Drama Lessons from my Contacts

I have always had a flair for the dramatic. I clearly don't have the time to write about all of my dramatic escapades or attitudes, nor do I imagine you have the time to read about it, so we'll just leave it at that. Nevertheless, it shouldn't be the least bit surprising to find out that I have found a way to hone my acting skills from none other than my contact lenses. Seriously.

Prologue

I'll admit it: I was in major need of sight assistance for quite some time... and I managed to avoid going to the eye doctor for years. Seriously: years.

[Sidebar: this is an open apology to every person who drove on any road I happened to be also be driving on during evening hours when it was dark outside between the years of say.... 2004-2011. Sorry for any fear I may have caused you as I squinted, swerved, slowed down, and just all around sucked at driving because, let's be honest: I couldn't see anything. Sorry.]

It wasn't until my all-too-kind sister made me an appointment at her eye doctor that I caved and went... maybe because I knew that I had reached the point that I legitimately couldn't see anymore or maybe it was because I can't tolerate cancelling an appointment for anything.

The story goes as follows: I go to the eye doctor, get asked the inevitable question "So... why did it take you so long to come in?" to which I respond "Oh, you know, I've just been busy... [being nearly BLIND for years but hey: no biggie!]". The doctor prescribes me glasses - yes, glasses, as this is my first venture into prescription eye wear my eyes need to "get used to it" before I can wear contacts. Cue me devastated. Glasses?! For real?! How will anyone see it the awesome artistry of my eye makeup?! How am I going to wear sunglasses?! Who even wears actual glasses anymore?! But, after dramatically reflecting on it (and purchasing some amaze Juicy glasses), I decided me wearing glasses benefited the greater good so I may as well just suck it up and do it. Besides, I knew I'd be able to get contacts eventually.

Scene: a lovely October afternoon at the eye doctor's office. Enter Lisa.

The day has finally arrived: after months of wearing my glasses, bright, sunny days of me being blinded by the sun because I had my stupid glasses on instead of sunglasses, I am finally getting my contacts. I walk in, practically thrilled at the thought of putting the weird plastic half-bubble things into my eyes.

Sitting down at the table, looking in the mirror, the doctor walks me through how to put the contacts in, carefully and kindly detailing every movement, how to make sure you're putting them in with the right side out, how to clean them, so on and so forth. Nearly shaking with anticipation, my mind screaming "Just let me do it already! I've waited long enough! Let's do this!!", I get the word from the doctor "Okay, why don't you try to put them in?" and away we went.

As I started to put the contact in, I was beyond proud of my fearlessness about touching my eyeball, and obviously expected the doctor to be just as impressed. [Note: I did not need this kind of assistance.] I follow all of his instructions, and voila! It's in! I can see! Beaming with pride in my accomplishment, I literally start raising my arms to cheer about my success when the doctor ohsorudely interrupts me:
"Umm.... Lisa? The contact is still on your finger. You didn't get it in."

Well then. About seven - okay, fifteen - tries later, the contact was in and I could actually see. Yayyyyyy.

But there was a little problem: my spectacular failure at trying to get my contacts in the first time left me with a type of PTSD, so cue me spazzing out every time I tried to put my contacts in for the first week after that. Putting contacts in is a serious personal experience, as you're staring at JUST your face in a small mirror and no one else can really help [note: think twice before, say, asking your mother for help as you risk her using all the little things you've done to make her mad as motivation to practically poke your eye out], so you're left giving yourself little pep talks every morning to get the stupid contacts in. Or at least I was.

For those non-contact wearers, when you put your contacts in, there's a little liquid-solution left on the contact, so when it's finally on your eyeball and you blink it in, the solution will fall out like a teardrop. You're not actually crying, but it looks like you are, with these big, perfectly shaped, teardrops falling out of your eyes.

Once I caught on to this aspect of wearing contacts, I, being dramatic and all, took full advantage of it, and proceeded to use every morning as my own little drama class, pretending to cry every morning in the mirror as those teardrops gloriously rolled down my cheeks... and then I'd go and get ready for the day, good to go! It was a good way to get all my drama out of my system for the day... which is actually completely untrue as I'm pretty dramatic in everything I do, so on second thought: it was a great way to start my day dramatically.

