Choosing frames for my new varifocal lenses was like choosing a new personality. Each pair I tried on projected something slightly different. What kind of person should I pretend to be from now on? Philosophical? Whacky? Left-leaning? Post post-modernist? It was an unexpectedly exciting moment.
The young assistant stood with me at the display and offered her professional opinion. In quick succession I popped on a couple of dozen different frames and looked into her eyes and tried to be serious. She knew immediately whether or not a particular pair of frames suited my face. If they did, and she liked them, she shook her fingers as though she’d just burnt them on a hotplate. Presumably this meant they were ‘hot’ or, perish the thought, that they made me look ‘hot’. If she thought the frames suited but were boring, she let her eyelids droop, as if she were about to fall asleep on the spot.
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