Anti-Shades
I think my ancestors were vampires, not only because I am ghostly pasty, but also because sunlight is my greatest natural enemy. Because of this, I wear sunglasses basically all of the time. This produces a condition in drastic contrast to drinking, in that the more I do it, the less tolerant I become. At this point, after years of wearing shades between the hours of 6 and 6, I can't see shit in the daylight without my shades on. I also have a hard time adjusting to lights at the ballpark, which means I usually wear my shades well into the fourth inning of mid-summer night games. Sunglasses also serve as goggles, a trait that comes in handy in the crazy and ever-changing wind tunnel known as downtown Chicago. Also, I think shades make me look cool. Actually, that's not my style at all. My attachment to my shades is totally practical, I assure you.
On the rare occasion when I'm forced to face the daylight without sunglasses, two principal effects occur. First, I end up squinting an inordinate amount, which makes me look inexplicably pissed off. Second, since I wind up essentially closing my eyes in an attempt to block out the sun, I find myself bumping into and tripping over static objects. So, here's this guy, looking all angry, ramming into light poles, newspaper boxes, and street signs, swearing at no one in particular all the while. It is not a pretty sight, and if I were to see someone knocking into shit as he ambled down the street, I'd probably think he were crazy, drunk, or both. Therefore, my shades are like an AmEx: Never leave home without them.
Late last summer, I walked to Sheehan's house following a late afternoon ballgame. With a freshly purchased twelve-pack of Miller Lite tucked under my arm, I climbed up the back stairs of his townhouse and settled my drunken arse onto the fantastically spacious porch atop the garage behind his place. Upon phoning him, he informed me that he was still up at his parents' house in the vanilla suburbs, but when he heard that I was not only drunk but continuing to drink while sitting uninvited on his porch, he rushed back downtown in a failed attempt to moderate my poor behavior. As the early evening passed into full-blown nighttime, I took my shades off and put them into a pocket, as they were hindering my ability to review my scorecard of the day's game. At some point during my and Sheehan's boozing session on the porch, I inadvertently allowed the shades to fall out of my pocket.
Following many fantastic (and now forgotten) misadventures, I came out of my stupor back at my apartment late the next morning, only to realize that my trusted old friend, the black metal Ray-Bans, were missing in action, and had likely become casualties of the evening. To say that I was despondent over the loss would be putting it lightly. Adding to my sense of disorientation, I was due at my sister's boyfriend's apartment to drop off tickets for that night's Cubs-Cardinals game, which I could not attend due to a mandatory family gathering at my parents' house. Combined with my natural aversion to the sun and the raging headache I was nursing, performing either of these two activities without ocular protection was unthinkable. So, I headed over to Water Tower Place, for yet another impulse shopping spree. Within seconds of leaving my building, I was overwhelmed with the terrifying and irrational sense that my retinas were on the verge of burning away in the scorching glare of the summer sun. Thankfully, I reached the oasis of the sunglasses store just in the nick of time.
I tried in vain to find an exact copy of my lost shades, as they had served me well during the three years I had worn them, through many long days and many eventful road trips, both at home and abroad. However, fashions change (in spite of my utter resistance to change), and I was of the opinion that all of the Ray-Bans they had in stock completely sucked. The sales guy suggested that I should try on some polarized Oakleys. At first, I wasn't too sure of his suggestion, primarily because I always thought Oakleys were either for hipsters or guys who were dying to get laid. Accepting that I was, indeed, a hipster dying to get laid, I picked out a pair that covered nearly half of my face. I heard from someone (one of my sisters, in all probability) that big shades were in that summer, and, though I typically resist things others find to be cool, I decided to break with my natural instincts and follow the herd for once. 'Anyway, the bigger, the better,' I told myself.
