Hot Flashes & Reading Glasses

I am, of course, the eldest student in my pottery class.  A few gray hairs and wrinkles give me away, but hey now - I'm not out of my 40's yet people.  Some issues are not so apparent - like the ignored back pain last week while moving from throwing wheel to sink.  Back: "Oh, OW, stop moving!  That hurts!"  Brain: "Suck it up creaky old pansy."

Then there's the badly timed cooling failures.  I hesitated relaying this story.  The dreamer and the realist had a little chat first.  "What will younger readers think?"  "Young readers?  Really?"  (uncontrollable giggling)  "What about the guys?"  "Guys - as in men? ... reading this blog about art & stuff?"  "Yeah, there might be one every now and then." (laughter - can't talk - tears streaming)  "But it makes me feel old."  "So what?"  Thus, the realist convinced the dreamer to just do it already & stop being a nitwit.

Back to the busted thermostat.  I inherited my mother's obnoxiously sensitive body & hormones.  That means I get to go through the M word a little on the early side of normal.  Yup, menopause.  There, I said it.

Now, imagine sitting at a pottery wheel - in a circle of pottery wheels manned by kids who's parents I could've babysat.  La dee dah - how nicely the clay is responding...do dee doo... um... getting a little warm in here ... nobody else notices... hmm, yeah getting hotter ... aaand FWOOOOM!  75° in the room, but my furnace kicks in to, oh, lets say it's about ... 800 million degrees.  Tiny sweat beads form on the forehead, chin & back.  Don't let 'em see you sweat.  Casually pat back of hand to the forehead & chin.  Furnace shuts off & we're back to pretending we're young again.  Whew.

The latest event involved the reading glasses mentioned last fall.  We've been carving patterns into pots the past week.  Most of my carving was finished at home - with my reading glasses on.  Class time last night was strictly to finish up our carving.  I spread out my tools and picked up the pot ... "If you want this to look halfway decent, you know what you have to do."  (realist - she's so annoying)  Sigh.  Glasses on.  Maybe I look wise.  Yeah, we'll go with that.

Bonus Art

Last night I stood on the bathroom counter and painted my own scrolly-viney design along the top of the wall.  I've always imagined doing this . . . someday.  Well, someday came on November 19, 2012.  The bravery it took to attempt this (you can hide paper, but not a wall) is owed entirely to the artist revival trek.  I believe the idea grew from the scrolling/doodling page posted last week - a page that would  otherwise be nonexistent.  The result is not elaborate or exceptionally wonderful, but when my honest husband said "That's actually kinda' cool," I knew it was good enough to be stuck on our wall for at least a few years.

One other thing - my new reading (sketching) glasses came in today.  Wahoo!  I will now have perfect vision to perfect my vision.  Sorry - couldn't resist putting it that way.

I Can See Clearly Now

I can see!  I can see!  Well, that's a bit of excessive enthusiasm.  Let me explain.

I have needed glasses since 2nd grade.  Not need-them-or-walk-into-walls glasses, just almost-can't-pass-the-drivers-license-test glasses.  I stopped wearing them regularly later in high school - young, dumb & worried about boys.  Ten years ago I finally started wearing contacts.  It was fabulous!  No glasses to push on my nose or lose or break or clean.  My eyes are naturally imbalanced, so my doc put me in monovision contacts.  Right eye corrected for far and left for near - works well once your brain gets used to it.  Really close stuff has a faint double image, but bright light and not-too-small print helps.  I asked about reducing the mismatch last year & he put me in multifocal contacts, which have a better range of good vision, but still corrected to monovision.  That was an improvement.  However, still not ideal.

Fast forward to September and the dive back into art.  The blurred image was much more apparent as I started daily drawing.  I had to remove my contacts for fine lines & detail, which isn't all that convenient, especially away from home.  The frustration even invaded my dreams!   I explained the new awareness of the problem at my yearly appointment a few days ago.  I feel oddly selfish & vain when I explain the artist journey to others & that I must justify what I'm doing.  So far, though, most people tend to be interested and impressed - many commenting that they can't draw and I like to correct that thought.  Anyway, after multiple solutions discussed, it was decided I should try out reading glasses with a different power in each lens.  This way, I could see clearly at near while looking over the top of them to view whatever I might be drawing in the distance.  Yay!  Not all that thrilled about the presbyopic teacher look, but entirely pleased to have a solution at hand.

Daily arting continues with only one lapse since last posting.  As mentioned in the last post, next time - the battle of the art styles.