Finale

Six months later, I can pop contacts in and out like it's nothing, and because of my mad-contact-putting-in-skills, there's no more teardrop. Alas, drama lessons have concluded. But all of you who know me know that I never cease to find the drama in every day life, morning drama class or not. B) [emoticon wearing glasses, as I am right now as I write this.]

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post, obviously, and as much as I like to think I know what I'm doing, I clearly don't as this is my second time writing this because I wrote it all out and mysteriously lost it with an accidental swipe of my touch pad. Lesson learned: always save your work.

A few things to note right off the bat: spellling si hadr (see?) and I sometimes get phrases wrong, i.e. I once said "Let's nip it in the butt before it gets any worse", but everything is written with great intentions! I tend to overwrite, which makes tweeting impossibly difficult but I still do it ALL the time, and I also go on tangents (you'll probably see the word "sidebar" before a paragraph about something completely unrelated to the topic at hand many times throughout this blog.)  

My reasons behind writing this blog range from friends pushing me to share the crazy stories of my life (I'm looking at you Patti) to an irrational fear that I'm going to wake up one morning and not remember anything. I hope this blog is a combination of fun, sugar, spice and sparkle stemming from the ordinary and extraordinary events in my life, my musings on anything and everything, and random thoughts that float on by.

With that said, let's dive right in, shall we?

The Story Behind The Title

 This sign, currently in a Texas airport, shows how people are
supposed to use the sidewalk with a picture.
I'm pretty sure the sign I read back in the day did not have
a picture so clearly telling you what to do. Pretty sure.

Stand right, walk left. Seemingly a simple instruction read by travelers in airports before they board one of those moving sidewalks from the future that I think actually don't get you to the other end any faster than if you had just kept walking, but that's coming from a naturally fast walker. Anyway.

Flashback about 15 years (whoa). I'm around the age of 10 (probably younger) cute but "fresh as paint", as my mom never lets me forget, and have decided to accompany my dad to drop my mom off at the airport because she was heading to Florida for a business trip.

We enter the airps (abbreviation for airport stolen from "New Girl," one of my favoriteeeeee shows on television) and start heading to our gate, moving sidewalk from the future in sight. I see the sign, read "stand right, walk left" to myself. In my 10 year old (probably younger) brain, I read it as "stand right" as in stand right - as in stand straight up - and I completely neglected to register what "walk left" could have meant in relation to having good posture. So, cue me standing on the left side of the moving sidewalk, standing perfectly, with the best posture anyone has ever seen, so proud of myself for "standing right." This was a big deal for me! I was too lazy to stand up straight on a daily basis, so if there was ever a moment for me to have good posture, it was right now, here on this moving sidewalk from the future in front of people I'd never see again.

As I stood there, basking in the glory of good posture, I kept getting bumped into by people who were, well, walking left. Getting increasingly annoyed that people were knocking into me despite my a-mazing posture (I mean, how could they?! Couldn't they see I was standing RIGHT there?!), I looked to my parents in hopes that they would comment on my remarkable ability to stand so perfectly and say "It's such a shame that no one is noticing how beautifully you are standing" at which point I noticed my mom giving me a strange look. A kind of "what exactly are you doing" type of look - not a condescending motherly "what are you doing" but a more "I'm actually confused as to what you're doing" type of look. Sticking my nose up in the air to indicate that I was standing right, as she said, "Whaaaaaat are you doing standing on the left side, Lisa? Stand right (gesturing to the right side of what was now a stupid sidewalk), walk left."

At that point, it was too late for me to switch sides on the stupid sidewalk as we had reached the end (should have just walked). I tried explaining to my mom and dad what I thought the sign meant, defending my good posture, and they just looked at each other, both puzzled as how I could have missed the meaning of the sign. We continued on our journey to the gate, sent mom off to Florida, and that was it.

Moral of the story: most things have more than one meaning. In this case, I totally missed the actual meaning of the sign, BUT I like to think it was indicative of my tendency to think outside the box.

Keep on standing right, people.