Style and Fashion (Especially of the Eyewear Variety)

No blog would be complete without a post about fashion. So I straighten my back, pop my knuckles (only figuratively of course. Popping your knuckles is bad form) and take a deep breath. Here I go. Fingers to keyboard. And...
Today I went to the eye doctor.
("Wait," you say, "what does that have to do with fashion? where is this crazy lady going?" "Be patient," I respond, "Give me time." Enough distractions.)
Ahem. Today I went to the eye doctor. It isn't really my favorite thing. I even suffered the pain of having air puffed into my eyes in a shocking way, and then the horribly uncomfortable eye drops that make your pupils dilate. Then I suffered the embarrassment of quickly wiping mascara off of the bajillion dollar equipment that he made me stick my face into soon after getting my eyes all wet. Good thing he left the room for a minute.
After all that, we discovered that, hey surprise! My eyes are still horrible, but they aren't any more horrible than last time we checked. That is good news.
Then comes the fashion part. Ordering contacts and glasses. Yep. I'm lucky - it's time to get both. Contacts are easy - I'm sticking with the kind I already have - but glasses are harder. So many options. And inability to make long term decisions. Even silly ones like a pair of glasses.
It threw me back all the years to fourth grade when my teacher ratted me out to my parents, making me go get glasses. And what did I pick? Pink and purple ones. With gold. (*sigh*) I still remember them. The next two pairs I got were unobtrusive and brown.
That in turn reminded me of my sense of fashion in sixth grade (I still had the pink and purple glasses), which immediately brings a smile combined with a grimace to my face. I had the strangest fear in sixth grade of two things (which, combined, have a horrible presence in pictures):
1) Appearing like a trend follower.
2) Standing out and being noticeable.
The only way to avoid both fears is to wear completely unfashionable, boring, ugly, potato sack clothing. Great choice April. I refused to wear anything but straight leg jeans for years, and only listened to the oldies station on the radio. I was a rebel. Ha.
Part of the problem was growing up in the nineties. I remember growing up with people making fun of the eighties all the time. The young me realized that in their time, what those silly people wore in the eighties was fashionable and cool. I figured that if I wore fashionable stuff now, that someday someone would make fun of what I wore. I never wanted my kids to make fun of the stuff I used to think was cool. So I didn't wear the cool stuff. A perfect solution with an unfortunate result: I looked dumb in the present and the future. Not only would my kids think I looked dumb, but my friends did, too.
It took a long time to grow out of that unfortunate phase of my life. Till about ninth grade. So three-ish years of my life are marked by painfully awkward pictures. Some would say that I was lucky, that some people have even longer awkward stages. I would say that some people don't have awkward stages. Why didn't my parents stop me?! I'm still recovering.
All of these reflections wrapped around back to the present. Glasses shopping.
Partially to prove that I am over my fears, I bought (*gasp*) slightly stylish glasses.
Lucky me, glasses take a week to come back in. So I get my first cliffhanger. Will April's choice be reminiscent of sixth grade? Will she finally emerge from her fashion-less hole? Or will she suddenly turn hippy or gangsta on us with no warning?
To Be Continued....