Myope, c'est moi

Fact-checking an article posted on the newspaper's entertainment/lifestyle wire by some MCT member called MarketWatch, I have learned that I am a myope.
"Myope" is what eyeball scientists call people with myopia.
I like the way these people talk. They adore syllables. Check out the heightened syllabic incidence per unit of meaning in this snippet from a study of myope-related matters I found filed on PubMed:

Blur sensitivity in myopes.

PURPOSE:

This study compared the ability of myopes and emmetropes to detect subjectively the presence of retinal defocus.

METHODS:

Subjects (12 myopes, 12 emmetropes) were cyclopleged and monocularly viewed a bipartite target through an appropriate near addition lens via a 2-mm artificial pupil. One-half of the target remained fixed while the other half was alternatively moved forward or backward until subjects first reported a difference in clarity between the two halves of the target.

Coincidentally, this study appears to relate to something my boss Kim was told by the opthalmologist she visited last year soon after she noticed her vision was a little blurry: People who have not worn spectacles much of their lives are much less tolerant of blurry vision than people who have.

From which I extrapolate that being a lifelong myope results in a brain that doesn't panic when the information brought in by the eyes obviously can't be trusted.

I wonder if that also means that myopes navigate better in total darkness?

Wardrobe and malfunction

Looking ahead to representing my department at the Society for Features Journalists convention, I'm worried about my clothes.
I have presentable work clothes, but I present them to an office that understands and tolerates an unusual range of nonconformity. My office won't overlook everything: If I showed up barefoot or stank (every day), someone would complain.

:)

Thinking about shopping for clothes bothers me almost as much as thinking about hiring a surveyor (which I also need to do).
I am not a shopper. I approach shopping in the same spirit in which I approach wearing makeup or killing cockroaches: All are on some level sinful activities, but survival in a fallen world demands we do them.

Also, sometimes I bike to work, changing into special bike-to-work-day-only clothes that I have stuffed into the filing cabinet. Also, I have fat knees and like to hide them.
Also, most of the time I wear castoffs from the closets of better organized friends.
For these reasons and for other reasons related to eating lunch at my keyboard, my most favorite outfits appear outdated from a distance; up close they look stained and frayed.

Also, I don't like owning many pairs of shoes.

So my first concern as I prepare for this conference will be obtaining an appropriate disguise.
Sunday, in the advertising department's Jobs section, a column by an apparent expert on business attire (apparently a local one) listed basic pieces of apparel for the achievement of office conformity:
• Classic black pump shoes.
No. Pumps are bad for my back. But I do have one pair of swell looking MaryJane style black Hushpuppies. They're flats but new and also plush looking.
• Crisp button-down white shirt.
No. Crisp things wrinkle. I already have a button down white shirt I like very much, but it's made of something that doesn't wrinkle.
• Fine-knit sweater in a bright color.
For Florida in October?
• Camisole or shell in a neutral color.
Don't those things bare the upper arms? Not baring my upper arms at this late date.
• Cardigan in black or white that can be worn over shirts or dresses.
Maybe. People might subconsciously equate me with Mister Rogers. People liked Mister Rogers.

• Fitted, sleeveless dress that can be paired with a suit jacket or cardigan.
If it didn't have sleeves, I'd never take off the jacket so why bother adding a dress?
• Straight-hemmed skirt in a neutral color.
This feels like a good idea. Point me at the skirts that don't hit me at mid-thigh.
• Flat-front black, gray and tan slacks.
This also seems like a useful purchase, but I don't know where to find pants with waists narrow enough and hips wide enough. I have bought such things made of infinite-stretch materials. By midday the waist is wide enough to fit the hips.
• Neutral colored wool coat.
Nobody wears coats before January.

Coming Monday

Monday's ActiveStyle section of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette profiles the RevRock bike club in central Arkansas. Writer Tina Parker, the Features department's summer intern, rode 16 miles with the club on one of its social-pace outings and learned that the members were weighing whether to codify their association by forming a corporation with bylaws and officers.
Speaking with lawyers and other cyclists, Parker learned that there are many good reasons clubs should create formal structures, but limiting the liability of ride leaders is not the main one.

Headwaters

Always, the thing must start. I wish I could pretend the screed I am about to unroll was merely continuing an already continuous narrative, as though my story had always been in motion, my experiences always moving real action forward, my body always furiously shoving the future endlessly into the past. But no, I must make a beginning.
One time I drove past the headwaters of the Arkansas River, where it trickles through stones in a shatteringly uninteresting section of Colorado, and since then I am sure that everything starts somewhere. By the time that river flows through Little Rock, my town, it's wide and powerful enough that local children who stand beside it trying to skip rocks or catch a fish ought to imagine it's big forever. They ought of dream of following all that bigness out into the wider world where big, big things happen. Something is wrong with them if they look at all that water and see the dribbles of melting snow where its progressive magnitude originates.
Even this BS I am typing, it began, once upon a time, probably within the stuffy pages of a 19th-century novel whose arch tone impressed my young nothingness, struggling against the nothing I owned inside in the place where other people kept their self-profiles.
So this is it, the start of my temporary blog. I hereby begin it.