Why I love Spex...

I started wearing glasses as a kid for the obvious reason...life looked blurry and fuzzy without them. People looked like Martians with no eyes unless,of course, I put those ugly, plastic-rim things on. I managed to get contacts in high school, because I was convinced I'd never get any dates if I didn't get rid of those plastic-rim things.

In college, I pitched my contacts for rose-colored wire-rimmed things, primarily because I kept sleeping with my contacts after too many pitchers of beer and had the misfortune to wake up in the morning unable to see because I had scratched my corneas. I finally lost those buggers when I fell overboard on a hobie cat during a regatta.

After graduating from college and in my first real job, I was shipped off to Hong Kong for a magazine assignment, where I discovered eyeglasses could be ordered and picked up within hours! I fell in love with my new huge, Hong Kong plastic specs.

I looked like Jiminy Cricket with a Farrah Fawcett hairstyle. And oddly enough, guys started making passes at me with the glasses! I even ended up marrying one of those guys who made passes at me with the glasses! (That's another story for another day...)

As fashion would have it, however, I ditched the specs for soft contacts. Glasses clashed with whatever I decided to throw on in the morning. And...I had since given up my beer drinking days, so there was little danger of me nodding off with my plastic eyes in. I looked pretty cute without those bigger-than-big plastic-rim things, until I realized as a business woman now, I didn't want to look cute. I wanted a serious, "I mean business " look. I wanted to fend off the attractors, the guys who made passes. And off I marched to my nearest Lens Crafters to pick out a pair of large, black, squarish specs. The kind that said, "I mean business, and not THAT kind of business."

I successfully hid behind my specs for most of my career, tossing them aside only for photo ops or black tie functions.

I have a collection of specs now, ranging from the original -- yes I still have 'em -- Hong Kong specials, to a pair of red leopard plastic aviators, to bizarre multi-colored square Emanuel Khan's I picked out of a sale bin at Henri Bendel.

Looooong story, long, I'm back in my specs, right where I started, wearing them for the obvious reason, to see stuff. And that's how this blog was birthed...for ALL of us lasses who choose to wear glasses.

Have a spex-tacular day!

Comments

Unknown said…
I love my spex too. I hope to see more of your stories on spex, life and other things.
Unknown said…
Thanks Kari! Have a spex-tacular weekend! You're the best!

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