May: Featured Goth in Glasses

Dearest dark hearts and spectacle aficionados,

It is my pleasure to announce the return of the Gothic Optician's Featured Goth in Glasses with a very special guest.I've been a fan of Trystan's since I came across her blog "This Is CorpGoth" a few years back. I actually spent a few weekends in my dorm room just browsing through her posts, absorbing fashion tips and style inspiration along the way. The timing was perfect. I discovered "This Is CorpGoth" during my senior year of college, during that period when my main thought was "Okay, I've spent four years in college and have officially found myself, but now I have to get out there and be professional and dressed in a way that both myself and potential employers are comfortable with." I completely credit finding Trystan's blog with giving me the motivation to start my own blog. In fact, I could go as far as to say that her posts help me decide on the perfect ensemble for my interview that landed me my current job. I highly recommend her blog for anyone who wants to establish a nice balance between work and play.

The lovely and fashionable Trystan L. Bass, creator of the blog "This Is CorpGoth."

Let's delve right into the questions, shall we?

Sea: How long have you been wearing glasses?

Trystan: Since at least third grade, so probably I've been wearing glasses from age 8. And I have never worn contact lenses regularly. I have astigmatism that's just severe enough for the prescription to not work very accurately in most types of contacts. I'm currently working with an optometrist to try & find some contacts that will give reasonable enough vision so I can wear them with historical costumes.

S: How long have you considered yourself a goth?

T: That's a funny question because, when & where I grew up, kids didn't use the term "gothic" to describe those who wore a lot of black eyeliner, dyed their hair unnatural colors, & listened to Bauhaus & Siouxie & the Banshees. But my friends & I did all those things starting around age 16, & we were called "punk" or "mod" or "alternative" & suchlike. It wasn't until college, perhaps around age 19, that I heard people calling how I dressed "goth." But I've considered myself a bit outside the mainstream my whole life, always a fan of the dark, mysterious, spooky, ethereal, & romantic in fiction, music, & fashion.

S: What's your favorite music?

T: I fully admit I don't listen to much current music -- the only artist in the past 15 years to really interest me has been Lady Gaga. Otherwise, I stick to the classics like the Cure, the Smiths, Sisters of Mercy, Siouxie & the Banshees, Love & Rockets, New Order. But music is no longer a great passion of mine. I usually have NPR on the radio.

S: What's your favorite accessory?

T: Jewelry, especially big, chunky necklaces. I enjoy making jewelry too, but, as with most things, I don't have enough time to do it.

S: What's your favorite goth cliche?

T: "We wear black on the outside because we feel black on the inside." -- Funny because it's sometimes true!

S: And your most disliked goth cliche?

T:  "You must wear or like X to be goth," or conversely, "You can't be goth if you like or wear Y." That's crap. There is no Seekrit Goth Cabal judging you & stamping your goth card if you do this or that correctly. You can be uber goth while wearing a pink tutu & playing ice hockey, if that's your thing. Goth is who you are & your sensibilities, not just what you wear or listen to, & you don't have to parade about in black velvet singing "Bela Legosi's Dead" to prove it.

S: And your favorite style of glasses?

T: Cat's eye. I've had my current cat eye frames for about 8 years, & I dread the day they break -- this is the second pair, the first ones broke, & this one is now discontinued! The angular styles that are so common right now just don't flatter me.

S:  Who's your favorite famous goth?

T: Emily Bronte. Original gothic novelist FTW!

S: And your favorite person who wears glasses?

T: John Lennon. I was raised by hippies & have always admired Lennon's music & philosophy. In college, I got round wire frames like him.

S: Got any stories involving your glasses? ie, losing them and causing a fiasco, unknowingly wearing someone else's for a while, anything?

T: Not really. They're just always on my face, always there!

