Have I mentioned lately how I love this modern era, despite all the craziness?
Why? For reasons like this :
Having gotten myself another disposable (?) credit card last night, I was finally able to buy myself a new pair of glasses online.
Funny how it took me months to put together the fact that I had my prescription from my last eye exam with the fact that you can buy glasses quite cheaply online and come to the conclusion, “Hey, I should buy myself glasses online so I can see again!”.
Sometimes, ya got a 2 in each hand but it doesn’t occur to you to put them together to make 4 for an embarrassingly long time.
I am a confounding and confusing confluence of genius and derp.
I had tried to buy glasses online once before, around a month and change ago. but the website rejected my credit card. Motherfuckers.
This place, with the hilariously literal name “smartbuyglasses.ca“, had no problem with it. In fact, the whole process was pleasant and smooth.
And their website design was very “easy on the eyes” too, ha ha.
They even had a very clever way to get your “PD” value, which is the distance between your eyes. They get you to take any modern magnetic-stripe type card, like a credit card or debit card or membership card or whatever, and press it to your forehead over your eyebrow, then take a picture of yourself.
This works because all those cards have the exact same dimensions and therefore work as an excellent reference point for other measurements.
Like the website is saying, “OK, if the card is this apparent width, and the distance between the eyes is this apparent width, then…. ”
All told, my new glasses cost me $83, and that INCLUDES new frames and a modern blue-blocking lens coating that is supposed to cut way down on eye strain from looking at screens all day.
Sounds fab to me. And way better than the ~$230 those clip artists at IRIS charged me for my previous pair.
But my next purchase was even more astounding.
See, it occurred to me that a Gordian Knot type solution to my problems with my blood glucometer from those cheap fucks at Dexcom was to buy my own damned sensors for the one that actually worked, my Freestyle Libre.
So I decided there would be no harm in seeing what they cost online.
After all, in a world where I can get a pair of glasses online for $83, anything is possible, including a reasonable price for those sensors.
So I plug “freestyle libre sensors” into Google and it pops out of line of ads with prices and I see one that says $18.50 and think, “Awesome, that is way better than the $100 per the pharmacy charges!”.
So I click on the ad and it takes me to an Amazon page where I see something that boggles my mind twice :
It says that is the price for….. a box of 55???????
That can’t be right. And yet, that’s what the Amazon page says.
So I ordered it. I mean, it’s a $20 bet, so even if they turn out to be crap or I somehow misinterpreted things, all I am out is $20.
But if it’s as good as it claims to be, that’s 110 weeks of sensors for $20!
That’s 18 cents a week! 2.6 cents a day!
I think I can swing that, yeah.
They arrive this Thursday and I can hardly wait.
More after the break.
The real me
Day by day, I get to know him better.
This is necessary because this person I’ve been for my entire adult life, amazing and beloved as he is, is not the real me.
It’s the sick me. The crazy me. The me I managed to salvage after my nervous breakdown in my early 20’s, after my parents took me out of university.
This is the “failure to launch” version of Michael J. Bertrand. He’s very sweet and really funny and he has an offbeat kind of charm, but he’s broken.
Terribly, terribly broken.
He never got to grow up, and it shows. He’s lived his entire adult life hiding in the shadows from the world, only daring to emerge into the light of other people’s awareness when hiding behind a persona he created or at the very least a username he chose at some point.
And that is not the real me. Not by a long shot.
The real me is positive, optimistic, enthusiastic, outgoing, gregarious, full of life, and ready to take on the world or at least go down swingin’.
And then get right back up again because this overflowing cup of a spirit of mine would be put to good use shoring me up instead of just making me anxious.
The real me loves life, loves people, and loves shining like a freshly polished diamond with warmth and light and hope for all to see and share.
The real me sees life as something to enjoy, not endure, and he eats it all up in huge loving spoonfuls because he just can’t get enough of being alive and thriving.
The real me is truly and sincerely emotionally open, instead of just sort of faking it and hiding his sealed off status in the many layers of his complex personality. He connects with people effortlessly and can make total strangers feel like he’s their best friend that they have known all their lives. Everywhere he goes, he spreads the love.
But by far the best thing about the real me is that he can handle reality. The real world doesn’t overwhelm him with its loudness and intensity because he has the strength, resilience, and courage to deal with it all.
Challenges inspire him. Obstacles invigorate him. Rivals thrill him.
And he uses his power over others without shame or restraint because he knows he’s using his powers for good.
And money. But mostly good.
All in all, he’s one heck of a guy.
I hope to meet him some day soon.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.