'til a new computer purchase do we part

so there's this column in slate magazine called 'dear prudence' where people write in their questions about manner and morals. or at least that's what they're supposed to ask about. i was reading some old ones the other day and ran across this question sent in:

Dear Prudence,
I recently married my dream husband. We have incredible chemistry and a shared commitment to each other. When we disagree, we settle our differences by balancing logic and gut feelings. That is, until we came to our disagreement on which laptop I should buy to replace my Mac PowerBook. We are both in the software industry and have strong preferences on which operating system we prefer. I have been a happy Mac user for years. My husband can't stand the Mac, and his only explanation is the image associated with Mac users. Whenever he sees me with my PowerBook, he thinks of the "Get a Mac" commercials where Justin Long, who is a Mac, ridicules John Hodgman, a PC. I agree with him that the commercials are obnoxious, but they have nothing to do with the usability of the Mac. My husband said jokingly that I could get a Mac only over the divorce papers. I don't believe he was joking. It's getting to a point that we cannot discuss this without getting our blood boiling.

—Boiling Blood

are these people serious? it seems to me that you would know what kind of computer your significant other had BEFORE you married them and if it bothered you that much you'd just break up then. but for the love, how could this bother you that much? if you are this passionate about what type of computer OTHER people use, please seek counseling.

that's the story of, that's the glory of lasik

on friday i had lasik. for two weeks before i had to wear glasses. bah!-bane of my existence. i hate glasses. i have, no had, absolutely no peripheral vision when i wore glasses. horrible night vision too. so two weeks ago they measured the thickness of my corneas to see if i could have lasik. my vision was TERRIBLE. a -8. if you don't know anything about vision prescriptions, a -8 is really really bad. without my glasses i couldn't tell you who the person standing three feet away from me was. basically the higher your prescription the more of your cornea they have to take away, so they measure you to make sure you have thick enough corneas. luckily i did.

so on wednesday afternoon i went in and had my eyes measured for the procedure. and then on friday morning sarah drove me to the eye place. they gave me goggles to sleep with, steriod drops for my eyes, a prescription for an antibiotic, and samples of artificial tears. then they made me put a valium under my tongue and let it dissolve. apparently it gets in your bloodstream faster this way. but holy does it taste sick. they give you a life saver to try to make up for it. and then you sit and wait for it to kick in.

when they call you back it all happens really quick. you sit in a chair that is pretty much a dentist's chair. they lean you back and put numbing drops in your eyes. they took away my glasses so when the doctor came in i couldn't really see him at all. but it all happened pretty fast after he introduced himself to me. they covered my left eye and then the horrible part happened. they pried open my right eye. ow ow ow ow OW. "look at the flashing red light." the nurse said something about suction and i went blind for about thirty seconds. then i could see again. "perfect flap." and then the laser started. it felt really good, like little puffs of cool air shooting into my eye. then it stopped and the doctor put my flap back on. it felt like he was using a paint brush and gently wiping all around the circle of my eye. they had me close my eye and covered it and uncovered the left eye. and the whole thing happened again. only this time it hurt when they suctioned and cut the flap too, and not just when they pried my eye open. i don't think i could have handled this if it had lasted longer than thirty seconds, but the cooling feeling of the laser made it better. after brushing my flap closed, the doctor took the covering off my right eye and sat me up and told me to come sit in a chair so he could check my eyes. they were fine, though the light he used was incredibly bright. and then they sent me on my way. just like that. from the moment the doctor introduced himself to me to the time i walked out the door...ten minutes tops.

my vision was really...milky, i guess. that's not quite the right word. everything was a little blurry, but it also felt like i had some sort of cloudy lens over my eyes. sarah took me to walgreens to fill the prescription. and i could see. not perfectly, but i could see. then she took me home and i slept off the valium for an hour and a half. i had to put lots of drops in my eyes that day and i still have to for the next week. by friday evening i could see pretty decently.