S: As they should be! ;)

S: I'd like to know a bit more about your hobbies. I know you enjoy historical reenactments, and I'm curious as to what events you attend and what got you into historical reenactments. I know this has little to do with gothic culture or glasses, but I think it's cool and I have reason to believe my readers would feel the same. =)

T: I've always loved historical costume, in some ways, it's related to what I love about goth -- the dramatic beauty, the romance, the elegance. The gothic aesthetic draws heavily on past fashions; I just go further back into the past than some. My first love is the 16th century, & I've attended renaissance faires since I was a kid & started working them as an actor in college. That's even how I met my husband. Slowly I branched out into other historical eras & fantasy topics. My husband & I even attended Venetian carnival for my 40th birthday in 18th-century costumes that I made. While I strive for historical accuracy, I can't help but make most of my costumes in dark colors with a predominantly gothic style.No matter the period, I'm still a dark at heart.

 I want to add that my biggest pet peeve at historical reenactments is glasses! They're rarely period because eye glasses where terribly expensive, plus ladies wouldn't wear them outside the home because they were unfashionable. Yes, I know, a lot of people can't wear contact lenses, myself included, but I wish people would at least take off their glasses for costume photos.

S: On a side note, I love that you listen to NPR. That's all my partner and I listen to when driving, because the radio music selection here in Indiana leaves quite a bit to be desired unless you like rap or country. Also, I like your reference to the Illuminati-esque "Goth Cabal."

T: Hahah! I have an NPR finder app on my phone so I can always find the local station when I'm traveling :)

S: Okay, as far as other questions.. you've been in the goth scene for quite some time, and I've no doubt you've seen it evolve throughout the years.. where do you think gothic culture is headed? Do you think this generation's grandkids will be donning fishnets, black lace, corsets, and combat boots?

T: Little things may change, but the essence of the gothic subculture is the same: an affection for the dark, spooky, ethereal, morbid, & less happy side of life. Dark colors -- black, of course -- will always be a constant in gothic fashion. For as many times as someone tries to say "pink is the new black," it's really "pink + black is the new black" (& one of my fave color combos!). The music may be more techno one decade, more acoustic the next, but it will be suffused with an introspection on the darker side of the world. This is what we come from, this is how we stay true to ourselves.

  

S: You said that music is no longer a great passion of yours, which makes me immediately think of people who argue among themselves "Goth is ALL about music." or "Goth is ALL about fashion." Where do you stand on that? What does goth mean to you? ( I love asking this question because it always brings about a very unique perspective.)

T: Goth is not about all one thing or the other except darkness. The shadow side of life. Appreciating the beauty in death & decay. Being OK with being morbid -- even having a laugh at death. These are all gothic. You can express that through music AND through fashion AND through a million other things. You could decorate your house totally & completely gothic & drive a hearse to work, but never listen to Bauhaus & never wear a stitch of black clothing, & that's still pretty darn goth to me.

}~*~{

Very wise words indeed, madame. Thank you once more, Trystan, for your time and your unique point of view. It was an absolute pleasure to interview you.

I highly recommend checking out Trystan's blog, "This Is CorpGoth," especially those of you who are goths in professional settings.

As always, dressed for success.

Until next time, ladies and gentlegoths,

Sea, the Gothic Optician, A.B.O.C.


Ps. Be sure to check out the Gothic Optician's brand new Facebook page! = D

Facebook!

Dearest Readers:

I'm quite thrilled to announce that I've put on my big girl glasses and finally made a facebook page.

Find me here.

Please spread the word. This will be a fantastic way for me to better communicate with readers and get imput on what you, my gloomy and spectacled audience want to see in future posts. :)


Bloody Kisses (of the Type-O variety)
Sea, the Gothic Optician, A.B.O.C.

Jeepers Creepers: Random Online Eyeball Finds

Happy Sunday, Spectacled Gothlings,

First and foremost, I would like to highly recommend seeing the latest Iron Man flick. I try not to stray from topics pertaining to either Gothic Culture or Glasses, but I absolutely loved it. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post....

One of my favorite hobbies (and perhaps worst habits) is online window shopping. A coworker of mine finds it "fact finding," in which one browses random items online, hopping from one cyber boutique to another. In one of my many fact finding excursions, I picked up a few souviniers. I've eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs! Eyeballs for everyone! YOU GET A NEW EYEBALL! AND YOU GET A NEW EYEBALL! AND YOU! YOU ALL GET NEW EYEBALLS!... well, not quite. But I have found many varieties of everyone's favorite sensory organ.

