September 20, 2004

five-four-three-two-one: Contact!

I'm reading this novel called The Coffin Dancer, and one of the things I like best about it is that our villian, The Coffin Dancer, aka Stephen, uses words that don't exist to describe his rat-tat-tattered emotional state.

Words like "cringey" and "wormy". The Coffin Dancer uses this language in conversation with himself (aka his introject military commander abuser step-father).

Cringey and wormy are wickedly cool words. I didn't need anyone to define cringey for me. I HAVE FELT CRINGEY and have shuddered from it.

I know from wormy--feeling like ten thousand earthworms and a dozen pale white grubs are inching their way up my ankles from between my toes.

This is why this blog-her post called "Contacts Make Me Stupid" fits so perfectly with this afternoon's discussion.

When I was five, my cool Aunt Penny was the only person in the whole of my universe who used contact lenses. I spent the weekend with her often in those days, and the two of us could make fun out of a rain soaked gray day.

But when she had to take her contacts out at night, I disappeared under the bed. To me, the whole process was a horror show--one I never could bring myself to watch. Because the mere thought of it made me feel---all together now---CRINGEY!!!

Back to the post at hand, and how it (if tenuously) relates...

You see, our heroine, in dire need of Lasik surgery, attempts to remove her contact lens only to discover--much to her embarassment and eventual horror--that SHE ALREADY HAD ALREADY TAKEN IT OUT, and that she has instead spent a good ten seconds digging at her own now-quuite-rare cornea!

I leaned back over to the mirror and began poking at my right eyeball again to remove the contact. Well, I spent a good ten seconds trying to pull it out when I realized that I had already taken it out.


CRINGEY!!! WORMY!!!

I love the net.