Nothing epiphany-like in the contact placement. 10 minutes.

My biggest problem right now is when the contact schloomps onto my finger instead of my eye. I can tell at this point that it really is just a matter of time...

Yesterday morning: 13 minutes to put in both contacts.

Yesterday afternoon: took the left out, swished it around in some solution for a moment, and put it back in, in about 3 minutes, I think. A nice big friendly bathroom countertop at work with huuuuge mirror helped a lot. At home I have a tiny mirror on a small surface to work with (I'll take a photo sometime in the next couple days).

Thanks, everyone, for all the advice. It seems to be coming together. Getting the contacts out yesterday evening was already pretty easy.

I still seem to find it a lot easier to put them in when my finger is relatively dry, still, since when it's wet, the contact really likes to invert and stick to the finger. Maybe as my aim gets better it'll be easier to put them in wetter, and then I can get one extra final rinse in before putting them in. For now, I just have to notice if it's irritated when I put it in, and be willing to take it back out, clean it off, and try again. Or close my eye, push down to hold the contact in place under the lid, and move my eye around, to get stuff out from under the lens. Actually, at this point, I bet I could do that without closing my eye... I wonder how bad an idea that is (with the eye open or closed).

So far I've been doing marathon sessions — 10am Saturday to midnight, 10am Sunday to 10pm, 9am yesterday to 10pm — and my eyes themselves don't seem to have any problems. Like I said, yesterday I had some irritation mid-day that I cleaned out, but other than that... it seems fine so far. For the people that suggested starting slowly, with short stints each day, is there anything that I should worry about that I wouldn't notice firsthand?

In a short while I'll be trying to put them in again. I'm hoping to shatter yesterday's 13 minute time with a newfound ease that comes from the practice I've been getting. I'll report more later. :)

Well, I have contact lenses. And it's really nice not seeing the scratches in my glasses... and I think I like them in general, so far. Here's hoping I can learn to put them in and take them out as quickly as people say it's possible. I don't seem to have any really really bad reactions to stuff in my eyes, at least.

Anyone got any hints?

So this past week I've been feeling general blahs, and vaguely under the weather... Since flying out of Ontario airport from Gen Con So-Cal, really. I went to work three days last week, got some writing done for the design doc, and dealt with a little customer request here or there. Thursday I went through the motions of attending chenoameg's holiday feast, and the people and food were amazing, and I was upgraded from "enh" to "all right".

Today, I started out kinda blah, went through a phase of really tired, napped partway through a rented movie I watched with friends, and then played some WoW.

After the raid was over (it only took 3:12 for MC! woo!) I suddenly realized I was hungry. And wasn't coughing. And... well... a cup of tea and some ramen w/ turkey later, I felt better than I have in a while.

Accomplishments while in the fog:

• bought a new microwave (the old one had earned the nickname 'sparky'), bought a new electric kettle, bought a big pile of new tea, threw out the old tea with expiration dates around the turn of the century...
• set up a new network adapter for my PC (wireless is a little less consistent, but the wire to the closet had gone to consistently completely dead - the wireless may only be a stopgap... I hope)
• went on three raids in three days (AQ40 (killed Skeram!), BWL (got boots and a trinket), and MC (um... 3:12!))...
• went to the optometrist, ordered new glasses (in a new style, for me!) and contact lenses (which will be a totally new experience). He says that Lasik is for people who aren't moving targets... hopefully in a year or so I can go back and get a new exam and discover that my prescription isn't changing. The glasses he measured are a few years old, and my astigmatism (I have astigmatism? I didn't even know!) rotated a little... We kinda let the Lasik conversation drop on the floor at some point during the conversation about glasses and contacts, though, so maybe he'd be willing to consult more about it. I dunno.

Also, I think I'm not going to continue the 365-day photo thing. I'm too far behind, and have missed many of the intervening days. If I were to do it, I'd start fresh from a new starting point. But... I need to change my lifestyle some to accommodate something like that. On bad days my life involves very few steps in the outdoors; house to car, car to work, work to car, car to house. Those are extremes, but they do occur.