Ladies First
Have a special gal in your life that you want to show that you only have eyes for her? Maybe you want to tell her she's the apple of your eye, or that you see a future with her? Okay, I'm going to stop with the puns now.

}Click the photos to get to the website.{
}Please keep in mind that I own none of the following images.{

The first neat little eyeball item hails from one of my favorite sites- Etsy! These lovely gothic rings have a nice steampunk feel to them, come in a variety of colors, and are only $7 a piece.

The second piece of jewelry is slightly more expensive ($99.95 plus shipping) and slightly more complicated. These rings can be found on the ever eclectic, eccentric, and exceptional store, The Pyramid Collection. Again, another great steampunk accent to any fancy garb.

The next bejeweled beauty is from the online superstore Amazon.com. This one is eerily realistic and unisex. The claw detail gives it a nice creepy look (since, you know, there's really nothing creepy about wearing an eyeball upon one's finger) and at $40, the price is rather reasonable.

I found another fab ring on Etsty, very realistic in a pretty hazel color, and a very simplistic design that would compliment any outfit; a steal at $30.

Now perhaps your lovely lady friend doesn't fancy rings. Let's follow the path of Gomez's mustache and venture up the wrist a little and continue our fact finding adventure to bracelets.

For just $7 you can drape your beloved's wrist with a watchful eye-- make that several watchful eyes! Again, another Etsty treasure.

Perhaps gold is more her color? For around the same price, you can get a similar bracelet from Amazon.

For around $50, you can also gift a more sporty and unisex look, also from Amazon.

Further up the radius and ulna, past the humorous, only to linger for just a moment on the ever graceful clavical we come to another blank canvas, ready for adornment, the pedestal to one's cranium, that yearns for, longs for, beacons.. a necklace.

These lovelies, again, found on Etsy, would be the perfect match to the first rings I mentioned and again, have that old timey steampunk, or even pirate vibe. $135, but a striking piece of jewelry.

A more economical alternative can also be found on Etsty, this one for a mere $6, in a similar bronze and frilly design.

Again, I know many of you like to keep things simple and versatile. This nice silver necklace I found on Amazon can be yours for just $14.

The last of the eyeball necklaces is just darling, perhaps my favorite of these. It'd make a great finishing touch to a gothic lolita outfit, or maybe something more bewitching. This little jar of eyeballs from Etsty can be yours for a bit less than $17.

OWIE!

Have a clumsy friend? Perhaps you are that clumsy friend? For all those owies, booboo, hurties, and mishaps, may I present to you this lovely box of bandages, $7 from Amazon.

 For the Goth on the Go
 Got a big weekend ahead at Whitby or maybe a Gothic Cruise, or even Bats Day festivies? Nowhere to put your ghastly goods? Fret not, for The Gothic Optician has you covered!

This little bag would make the perfect lunch box to keep your delicacies fresh, or even just to put non-edibles, whatever your prerogative may be. Just $17 from FunSlurp.com, complete with a little Snellen Chart.

 For $63, Amazon offers a bag slightly more flashy (but much less insulated) that actually blinks!.... well, kind of, anyway.

Now seems a good time to wrap things up, as I'm starting to get eyestrain- no joke. Until next time, I shall remain on the prowl for more unique and gothy eyeball things.

Stay safe and have a great week,
Sea, the Gothic Optician, A.B.O.C.

PS. I'll soon be doing another Goth in Glasses post featuring an interview with someone who's been a great inspiration to me when it comes to picking out fashion that's professional yet still unmistakably gothic.
 *dance of excitement*

13 Things your Optician Wish You Knew

And now a Public Service Announcement from Sea, the Gothic Optician, A.B.O.C.

