Reading glasses

Though almost everyone else in my family wears glasses, I have enjoyed excellent visual acuity all my life. Every time I've had it tested, for routine physicals and such, it's been 20/10, placing me in the top 1% of the population. Until recently, my close-range vision has been excellent, too. Back when I was a poor student, I would routinely download books from Project Gutenberg and print them off in 6-point Arial Narrow to save on paper, and my Bible of choice was a New Testament printed on pages the size of a business card.

Middle age is finally catching up with me, though, and I'm beginning to develop a mild case of presbyopia. (As my brother is fond of pointing out, the etymological meaning of that word is "cowboy eyes." Didn't Pete Townshend say all the best cowboy actors look like they're always squinting?) A couple of days ago I made an appointment to be tested for a pair of reading glasses.

Today I started reading Words of Them Liberated, having read only the opening epigraph yesterday. It begins with a brief introduction in which the author reflects on how his life has changed since he wrote the first two Words books, one of these changes being that he now has to "read behind glasses." It looks as if I, too, will be reading most of this third book through glasses.

Given the steady stream of synchronicities related to spectacles, this little coincidence may be significant.