I have worn glasses for as long as I can remember. I know that this is only the fault of my poor memory, and that before fifth grade I didn’t need glasses. I have no first memory of glasses, but the the image that most clearly captures onslaught of spectacles for me is one from fifth grade, in which I have been saddled with a pair of black-framed reading glasses at least two sizes too large for my head. It is not a pretty picture, this ill-dressed aspiring intellectual trapped in shorts and a purple cougar-emblazoned t-shirt. It is the kind of angst that they write mediocre first novels about in MFA programs across the country.