As I stood at the register, the store clerk asked if I wanted a hard case for the glasses. I resisted at first, but then, with a lisp I could never replicate with the written word, he capped off his sales pitch with, "See, the case is big, and there's this hidden compartment you can put your glasses in, so if someone finds the case, they might open it and say, 'Oh my God! Where are the sunglasses?' and then they won't seal your sunglasses." "Right," I thought to myself, "The old hidden glasses trick gets 'em every time." Since the bill was already way more than I'd hoped it would be, I bought the case like a complete sucker. Not surprisingly, I've never had occasion to use the hard case, primarily because I'm always wearing them, and also because I've never felt the need to use the old hidden glasses trick--not that I think it would work in the first place. I will say that the case looks pretty cool sitting on my desk, even if it is tragically under-used.
This new pair of shades has served me well in the intervening months; I've found that you can wear polarized glasses at more or less any time of the day and still see everything perfectly clearly, even through the darkest shadows of night. Though they are huge and (as Day once pointed out) make me look like Bono (especially when my hair is greasy and slicked back), I really love my newest pair of sunglasses. A couple weeks later, I once again trekked up to Sheehan's back porch, only to discover my old Ray-Bans right where they'd fallen out of my pocket, sitting idly under my favorite deck chair. This was something of a miracle, as Sheehan's downstairs neighbor, Bill, had thrown raging outdoor parties at least three times in the weeks since I'd lost them. I've since left this old pair at Seamus's apartment, as my go-to shades in case I ever pass out there and somehow manage to pry myself off the couch during the daylight hours. This has never happened, especially since he subscribed to ESPN's College Gameday a couple months ago.
Setting their principal sun-blocking purpose aside, there are other reasons why I insist upon wearing shades almost all of the time. First of all, I enjoy casting sideways glances at people. I think it's funny, especially when I pass self-conscious girls (oxymoronic) on the street; the look of unbridled tension on their faces is simply priceless. Second, when I'm wandering around with my iPod on, listening to some complex piece of music by one of my favorite bands, I've noticed that my eyes tend to dart all over the place in a haphazard fashion, and I would hate to give the impression that I've got the crazy eye, even if I am, in point of fact, borderline crazy. Third, there's a certain line from 'Unforgiven,' the greatest modern Western ever made, in which Clint Eastwood says, "The eyes are the window onto a man's soul." Sometimes--most of the time--I don't particularly feel like allowing strangers a glimpse at my soul. (God knows that many times I don't even want to glimpse in at my own soul.) I love that sunglasses provide a false sense of privacy and security, like hiding under the covers, or closing your eyes on a roller coaster.
In many ways, writing What I See is my anti-shades, offering glimpses of the goings-on in my head that I hadn't previously known were there--a window on a hidden world, I suppose.
On the rare occasion when I'm forced to face the daylight without sunglasses, two principal effects occur. First, I end up squinting an inordinate amount, which makes me look inexplicably pissed off. Second, since I wind up essentially closing my eyes in an attempt to block out the sun, I find myself bumping into and tripping over static objects. So, here's this guy, looking all angry, ramming into light poles, newspaper boxes, and street signs, swearing at no one in particular all the while. It is not a pretty sight, and if I were to see someone knocking into shit as he ambled down the street, I'd probably think he were crazy, drunk, or both. Therefore, my shades are like an AmEx: Never leave home without them.
Late last summer, I walked to Sheehan's house following a late afternoon ballgame. With a freshly purchased twelve-pack of Miller Lite tucked under my arm, I climbed up the back stairs of his townhouse and settled my drunken arse onto the fantastically spacious porch atop the garage behind his place. Upon phoning him, he informed me that he was still up at his parents' house in the vanilla suburbs, but when he heard that I was not only drunk but continuing to drink while sitting uninvited on his porch, he rushed back downtown in a failed attempt to moderate my poor behavior. As the early evening passed into full-blown nighttime, I took my shades off and put them into a pocket, as they were hindering my ability to review my scorecard of the day's game. At some point during my and Sheehan's boozing session on the porch, I inadvertently allowed the shades to fall out of my pocket.
