{"id":3753,"date":"2014-01-29T07:45:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T15:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streamoftheconscious.com\/?p=3753"},"modified":"2014-01-29T09:30:33","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T17:30:33","slug":"inability-to-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/streamoftheconscious.com\/inability-to-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"Inability to Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cYou have a problem focusing,\u201d the doctor informed me.<\/p>\n Well thank you Captain Obvious. Just call me Doug the Dog from \u201cUp.\u201d SQUIRREL!<\/p>\n I live with preschoolers \u2013 two of them. The cumulative attention span of our entire household equals that of a near-sighted goldfish.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even when one of the muppets enters a hyper-focus phase, such as the desperate need to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, their attention span drifts off in spurts. Destroy will remain glued to his show, but those delectable 24 minutes are spent seated, standing, sideways and summersaulting.<\/p>\n Search goes though phases perseverating on various vices \u2013 his beloved pink dollhouse, a fire truck, or the red Cars jammies. (I bought four pairs of those pjs to prevent unnecessary potty incident laundry room nightmares. Is that enabling?)<\/p>\n \u201cYou need reading glasses,\u201d the ophthalmologist clarified.<\/p>\n Oh.<\/p>\n I\u2019d gone in for my annual eye exam. The doc handed me his little black paddle and instructed me to cover my left eye before flipping open his lettered eye chart and instructing me to read \u2013 an activity I am usually quite good at.<\/p>\n I was relatively certain light and dark blurs were occurring on the opposite side of the exam room. The doc clicked his eye chart slide up to the next level font.<\/p>\n Nope.<\/p>\n Letters got larger once more. Umm\u2026it could be an E? It may also be a plant. One of those.<\/p>\n Doc laughed and began fiddling with lens caps. He held up a glass monocle in front of my open eye, noting, \u201cOk, here\u2019s where your prescription should be.\u201d<\/p>\n Holy crap! I SEE LETTERS! (Totally better than dead people.)<\/p>\n The hilllllls are alive\u2026.with the sound of muuuusic. (Ok, no they\u2019re not. They\u2019re dead because we\u2019re having a drought in California.) But trees! The hills aren\u2019t an impressionist painting after all. (Which is good, I would have recommended the green paint instead of brown.)<\/p>\n See, my left eye still has perfect vision, which then tries to compensate for the desperate shortcomings of my right (a headache in so many more ways than one). So when I play their silly little games (like covering my left eye to read their monkey\/plant\/letter chart) things become quite hallucinogenic.<\/p>\n This was proven when I switched sides. With my left eye? Those tiny 2pt font letters waaaay over there on the very bottom of the previously blurry chart \u2013 PDCOSK, bitches!<\/p>\n I know I\u2019m lucky to have made it this far. GrammaJ is pretty much blind as a bat without her coke bottles. Search and Destroy already beat the retinopathy of prematurity odds.<\/a><\/p>\n According to the doctor, it\u2019s not tremendously uncommon for each eye to have a different prescription. Unusual for one of those to be 20\/20, but not unheard of. Just more proof of my right-brained creativity. Or that my brain is melting from within. One of those.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cYou have a problem focusing,\u201d the doctor informed me. Well thank you Captain Obvious. Just call me Doug the Dog from \u201cUp.\u201d SQUIRREL! I live with preschoolers \u2013 two of them. The cumulative attention span of our entire household equals … Continue reading