I wish there were two of you, but alas...

It's Friday night, my lobster and I have beaten off with sticks all incoming offers to hang out, so here we sit watching episodes of The West Wing on DVD.

She pauses midway to fix a snack and I'm reminded of recent advice from the eye surgeon: take the prism off your eyeglasses once in a while to test your progress and get your eyes used to working on their own again.

Why am I reminded of this in the middle of The West Wing? The truth is, with the TV on "pause", the room dark, I had nothing else to think about but how irritated I was with my one cloudy lens (the left lens with the prism on it gets cloudy from time to time). (Since we're on a truth tangent, Erika and I didn't beat off any incoming offers to hang out, either. We welcome them, if anyone is interested.)

Sitting in one place and watching TV seems like a safe way to experiment, so I go to the bathroom and take off the prism (it peels off like a thin rubber magnet). Instantly I'm back to double--two picture frames of Grandma Clare, two Erikas, two frozen images of the Deputy Chief of Staff. I think, it's too early. I'm not ready.

Fortunately, Erika takes a while to make brownie sundaes with strawberries. While I continue to wait, they continue to adjust. By the time she's ready, so am I. My vision has somehow become single and we watch the rest of the episode. Feeling like my lucky night, I go spend some time on the computer. At first, I'm feeling my eyes working--a strange sensation. Normally we go through day-to-day movements that our muscles never feel, like drumming your fingers or blinking. I could feel the muscles around my eyes concentrating on pulling it all together; they're like a tweezers we squeeze shut, and at any moment they could spring back open. But they never did.

Yesterday I put the prism back on for my bike ride. (I'm not crashing that stupid bike twice.) Hopeful and curious about last night's new territory, I peel it off once I'm home and get ready for a cookout with Erika's family. With no eye strain and good single vision, I drive us there. Talk about appreciating the simple things in life...Look at me, mom! I can drive with no prism! I actually choked up. The bright sun was brutal, but thankfully I only saw one of each relative.
Today I laid all my cards on the table. I woke up, put in my contacts...and went running. The ultimate test, running. Talk about massive unnecessary movement, not at all like The West Wing. The world was shaky, but now I'm starting to wonder if the world was always shaky when I ran and I never noticed. No double vision.

Here I sit, a nap and several hours later. A headache and some eye strain have forced my contacts out and glasses back on, but they are still without prism.

Nearly two months later, I'm almost better.