Day after day we in the optical business wrack our brains (and all too often stab our fingers) trying to fix problems that could easily be avoided if the general public were a little more well informed. My coworkers and I have come up with 13 (the most 'gawth' number of them all!) facts that we wish more people knew as common knowledge. Maybe we should hand out pamphlets? None the less, please pass along this information. It may not save a life, but it may very well save the fingers-- and sanity-- of your favorite optician.

 1. Upkeep is typical and not a sign of a defect.

 Before you begin demanding a refund on your glasses or threatening to sue (trust me, people do), please be aware that screws do vibrate loose, and eventually nose pads will get dirty, and yes, much like our derrieres, plastic frames do spread over time. Your glasses are no different from a car or a house. Show them tender love and care. Clean them regularly, both the lenses and the frame itself- the bottom of the frame and the end pieces of the temples are where the bodily oils tend to accumulate. Feel free to bring in your glasses for regular tune-ups. Most optical facilities offer complimentary re-alignments, frame and screw tightenings, and re-adjustments. Just be sure to keep your glasses "in a case if not on your face" to avoid getting scratches. Remember, any damage caused to your glasses by misuse is not a matter of defective lenses and frames.

On that note...

2. Puppies eat glasses. So do babies. Car tires also seem to have something against glasses.

Your glasses are made for you to see better and look good. I can't believe I have to type this, but they are NOT a toy for your new puppy. They are also not a bribe to give your toddler to sooth the crying. They also belong in a case and not in your driveway if you're not wearing them. I cannot even count the amount of mangled glasses I have to fix every week just from one of these three culprits.

Most cats, however, do tend to take better care of spectacles.

 3. It is common courtesy to pick up your glasses in a timely manner. It's just basic politeness and consideration to pick up your glasses in less than a month. It takes up room on the shelves and becomes bothersome for the staff to keep tabs on every old job. Most doctors, clinics, and optical shops donate glasses to charity if they've been left for a few months. Now of course, those places also make exceptions if there are compromising circumstances, like being in the hospital.

So good to see you again, sir! Your glasses are just behind this door.

 Speaking of hospitalization...

4. Contact lens overuse is bad, mmmkay?

It seems that every clinic has at least one daily emergency "Red Eye" appointment for a patient who has worn their contacts for far too long. In fact, quite a few clinics leave spots in their daily schedules open for that very cause. If you don't take out your contacts often enough, your eyes will not get enough oxygen, and, as we in the field technically explain it, they will  freak-the-fudge out. So air out those baby blues, browns, greens, and in-betweens!

5. Having insurance does not automatically guarantee free glasses.
Many people assume if they have health insurance they are also covered for vision services and materials. This often isn't the case; typically you have to consciously add on the vision option. Never assume vision-- and dental, for that matter-- are covered. If you do have vision coverage, you often have at least a $10 material copay, and many plans make you pay for overages and upgrades. On a positive note, upgrades are often given to insurance holders at a discounted rate. Sometimes, however, patients with excellent coverage (some forms of VSP for example) have no copay, a generous frame allowance, and a myriad of add-ons and upgrades that are covered. So I'm not saying that even with insurance one will *never* get free glasses, but more often that not, it is the case.

6. There is no way to "buff out" scratches.
I'll spare you all the technical jargon, but in simple terms, glasses are ground into certain curves to bend light and bring images into focus on the patient's retina. Each lens is grounded and buffed on a machine in a lab to have just the right angles and curvature for the patient's needed prescription. {See Illustration 1 and Illustration 2 along with the illustration below.}

A machine has not even been made to buff out lens scratches because any additional buffing would change the curvature of the lens and change the script entirely.

Moral of the story? Don't let Edward Scissorhands borrow your glasses because there is no going back.

 And if you *do* happen to mangle your glasses..

7. Keep in mind that self-repairs void warranties, because your glasses are not warranted against anything you do to them.
 Now reversible quick fixes, like taping your temple to your glasses, or using a thread to actually mend parts together, are completely fine. I'm talking about repairs involving soddering or....DUN DUN DUN... superglue (and we'll get to that) that cannot be undone. Many times the frame companies (with whom your clinics have contracts concerning warranties) will deny a frame return if it looks like a patient has altered a frame, so it's best to play it safe and let the professionals do the fixing.

