Category: General Musings

I’ve maybe been complaining about how cold it is. Maybe that’s only on Facebook or Twitter, but it’s cold for Nagoya. There’s no central heating in my apartment although I do have radiated heat through the floors in part of my house. Not all rooms, so I have cold areas and warm areas. I like the heated floors, but because they are heated by hot water, my gas bill gets pretty high in the winter.

One way to combat the cold temperature though is to wear warmer clothes. So I’m sitting here in wool socks, a wool sweater, and thick “house pants,” plus a HEATTECH (link in English or Japanese) turtleneck from ユニクロ (UNIQLO). Yes, here I am talking about underwear again.

UNIQLO, as I have posted before is about the only place that I can find clothes that come close to fitting. I’m preparing to go to Hokkaido in a couple of weeks, so I figured I needed long underwear. Everyone swears by HEATTECH so I also bought some long underwear there. And now, I can’t stop wearing it or buying it. Do people in the States often wear longjohns to work? Do you have to reach a certain age to do so?

I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I am not alone in my love of leggings in Japan. Nor does it seem to be an age thing. Many of my younger colleague’s tights poke their way out from under their pants when they sit with their legs crossed. And we know from past posts that leggings under pants are fashionable. So on these colder days, I shamelessly wear my long underwear to work, smugly knowing that I am staying warm.

I do keep it a little old school on the tights, going for the waffle material as opposed to the silky material they offer as well. I almost went with camouflage as well, but I don’t have anything camouflage, so why get the tights? I can’t emphasize enough that, although they pants and sleeves are a little short, the HEATTECH is really nice to have and makes the chilly Nagoya mornings and nights a little toastier.

And for my Midwestern friends and readers, the weather here is nothing compared to your winters. I know it. But I’m a Californian now.

Rumor has it that as you get older, it gets harder for you to read smaller (or regular print), especially in low light. It’s called presbyopia.

Mayoclinic.com states:

Presbyopia — the gradual loss of your eyes’ ability to focus actively on nearby objects — is a not-so-subtle reminder that you’ve reached middle age. A natural, often annoying part of aging, presbyopia usually becomes noticeable in your early to mid-40s and continues to worsen until around age 60.

You may become aware of presbyopia when you start holding books and newspapers at arm’s length to be able to read them. If you’re nearsighted, you might temporarily manage presbyopia by reading without your glasses.

Unfortunately, I can attest first hand that the rumor is true and annoying. Over the past few years, my ability to read small print in low light has deteriorated greatly. So for all my colleagues I used to tease on business trips when they held their menus far away, or brought the menu closer to a light, enjoy your Schadenfreude. It totally sucks.

My eyes are messed up anyway, farsighted with astigmatism. As I’ve gotten older, my farsightedness has actually improved, while my near vision for reading has gone south. So really, the solution should be bifocals or progressive lenses. Sigh. I can still read fairly well without reading glasses though – or at least I can read English. I’m completely blind reading tiny Japanese text with furigana. It is impossible, so I have a pair of reading glasses (and not the pharmacy reading glasses – no sir – my farsightedness and astigmatism precludes that) that I use when I am reading Japanese or small English text.

When I was back in the States in November, I had a pair of lenses replaced because they had become too scratched somehow, and I was tired of seeing starbursts at nighttime through my frames. As a vain guy, I have three pairs of glasses so it wasn’t a major impact, but these frames I wore probably 90% of the time. OK, 99% of the time. I went to the doctor and had them arranged to be express shipped to my brother’s place in Boston since I was not going to be back in LA.

Fortunately, the glasses arrived in Boston while I was still there, I popped them on, and they felt really, really good. Ahhhhhh. Then I pulled out my iPhone to read something, and I couldn’t make out a thing. Everything was completely blurry.

The previous year, my Doctor and I had reached a bit of a compromise. We thought that I could go with my 2008 prescription that overcorrects my farsightedness, and helps my reading ability as well. It isn’t really enough for reading, but it is adequate. I didn’t want to transition to bifocals yet because that is admitting that erectile dysfunction is just around the corner. Actually, I didn’t want to make a change just prior to moving to Japan. In 2010, I got another eye check and of course things had changed. So I had a new prescription and again my Doctor and I agreed to stick with the old prescription but to perhaps update my reading glasses.

When I went to get the new lenses, the optician pulled the 2010 prescription to make the lenses, resulting in beautiful distance vision but horrible reading. Of course, I found that out in Boston. I also had gotten rid of all my old prescriptions in Japan because they were “out of date.” Luckily, my optician agreed to send me the new old prescription and now I am in the process of getting new lenses in Japan.

Of course, in Japan, the lenses are much more expensive. Nothing like paying for lenses twice in a 3 month period. And I was greeted with a matrix of options … how much thinner, what kind of coats, and how much edge distortion are you willing to accept? I kind of shot for the middle – I hope the lines will be straight enough. We’ll see in one week how well the new lenses work.

I had Tomo with me to help with the transaction, and even with him present it was hard to communicate the various things I needed / wanted. However, I’m pretty confident we got the right lenses on order in terms of correction. I’m just worried about the extra stuff like the coating, the index of refraction, and the distortion. Oh well. Time will tell.