No Longer Fully Dilated May 11, 2005

There's a story for today's photo. If you don't care, stop here.

Last Friday I had an eye exam with an optometrist — I've never had an eye exam before, so I had no idea what to expect. When he told me, 'You'll be taking today off work, because I'll be dilating your pupils' I wasn't entirely sure how that would affect me.

A few minutes after he put some drops in my eyes I was having difficulty focusing on anything. I couldn't even read 60pt headline fonts on magazines and newspapers, and started to understand why I wouldn't be continuing on into work.

Then I headed outside — into the bright morning sun — and was blinded. Of course, dilated pupil means more light but until it hit me I (again) didn't fully comprehend. This was not fun. For anyone who wears glasses I guess this whole thing is all sort of routine but this was my first experience with this.

I took the photo because I wanted to see what I looked like with these newly dilated pupils. I took a number of them because... I couldn't see whether I was in focus or not (I couldn't focus myself..).

And there's your story. It's not such an interesting photo, but hey, that's irrelevant.