Welcome back to Links!
I can slowly start to feel the allergies. I’ve been good about taking Flonase recently, so I haven’t had my usual symptoms of sneezing and sinus pressure. I have had some severely dry eyes, which are new for me. I did buy some eyedrops; does anyone have a good hack to getting the drops in on the first try?
May is looking busy for my social calendar and ending with a trip back to South Korea for a traditional Korean wedding. I had to send in measurements for a hanbok! Admittedly, I’m already hope some of my plans get cancelled (Sorry, friends, if you’re reading this! I’m so tired!) I always feel like Amanda-in-the-moment is so ambitious and positive and does not take into account how Amanda-a-week-from-now is going to feel.
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Have you heard about the fish doorbell?! Lots of places have been writing about it, including Slate and Smithsonian Magazine.
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EC Spurlock sent this one in and it goes out to all the appreciators of knitwear out there! Go behind the scenes of the movie Coraline and some of its handknit costume pieces.
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Tax Day is over in the States, but in author Maya Rodale’s Substack, she included some great women in history who protested taxation. Thanks to Karin for sending in this link.
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If you need a good cry, my partner saw this on reddit and sent it to me. I cried on a beachfront balcony. It’s a bittersweet cry, not one of overwhelming sadness, just to be clear.
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
Obituary for a Quiet Life is so beautiful in this noisy world. I will save it in the hope I can learn. Thank you Amanda and partner.
** DON’T READ IF SQUEAMISH ABOUT EYES**
On eye drops Amanda, I find the easiest way to get them in is to start by tilting your head right back, have the opened drop bottle in one hand and with the middle finger of the empty hand gently pull your lower eyelid down, look straight up and bring the bottle close enough to your eye that you can rest the little finger of the bottle hand on the backs of the fingers of your open hand, you will see the bottle at this point and you can move it so it is directly over your pupil blocking out the middle of your field of vision, squeeze gently, blink after you feel the drop hit, bring your head back upright, blink again and you’re done. Well you may need more blinks than that to spread the drops, but you don’t need me telling you how many blinks to make 😉 You may still get some overflow, but it isn’t as bad as missing the eye completely, I find it varies between bottle so I think the hole size varies.
NB This is not how the instructions tell you to do it, which is to put the drop just inside your lower lid, I don’t do that firstly because I missed too often which got really annoying as you know, and secondly because I find the drops spread over all the eye better with my method. With the lower eyelid method I found I didn’t get much of the drops under my upper eye lid.
NB 2 Just a general warning for everyone, dry eyes can be caused by some medicines (I take one) so it’s worth checking the side effects if you have recently started a new medicine and then get dry eyes. I get my drops on prescription, (and therefore free at point of receipt) originally from an ophthalmologist after I got **SERIOUS YUCK** a blister on my eyeball and there was a specific drop they wanted me to use.
Hope that helps.
My daughter has been living in South Korea for over ten years now. One of the things she appreciates is that her allergies are far less there than here in the US (she’s allergic to many grasses, trees, etc.). I hope that you will have a similar benefit when you visit for the wedding, Amanda.
Obituary for a Quiet Life was indeed lovely. Thank you.
I think I hold my eye similarly to @Jazzlet, but I tilt my head slightly to whichever side the eye is on when I tip my head back and aim toward the inner corner because large object coming straight at my eye freaks me out. (Then again, I also flinch when bugs hit my windshield, so I may be overly sensitive to things coming at me.) Usually I manage to get the drop in, and blinking plus gravity help to get it to spread.
I do what @Glen does, because I too cannot handle objects coming for my eyes, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to aim for the lower lid. Gravity and blinking are key when your self-protective instincts are strong.
Fellow hay fever sufferers, if you’re not wearing a KN95/N95 when you go out, I strongly recommend trying it; it really does alleviate symptoms, at least for me.
I was taught to put eye drops into the outer lower corner of my eye, away from the pupil, with my head tilted back a bit. I’ve found it’s easier to pull my bottom eyelid down this way, and my eye doesn’t involuntarily close. Can’t do it without a mirror though. Don’t do it directly over the pupil/iris. You can scratch your cornea if you accidentally drop the container.
This phrase stopped me in “Obituary for a Quiet Life”: “the sheer audacity of a quiet life”.
We live in a world that constantly demands that we pursue “more”: more money, the next job promotion, to be the girl boss, to get the next degree, move to the bigger city, get more likes/shares/comments on social media, etc. The world tells us that we shouldn’t be content with a small, simple life. As I moved through my 30s and have now hit 40, the more I realized that a quiet life is what I want, just like this. It truly is audacious, in our modern, never-stop society, to reject the constant pursuit of “being/doing more”.
When my kids were little, the pediatrician told me to have the child lying down and put the drops in the inside corner.
Now, as an adult, you don’t want to do it that way all the time, because it will run into the sinus cavity, but to get you used to it, it’s a great way to start. Then you get brave enough to aim for the middle. That’s how I taught myself.
Systane is a great eye drop for both dry eyes and those irritated by allergies. Preservative-free version is what my eye doctor recommends.
I haven’t needed eyedrops for pollen-induced itching for over ten years, as the nasal spray and allergy pills take care of that (along with the constant sneezing, drippy nose, and packed-in-cotton brain). (I do still renew my prescription for the eyedrops every time I renew the rest of my allergy meds, because if I need them, I damn sure want to access them without needing to faff about with contacting doctors!)
Anyway, I prefer as controlled an environment as possible when poking “sticks” at my eyes, so I:
– Wash my hands and face.
– Place a (dry) towel over my pillow and lie down on my bed.
– Close one eye.
– Hold the other eye’s lids open with my left hand, rest my right hand (holding the drops, ready to deliver) on whatever part of my face suits best, bringing the doser as close to the center of my eye as possible (this is why the right hand rests on the face/fingers of the left hand) and deliver the drops. Blink. (Or hold eye shut for awhile, whatever works in the moment.)
– Repeat with other eye.
Obviously, reverse hands if left-handed. If ambidexrous, do whatever works. (You lucky bitch!)