Following many fantastic (and now forgotten) misadventures, I came out of my stupor back at my apartment late the next morning, only to realize that my trusted old friend, the black metal Ray-Bans, were missing in action, and had likely become casualties of the evening. To say that I was despondent over the loss would be putting it lightly. Adding to my sense of disorientation, I was due at my sister's boyfriend's apartment to drop off tickets for that night's Cubs-Cardinals game, which I could not attend due to a mandatory family gathering at my parents' house. Combined with my natural aversion to the sun and the raging headache I was nursing, performing either of these two activities without ocular protection was unthinkable. So, I headed over to Water Tower Place, for yet another impulse shopping spree. Within seconds of leaving my building, I was overwhelmed with the terrifying and irrational sense that my retinas were on the verge of burning away in the scorching glare of the summer sun. Thankfully, I reached the oasis of the sunglasses store just in the nick of time.
I tried in vain to find an exact copy of my lost shades, as they had served me well during the three years I had worn them, through many long days and many eventful road trips, both at home and abroad. However, fashions change (in spite of my utter resistance to change), and I was of the opinion that all of the Ray-Bans they had in stock completely sucked. The sales guy suggested that I should try on some polarized Oakleys. At first, I wasn't too sure of his suggestion, primarily because I always thought Oakleys were either for hipsters or guys who were dying to get laid. Accepting that I was, indeed, a hipster dying to get laid, I picked out a pair that covered nearly half of my face. I heard from someone (one of my sisters, in all probability) that big shades were in that summer, and, though I typically resist things others find to be cool, I decided to break with my natural instincts and follow the herd for once. 'Anyway, the bigger, the better,' I told myself.
As I stood at the register, the store clerk asked if I wanted a hard case for the glasses. I resisted at first, but then, with a lisp I could never replicate with the written word, he capped off his sales pitch with, "See, the case is big, and there's this hidden compartment you can put your glasses in, so if someone finds the case, they might open it and say, 'Oh my God! Where are the sunglasses?' and then they won't seal your sunglasses." "Right," I thought to myself, "The old hidden glasses trick gets 'em every time." Since the bill was already way more than I'd hoped it would be, I bought the case like a complete sucker. Not surprisingly, I've never had occasion to use the hard case, primarily because I'm always wearing them, and also because I've never felt the need to use the old hidden glasses trick--not that I think it would work in the first place. I will say that the case looks pretty cool sitting on my desk, even if it is tragically under-used.
This new pair of shades has served me well in the intervening months; I've found that you can wear polarized glasses at more or less any time of the day and still see everything perfectly clearly, even through the darkest shadows of night. Though they are huge and (as Day once pointed out) make me look like Bono (especially when my hair is greasy and slicked back), I really love my newest pair of sunglasses. A couple weeks later, I once again trekked up to Sheehan's back porch, only to discover my old Ray-Bans right where they'd fallen out of my pocket, sitting idly under my favorite deck chair. This was something of a miracle, as Sheehan's downstairs neighbor, Bill, had thrown raging outdoor parties at least three times in the weeks since I'd lost them. I've since left this old pair at Seamus's apartment, as my go-to shades in case I ever pass out there and somehow manage to pry myself off the couch during the daylight hours. This has never happened, especially since he subscribed to ESPN's College Gameday a couple months ago.
Setting their principal sun-blocking purpose aside, there are other reasons why I insist upon wearing shades almost all of the time. First of all, I enjoy casting sideways glances at people. I think it's funny, especially when I pass self-conscious girls (oxymoronic) on the street; the look of unbridled tension on their faces is simply priceless. Second, when I'm wandering around with my iPod on, listening to some complex piece of music by one of my favorite bands, I've noticed that my eyes tend to dart all over the place in a haphazard fashion, and I would hate to give the impression that I've got the crazy eye, even if I am, in point of fact, borderline crazy. Third, there's a certain line from 'Unforgiven,' the greatest modern Western ever made, in which Clint Eastwood says, "The eyes are the window onto a man's soul." Sometimes--most of the time--I don't particularly feel like allowing strangers a glimpse at my soul. (God knows that many times I don't even want to glimpse in at my own soul.) I love that sunglasses provide a false sense of privacy and security, like hiding under the covers, or closing your eyes on a roller coaster.
In many ways, writing What I See is my anti-shades, offering glimpses of the goings-on in my head that I hadn't previously known were there--a window on a hidden world, I suppose.
posted by Pat at 9:36 AM
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