Oh, that's because my pupils are dilated.

Catherine here. First off, a big thank you to 517, whoever you may be, for your etymological follow-ups to the "Tit for Tat" posting of a few weeks back. Second, here's hoping that the end of the semester will bring with it more chances to add entries to this blog, which I've been slacking on (and Gene! Gene! We want to hear more!)

Anyway, my big medical adventure of the week was having my pupils dilated for a routine eye exam, which in itself is not that exciting. But I did learn two interesting things:

1. You know when they put the first drops into your eyes and they sting and make your eyes feel a little numb? Turns out that's because they're anesthetizing drops that are numbing your eyeballs because, when they test you for glaucoma (involving measuring the pressure in your eyes), they actually touch your eye. Did you know that? I did not know that! I just thought that they put a whole bunch of pupil-dilating drops in there. Who knew that when they shine that blue glaucoma light in your eye, they're getting so up in your business!

2. When I get my pupils dilated, it is the only thing I want to talk about for the rest of the day. For example, walking down the street I tried to read a number off a business card and couldn't, so I stopped some random man on the street to ask him to read it for me--and fearing accusations of illiteracy, went into a mini-diatribe about how weird it was to have such large pupils. Then when I dropped off my paperwork for my residency application, I told two people in the office about my eyes, and then in Andronico's, I told the story of my eye-dropped afternoon to the man who rang up my groceries. I couldn't keep my mouth shut (or my pupils, for that matter)! People didn't really pay attention to me, but when I looked in the mirror at home and saw how crazy my eyes looked, it made me realize that if I ever were to do some sort of halluciogenic drug that messes with your eyes, I would try to cover myself with a claim of a recent eye exam. They should teach that in high school health class (my main memory of which is one of my teachers telling us that if we ever came home drunk, we should just eat a lot of Doritos beforehand to camoflauge the smell). Anyhoo.