by my estimation, my lasik procedure was at 10:30 am on friday. at 8:15am on saturday i had another appointment. 20/30 vision in my right eye, 20/40 in my left. good enough to drive to provo and go to the byu football game, which i did. the cornea in my left eye is swollen so it's more blurry than my right. the flaps were barely visible and i had almost no dry spots in my eyes. all great things. also, when sarah had her lasik done she had scary bloodshot drug addict eyes for days. i have one little spot on my left eye that's slightly red, but you can barely see it. otherwise i look totally normal. no bruising at all. this is either due to the fact that i've been sleeping with my head elevated or to something the doctor did. who knows?

so yeah. my vision should improve by the end of the week. i don't like the eye drops. they are gross and sticky and goopy. but i can see. i can SEE. without corrective eye-wear. it's amazing. and totally worth the five minutes of pain. totally and completely and absolutely worth it.

cause baby it's christmas, all over....again dadadadada, again, dadadadada....

what should i blog about? what should i blog about? hmm.

so i was reading time the other day and there was a little blurb called "call it a nasal spray" with the subline "new studies on how clean smells can improve moral behavior." as soon as i read this i figured it must have been a mormon who did this study. it must be the phrase "moral behavior." really, who else would study moral behavior but a mormon? and sure enough, as i read on, i discovered that this study was in fact done at brigham young university. a quote, from katie liljenquist, an assistant professor at the marriott school of management: "what we wondered was whether you could regulate ethical behavior through cleanliness. we found that we could." so basically they did a couple studies and found that people in citrus-windex smelling spaces were more likely to act in a fair and charitable manner. moral of the story: spray citrus windex around your house and you're on your way to heaven.

in other news, i'm getting lasik on friday. the fact that they'll be cutting my eye open doesn't really scare me at all. however, the idea of them prying my eyes open with metal prongs for even two minutes FREAKS me out. just thinking about it makes my eyes water. oh well...clear vision here i come.

i made my christmas list. there are only three people on it without a gift next to their name. it's funny to think that i already had a blog at this time last year. and look at how few posts there are since then! maybe i should go on a blogging kick again and shoot for 25 days in a row this time. but we'll see.

today's uplifting thought of the day comes from cha sa-soon, a 68-year-old south korean woman. she said "you can achieve your goal if you persistently pursue it." she would know. she finally passed her country's written driver's license test. on her 950th try. holy. south korea's driving test must be crazy hard. also i wonder how much it costs to take it and if they ever started giving her a bulk discount. but yeah...wow. don't give up, right?

also, this week i learned that dry cleaning can be bad for both the planet and your health. why didn't anyone tell me this? i mean, i'm still going to take my silk dresses to the dry cleaners, but how is it, with all the talk about green this and green that, that i never heard about the evils of dry cleaning until this week? i tell ya.

big news this week is the opening of the second twilight movie. gag. seriously people? seriously?

there is also a meteor shower happening tonight. this happens every year. i went to it when i was a freshman. or maybe a sophmore. it was cold and i saw a bunch of shooting stars. yippee. so not worth it. what's the big deal about shooting stars anyway? i always thought it was because you stare up into the night sky for hours and if you see one shooting star you're really lucky and you get a wish or something. but if there are dozens of shooting stars an hour, where's the magic in that? bo-ring.

also, the woman behind 'secret life of a call girl' has a doctorate? what? i guess i just don't imagine highly educated women choosing to have sex for money. gross. gross gross gross. i mean, i can't imagine any good reason people want to have sex at all, but for money? with strangers? that's got to be the worst reason of all. ew gross. changing the subject.

here's my shout-out to garrett for joining the blogging world. welcome. it can be a really entertaining world to be in. or it would be...if people blogged more often. HINT HINT.

yes, i know i'm a hypocrite. but in my defense, i'd blog more if you did. (yes, i mean you.)

any last words? seriously people? twilight? vomit.