Oh, say can you see?

You bet I can! Last week I went for an eye exam and ordered new glasses. They came in yesterday.

I bought my last pair of eyeglasses just after the style changed to the narrower, rectangular lenses. At the time I was afraid that might be a fad, so I chose some that were slightly smaller than the pair I was replacing, but otherwise very similar. That was in 2004. Little did I know then that my prescription would stay the same for the next seven years.

So here we are in 2011, and the 2004 glasses are beginning to fall apart. The right lens falls out every couple of weeks, which means I have to sit there and blindly attempt to hold everything together while I tighten the tiny screw with something so small it has no business being called a screwdriver.

The repetitious falling apart thing, plus the fact that the lenses were covered with little, almost invisible scratches, made me decide it was time to get new ones. Even though I had thought I could see perfectly with the old glasses, the eye exam showed that my prescription has indeed changed. But only slightly.

When I put the new glasses on yesterday, so much light came through the lenses that it hurt my eyes until I got used to it. And in the "old glasses" photo below, I notice that the color of my eyes is muted. Apparently those old lenses were more scratched than I'd realized.

Old glasses

New glasses

So, the bad news is that my brand-new eyeglasses have been in fashion for at least seven years, and the style is bound to change before I'm ready to buy the next pair.

But the good news tickles me to death! After years and years and years of struggling to tweeze my eyebrows, I can finally reach my brows with the tweezers and see what I'm doing at the same time.

No more excuses for any pesky Andy-Rooney-looking hairs.