8. Never EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER use superglue on your glasses. EVER.
Superglue, though handy for most repairs, is like liquid kryptonite mixed with pure concentrated evil and bottled by Satan himself when it comes to the well being of your spectacles. Once it's on there, it's next to impossible to get off. Acetone will remove superglue if it is applied enough times, but it will more often than not erode the material under the glue, usually paint on your frame or the lens itself. Acetone basically eats away lens material (not to mention the nail polish of your favorite optician). Unfortunately, glasses wearers tend to think that superglue can replace screws, a new form of liquid nails, if you will. Many times they try to glue lenses into the frame bevel if an eyewire screw comes out. The worst, and often hardest to fix spot in which patients use super glue is on the nose pads; either the screw will fall out and the nose pad is intact and they glue it back in, or the screw is still there but the nose pad has broken off and they glue the remaining bit of nose pad to the spot. I've had a few of these that I actually could repair, but it was tedious and caused me to say many terrible things within the presence of my coworkers. I had to pull the metal that holds the nose pad away from the frame, as far as possible to protect the lens, then I basically baptized it in a cap-full of acetone, every so often using a very small flat head screwdriver to dig out the softened glue. In those situations, rinse and repeat is an understatement, and typically patients begin to become, well, impatient because the process takes a while.

"#&#@^$% SUPERGLUE!!!"

9. Self adjustments in general are just a bad idea..
..especially on metal frames. Nine times out of ten, a patient will snap off a frame part because they lack the right tools and heating devices. The one out of those ten times that the frame is intact, the glasses are still adjusted wrong and are-- dare I say-- rubbing the patient the wrong way? Again, kids, leave it to the professionals.

And if a mishap does happen with your glasses..


 10. DO NOT throw away the broken parts.
So many times people have come into my eye clinic wanting their glasses fixed but have thrown away the temples. Usually, it's just a matter of a screw falling out and can be fixed in a matter of just a few minutes *if* we have all the pieces. It can sometimes take weeks to order in replacement parts and about 80% of the time it's at the owner's expense. People also tend to throw away lenses when they pop out of place. Again, another repair that could have been simple but instead takes more time and money to fix.

"Egads, what a waste indeed!"

11. Presbyopia happens to everyone.
It's a fact of life that we all age. Every part of us ages (physically anyway heh), including our eyes. After the age of 42 (sometimes later, sometimes earlier) we experience presbyopia. This happens when the muscle that helps the eye focus on things close up starts to wear out. Some lucky people are just nearsighted enough that they can read up close without glasses, but most of the population will at some point need a reading prescription, be it in the form of bifocals or over-the-counter readers. And if you have a distance prescription, you will more than likely (except in the cases I just mentioned) wear bifocals, either lined or "no line" Progressives. You will not be able to see up close out of the top of your lens and you will not be able to see things far away through the bottom of your lens.. unless you wear your glasses upside down and that's just plain silly.

 12. High Prescriptions will not work in big geek chic glasses.
Not saying that they won't actually function right, because you can still see out of them, but they will look awful. Good opticians hate having this conversation, but it's a necessary evil. It makes us sad that you're sad that you had your heart set on gigantic, thick black frames, but we know you'll be even sadder if you end up looking pin-headed with glasses that weigh 20 pounds. Good opticians, however, will do their level best to help you find a smaller frame in a similar style that says "Look at me world! I'm bold and geeky!"

13. Transitions^® photochromatic lenses will not activate behind your windshield.

Transitions^® are UV reactive. Your car's windshield has UV blockers. A newer version of Transitions^®lenses, Transitions^® XTra Active do tent *moderately* behind a windshield, but not entirely.

So be sure to bring along a pair of sunglasses for your Sunday drives.

 And there you have it, thirteen little morsels of exceedingly valuable information that really should be common knowledge.Follow these tips and you will have a better relationship with your glasses.

Until next time, my lovelies,
Sea, the Gothic Optician, A.B.O.C.