Spent the last few hours lying on my floor, petting the cat, marinating my tonsils in red wine, and listening to music.

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I went to the optometrist a few hours ago and learned that I was having an allergic reaction to my contact lenses. I'd been having the reaction for the last few days, and, from what I could tell, symptoms = inflamed eyeballs, constantly dilated pupils, lots of pain. The diagnosis was a good thing, even at $120, as it let me know that I wasn't going blind.

Instead, I'll be taking eye medicine for the next few days ($28) and not wearing contacts.

Which meant I needed to buy a pair of glasses to replace the ones I'd lost in an airport a few months ago.

The cheapest frames I could find (that day) were about $50, and the heaviest/cheapest lenses were $70. Really enamored with the way my face has been transformed by these things - most of me is covered by thin metal frames and huge fucking expanses of lens. My nose is there, sticking out like the shnozz on a Groucho Marx mask. And then the rest of my face is sort of sketched in around the glasses as an afterthought. But really, the thing you'll be staring at is my eyeballs, magnified 1000-fold by these aquarium glass lenses.

I love it.

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(Pictures soon. And, if I told you I'd be in Charleston this weekend, it turns out I was lying. Plans have falled through.)

I am covered in baby oil.

80 foot slip n' slide FTW.

From a 1 star Amazon review of Alice In Wonderland:

"I think the book Alice in Wonderland is a very good book. While it can be confusing at times, it makes you wonder. For example, when they were talking to the turtle, it didn't make very much sense. Also, the trial over the pastries, it was very idiotic, and if that trial happened today it would get thrown out. Lastly, at the hare and mad hatter's on going tea party, it was very senseless. The author's use of language was very unlike our language today. For example, when she said so many times the words, "shot up", it sounds English or something. The book has this tone a lot throughout it. Maybe the author has English back round. But it was in very easy to understand language, accept for the times people were talking non-sense. The main character is Alice. At sometimes she can seem clueless, and go on rambling like while talking with the turtle. She even pointed it out her-self. A lot of her decisions during the book make no sense. Like to just walk off with that little pig at the Duchess' house. And why would she follow the rabbit to an unknown land to begin with. There was many times where she confused me sometimes. Like when she talked with the caterpillar and said she wasn't the person she started as at the beginning of the day. One thing of the book I did not understand was the theme. In fact I did not see a theme. The only thing close to a theme was a girl trapped in an unusual world, with no way out. One other thing I didn't see in the book was a plot. The entire book was was a girl going with the flow and seeing where the adventure took her. The cat that kept disappearing and appearing even asked her why did she need directions to somewhere, if she didn't know where she was going. In my opinion this book had no effectiveness. It also had no meaning. It had no moral, and nothing to learn from it. So I think the book was very pointless, and just something to read for fun.'"

A different reviewer, on Borges' Labyrinths: Selected Stories:

This book is filled with short stories of bad boring science fiction. References, complete with page numbers, to non existent books only add to the tedium

Nabokov's Ada:

This is a masturbatory fantasy. Nabokov has created his dream world: The United States and Russia are one country and everybody who's anybody speaks French, too; World War I never happened, let alone World War II; and Van Veen has a lifelong love affair with his cousin Ada (actually his sister), full of passion, yearning, intellectual stimulation, and the thrill of the forbidden, plus a soupcon of jealousy provided by Ada's full sister Lucette, who wants Van to love her, too, and finally kills herself for want of him, spicing Van's life with a touch of sweet remorse. Oh - I forgot to mention the voyeuristic lesbianism when Lucette describes her own affair with Ada, and their threesome.
If this isn't the stuff of your dreams, you may find Nabokov's mandarin literary style a little heavy for the subject matter, like a g-string made of real cloth of gold.

Lolita:

All this hoopla about Lolita made me curious enough to read it. Don't tell me this is about love. This pedophile clearly stalks young girls. Maybe his first true love could never blossom, but to carry that feeling throughout his life screams psychological problems, not love.

Crying of Lot 49:

Lot 49 was introduced to me by an English professor at the university I attend. I can tell anyone that it is the worst novel (fiction for that matter!) that I have ever read. I enjoy reading fiction and I cannot believe that this novel could ever be popular. P's sentences ramble on and on as if he was in a state of mass hysteria or a drug induced coma when he was writing. Not only does this novel not make sense, I have to agree with another reader that it is not in the least bit interesting. I WILL BE FORTUNATE IF I NEVER HAVE TO READ ANOTHER BOOK BY PYNCHON AGAIN IN MY LIFE!