It's OK, I'm a Chemist

Monday, November 07, 2005

What is this? Another new post already? What's up with this sudden wave of productivity from my normally sloth self? Well, I am avoiding doing real work and nothing sparks creativity like procrastination. So I figured that much like my mates Budman and DroopyMcC, I too will have my (belated) Hallowe'en post. For the longest time before the big night, I was considering just going as a giant bear mascot (a la College Dropout album cover). Well, due to a delectable mix of 1 part laziness and 1 part imagination, I decided to come up with my own costume. I was dressed as a gift-wrapped box with a card that read: "To: Women... From: God". Yes, it's true, I decided to go as myself: God's gift to women.

To begin the night, I was at a house party hosted by a friend from work. The three men at the party decided to hit the road to go to one of the bars. Cutting through the Halifax Commons (a large park in the middle of Halifax), I was soon beckoned by two girls in the distance wondering exactly what my costume was supposed to be. As they drew closer, it became increasingly unclear whether the women were dressed in Hallowe'en gear or the blue mohawk and miniskirt with fishnet stockings were genuine. Impressed with my wit, mohawk girl leaned in for a hug (awkward considering my dimensions at the time). Not content with just the hug, she went in for a kiss. I shifted my face in order to avoid the lip-on-lip action but she must have had me locked-in with her radar because Bam! she got me right on the mouth. It was like smoking an entire pack of cigarettes chased with 5 shots of Jack Daniel's. I reeled away. The two girls continued on their merry way but left me with this parting statement: "You truly are a gift from God".

Unfortunately, that was as close as anyone got to unwrapping the gift that night. Sigh...

Friday, November 04, 2005

It first happened when I was 17. I was frightened because I felt like it was a big deal and I didn't know what to expect afterwards. Would people look at me differently? More importantly, would I see them differently. The answer of course is yes. They were much clearer when I got my first pair of prescription glasses. A whole new world was opened up to me - specifically Cal II class. Since the prescription was only small, I only wore my glasses during school. It was important to me to be able to say that I didn't really need glasses, I just wore them so I could see what was written on the blackboard.

This denial lasted seven years until two Fridays ago when I made an appointment with an optometrist and he was shocked (shocked!) that I didn't wear glasses all the time. So I succumbed to the pressure and got new spectacles. As I left Vogue Optical with my two new pair of glasses, I decided to extend my lunch hour break by going to Harvey's. When I saw the hamburgers with my glasses on, they seemed so small. I took them off and the burgers were back to normal size. Glasses on, small burgers. My God! If the glasses had this effect on hamburgers, what about... no no, that was a thought too frightening (and emasculating) to consider. Grabbing my take-out order, I rushed to catch a bus back to work. O dear, I felt like I was 3 feet tall. The ground seemed so much closer to my eye level. Stumbling off of curbs I must have seemed like a noon day drunk. Thankfully, with much effort, I made my way back to work. Since then, I've been trying to wear my glasses as much as possible in order to get used to them. I still forget to sport them quite often but hopefully soon I'll become accustomed to being a four-eyed dork.