The new part-time Emma

I've been having trouble with my eyes lately....that is I haven't been able to see well.....so after several trips to my new eye doctor I ended up getting glasses. I am still able to wear my contacts, but am supposed to rest my eyes part of the time. So here is a version of me if I had been born with bigger eyes. I look like somebody I know, but I can't think of who. When I see pictures of myself smiling like this, I wonder if I ought to have had my teeth fixed when I was young. It's so un-American to have ugly teeth. Somehow it didn't bother me unless I was going to the dentist. Then I was embarrassed. Gradually I have given up going to the dentist for that reason, not wanting to expose my ugly teeth or most-likely bad breath to a captive hygienist. My teeth are servicable and healthy, just not pretty.

Anyway, the point of the picture is the glasses. I can now see my fingernails through the bifocal part of the lenses and I spend a fair amount of time examining them. They are uncared for as they have always been. The cuticles are securely glued to the outside edges of the nails, never having been pushed back or cut. They are haphazzardly trimmed with nail clippers to various lengths. Most have dirt of obscure origin under them and are snagged at the edges. I'm not saying that they would be any different if I had been able to see them all these years......like teeth, they serve a function. For some reason I never had any interest in making them pretty (if there is such a thing as a pretty nail). Nevertheless, I find it entertaining to look at them now, just as I find my eyes that look in slightly different directions interesting to observe. My second toes are longer than my big toes, too, and misshapen with all the years of trying to shrink inside normally shaped shoes. The back of my head is flat. My lips are thin. I'm much too short. By normal standards I am a mass of defective parts, usually considered unnattractive. Somehow it all seems to work, though, as a whole. I don't mind the way I look.