Leaving my last doctor visit, I had a chance to check myself on their eye chart. It was not official–I just backed up 20 one-foot floor tiles and looked at the chart. For the first time ever I was not able to make out some of the letters in the bottom, smallest row. That means my eyesight is now 20/13 instead of 20/10, or however small the denominator was before I started grad school. (The numerator is distance in feet (in the US) and the denominator has to do, in a way that I don’t quite get, with the size of the letters.) If you can see better than 20/10, you generally never find out: 20/10 is good enough. And so is 20/13–I am not complaining. Not much, at least.

I’m more concerned with my focal length, which has moved out at least an inch during the last four years, to a solid 8.5 inches. This happens with aging, of course, but I am willing to bet it is accelerated by reading 30+ hours a week. It is inconvenient not to be able to see my spoonful of food clearly while I am blowing on it. It is also inconvenient that Reanna and I have no overlap in clear vision. When we are looking into each other’s eyes, we have to choose who gets to see clearly, or else she has to wear her contacts. I know it will someday be inconvenient when my focal length exceeds my reach, and I will need glasses to read a book. Ah, aging. As my friend Robert says, “Getting old is very inconvenient. It is better, however, than the alternative.”