Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Do you spell euphoria with an eye?

Today my wordhoard expanded to admit exophoria, which is not, sadly, a combination of exotic and euphoria or even euphorbia, a group of herbaceous plants of the spurge family, and if I were to splurge on spurge I might experience both euphorbia and euphoria but not exophoria, which describes a tendency of eyes to deviate outward. Yes: my eyes are not exotic or euphoric or euphorbic but deviant and also presbyopic, which refers not to my eyes' religious beliefs but instead means, simply, old eyes that respond very slowly when asked to shift focus from near vision to far.

Together, exophoria and presbyopia explain why, when I've been reading or focusing on small stuff for an hour or so and then get in the car to drive, I see two center lines, one hovering just above the other, with two cars coming the other way, one on top of the other, which makes me feel not euphoric but deviant and plain old old.

My exophoric eyes demand new lenses with more prism to help my eyes cooperate more effectively, and since my frames are old and cranky, I picked out a pair of frames that aren't quite exotic or euphoric but if the prism helps me avoid going to prison for vehicular homicide, I'll splurge. (Not spurge.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Could not have said it better myself. 😀😀