Glasses

So I wore my glasses yesterday, for the first overnight call of my anesthesia career. It was a normal Wednesday otherwise, but I must have gotten about 10 comments on them. The ambivalence I feel about the attention paid to the glasses runs deep. In one way, I'm glad that people notice them, because none of the comments were outright rude or mean... but in another way, I'm horrified that they stick out so much! It's kind of parallel to the haircut of my junior year of high school. I had longish hair.. and decided that cutting it to above my ears might be a good idea...(it wasn't, by the way) And then everyone noticed and said, "Oh, your hair looks SO good!!" "Wow, what a difference! It looks SO much better!" So in one way it's a nice compliment, and the flip, not so far away side is that the difference is stark and that what was before was much worse and ugly by relative standards.

I fear the relative ugly factor.

So, of course, I shall analyze each comment as I remember them:
Male attending: "You know Jessica, with your glasses you look so studious, so intelligent, so "know it all." I respond to that with a groan- who wants to be a know it all? And he replies, "Oh, no.. just a confidence, a calm intelligence." I still end up feeling self conscious, but overall, this rates a compliment.

Female attending: "You don't normally wear glasses!" I respond with, Well, I'm overnight... and she responds with, "you can call me anytime if you have questions" even though she is not the attending overnight tonight, nor ever. I rate this as neither here nor there, as the glasses were not the focus.

Female Surgery Resident, Over the Drape: "Did you get new glasses? You don't normally wear glasses" And then there's a discussion about how people who don't normally wear them start wearing them when it's overnight call. I rated this one as negative- I felt self concious and wanted to just have normal vision, no obvious glasses.

Male Anesthesia Resident: "Jess, you don't normally wear glasses, huh?" No rating.

Female Nurse Anesthetist: "You look so Studious Jessica with your glasses!" I smile and say, yeah, I've been getting a lot of comments about them today... I truly can't rate this one.

Male Attending: " Where are your contacts? " And then later in the obvious discussion about how I was overnight blah blah blah.. "Well, they make you look more professorial."
this one smacks of negative, but I'm not sure.

So it's interesting that I find it important to note the gender of the commenter. Somehow it does matter when interpreting the meaning- know what I mean?

Russ helped me pick these in a cute little shop in New Haven off Chapel street. He likes them, assures me that they look good. Somehow this is not enough- the one person I really want to like how I look likes them- and yet I feel icky when I wear them.

I once thought that wearing them more would help me, but that hasn't done much. The week I was sick (and going to work anyway) I wore them and no one made one comment... Interesting.
Maybe I shouldn't wear them when I'm feeling sick or having to stay awake all night. Then I'm creating a Pavlovian badness associated with glasses. Hmm.. this might be a strategy.

I've thought about rimless glasses... hmmmm

but really, what I want is lasik.