andrew_jorgensen

Since I first got contact lenses I've dreaded this day, having witnessed rahael's painful experiences with the affliction. Last night, after going for an evening walk, I noticed that the astigmatism in my right eye was more prominent than usual. A couple of hours later, the vision in that eye developed a milky cast; when I went to the bathroom to remove my contact, I was confronted with a blazingly red bloodshot eye. Goop was starting to collect under the lower eyelid, itself already sensitive to the touch. I washed it out and went to bed, sure that I'd wake up with my eyelashes encrusted together. I'm almost certain that this is a hay fever reaction, as the crud and the sensitivity have disappeared since I took a Claritin, but in consulting Dr. Google, the hypochondriac's friend, I was surprised to learn that there's an actual epidemic. I'll have to see the optometrist tomorrow; though the goop and pain have subsided the redness remains. The one positive, though, is that being against a blood red background really brings out the green in my eye. It's almost Christmassy!

I've been thinking recently about ways to accentuate the colors of my eyes -- the irises, though, rather than the whites. My eye has, at certain times, a gold ring around the pupil, and I'm convinced that this is a product of exposure to the sun. Now harnessing the power of light for cosmetic reasons is a technology as old as lemon juice, and it's been artificially applied to methods for taking the brown out of your teeth and putting it into your skin. But I don't think anyone's capitalized yet on the photoreactivity of irises. I propose the creation of a portable, antiseptic, home bleaching system for the iris. This would consist of a small but powerful blue-white light bulb -- I'd guess that about 150 watts would do it -- with a comfortable shroud for isolating each eye, perhaps clamping back those pesky eyelids, and a convenient rechargeable battery pack. I haven't yet moved into the prototype phase, but I have expectations that it could significantly lighten and brighten the user's irises, and should be effective enough to produce whitening of the cornea as well. I discussed this idea with my optometrist, but she wasn't enthusiastic. And I thought eye care professionals were supposed to be crafty investors.

My mother, who last week was installed as the new pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Nowheresville, Michigan, just sent me this email:

As I listen to Diane Rheme talk about the Florida case, I would like to tell you my wishes. I do not want to be kep alive if I am in a persistent vegatative state is. After I reach 80 or so, I would like to die naturally. If I break my neck I do not want to be put in a halo. One of my parishioners who is over 90 broke her neck and is in a halo. It looks terribly painful.

To which I responded, "In that case, you really picked the wrong line of work. You should have stayed a lawyer – they never get put into haloes." Not that my mother, in her heretical Zen Presbyterianism, puts much stock in the concept of an afterlife -- or in many of the other tropes of Conservative Christianity. She really wants to get one of those Darwin Fish for her car, an act that might be seen as antagonistic to community values, judging from the number of Jesus Fish I saw affixed to cars on the Ohio and Indiana Turpikes when I drove up to visit her. (It should be noted that I was down with the Jesus Fish long before it sold out and went mainstream: it was an important symbol to Philip K. Dick, and as a crossword devotee, I love it just for its simplicity as an acrostic.)

However, if the Darwin Fish is antagonistic, those antagonised by it give as good as they get. Before I had even left the East side of Cleveland, I passed a car with the bumper sticker:


I felt a little antagonised myself, because I first thought that this was referring to the old canard that Darwin had renounced evolution on his deathbed, a canard that even creationists have abandoned. (The one story of a noted agnostic scientist undergoing a deathbed conversion to Christianity which is well documented is that of John Von Neumann, who was born into Judaism and spent most of his life as an atheist, but did in fact convert to Catholicism -- for the second time in his life -- while he lay dying in Walter Reed Hospital. Of course, Von Neumann was instrumental in the invention of game theory, and he may have just been taking Pascal's Wager.) After a moment of reflection, I decided that the bumper sticker was merely saying that Darwin, now that he is burning in Hell, has probably reconsidered, which is Argument No. 39 of the 519 Arguments for the Existence of God, the Argument From Post-Death Experience:

1. Person X died an atheist.
2. He now realizes his mistake.
3. Therefore, God exists.

In any case, while I like both the Jesus Fish and the Darwin Fish, I'm a little disappointed in some of the other options. Frankly, it's not enough for me just to say whether or not I accept evolution, I want the ability to say which of the strains of modern evolutionary theory ("modified descendants," if you will) I favor, all from the comfort of my driver's seat. For example, were I too favor a gradualistic view of evolution, I could paste the following to my bumper:


(Do note that I could stick an outline of an acacia tree in front of each fish and have a pretty good iconographic reduction of Lamarckianism.)

( On the other hand, were I instead a subscriber to the theory of punctuated equilibrium . . .  )

Ahh, car fenders. They're the new Lyceum, I tell you!