and even better grades on two exams that had been stressing me out.

Still, despite the fact that I was thrilled with my grades, I couldn’t really feel full joy about them, because I didn’t know what other students had gotten.

I’m only happy, I suppose, if I’m doing better than most of the other kids. I could have gotten a C- on all those things and probably been just as happy as I am with my A’s if the teacher announced that the highest grade was a C-, and only one student got that (me!).  I’m petty like that.

That’s why I like classes being graded on a curve so much: I get such a thrill to see my grade ahead of the curve, and then it’s no secret what the other students got. It gives me great joy to beat the curve. Sadly, I haven’t been in a curved class since my days at ASU, and even my deranged obsession with beating all the other students is not strong enough to make me want to go back to that hellhole, so I have to just make up a mental curve in my head and pretend I’m at the front of it. Oh, the things we do to preserve our delusions, our elevated images of ourselves.

As it is, I’m just glad that I got good grades, and short of flat-out asking the other students what they got, all I can hope is that everyone else did worse than me. (And trust me: I hope.)

The other good thing that happened to me yesterday? I had a fruitful day at the post office, picking up a box full of secret goodies for my readers next week, and a cheque for $200 that the government of Canada refunded me for overpaying on my student visa renewal application (never mind the fact that they ordered me to pay the extra $200 in the first place, and never mind the fact that I had to pay to renew my stupid visa only because they STILL haven’t let me become a permanent resident). I was grateful for the unexpected bonus. The American government would have never sent back an overpayment like that, not with all their deficits to think of.

(It speaks volumes to my character when I say that I wouldn’t have sent it back, either. I guess on the morality grade scale, I’m behind the curve. {But I’m probably not the worst. I mean, I’ve never killed a person. That’s gotta count for something… I’d give myself a C, or maybe a C minus.})

Posted in Canada, It's All Good, my edjumacation and me, oh brother what next, what I'm about | 9 Comments

Running isn’t my strong suit.

by Camille Posted on March 11, 2010

Time to answer another reader question.

This week’s question comes from Jami, who writes:

O.K. I want to ask a question.

What quality do you wish you had?

Seriously, I have such a hard time wishing for qualities that I don’t have. It is terrible of me, but I do it all the time.

You have so many qualities that I wish I had. What are some that you wish you had?


And here’s my answer:

The list of qualities I wish I could claim is longer than math class to a junior high kid. I could go on and on: grace, poise, generosity, frugality, tenacity, strength, bravery, immense and unending wealth, no pimples, etc. But when it comes right down to it, all those things I wish I had are probably attainable someday with enough focus and work; that is, as long as I don’t get discouraged.

See, that’s my biggest flaw, or at least, it’s the flaw that seems most glaring to me at this point in my life: discouragement. Namely, the fact that I let discouragement overcome me nine times out of ten. Got a bad grade on an exam? FORGET IT; I’M FAILING THIS STUPID CLASS AND I WILL NEVER GET MY GRADES BACK UP. Eyes in such bad shape that very few doctors would even dare to give me Lasik™? FINE, I’LL BE BLIND FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, AND THAT’S THAT. Gained ten pounds over the course of the semester despite working out more vigorously than ever before and quitting sugar? WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER? I MIGHT AS WELL GO EAT THAT HALF GALLON OF PK’S CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM SITTING IN MY FREEZER.

When things aren’t going my way, I tend to resign myself to my fate before it’s even decided exactly what that fate will be. I’ve been pegged as a quitter from a young age, and instead of working hard to prove everybody wrong, I’ve always just thrown up my hands and said, EVERYONE SAYS I’M A QUITTER SO IT MUST BE TRUE; TO HELL WITH IT ALL—I QUIT.

Ironic, isn’t it?

It worries me how this trait will follow me into motherhood: if my baby is crying and I’ve tried everything I could think of to mollify it, but nothing works, will I just toss the kid in its crib, shrug my shoulders and say, “Well, that’s too bad; I tried, but he didn’t want to be happy, so I guess I shouldn’t have been a mother after all.” That’s kind of scary.

I know I need to change this characteristic, but I don’t even know where to begin. I guess the only thing to do other than hiring a life coach or a shrink is just…to stop quitting. (Quit quitting, ho, ho!) To recommit myself to whatever cause is ailing me, and try again.

Ultimately, then, Jami, the one trait I wish I had at this point in my life (and the one trait I am going to work on developing) is perseverance, or the power of perspective. In the grand scheme of life, my problems are enormously insignificant. (Oh, really, lady? You’re complaining about having to read so many books for school? Gee, I wish all my books hadn’t been destroyed in an earthquake last month; or gee, I wish I lived in a country rich enough to own a book in the first place.) To some people, having the problems I have would be a joy, a delight. I wish I could make myself see things from that perspective, and then endure to the end of life’s race with a little more dignity than I’ve done in the past.

I can’t rely on Poor Kyle to pick me up and carry me to the finish line, because he’s got high cholesterol and would probably die from a heart attack if he had to bear my burdens on top of his. I can’t rely on my sister or my parents because they’ve got problems of their own. Oh, sure, they can all cheer me on, maybe run one leg for me here and there when I really need a boost, but in the end, the only person who can finish this race for me is me.

Now if only I didn’t hate running so much…

Posted in ask me anything, health and vitality, in all seriousness, introspection, self-actualisation, woe is me | Tagged | 7 Comments