and please reassure me that what Dorothy Parker said isn’t true.
I’ve worn contacts for 30 years, but lately indoor air allergies are making it impossible to keep them in for more than 3 hours. The dust and mold in the library make me want to rip my eyeballs out. I do the Claritin thing, and even prescription eyedrops (Patanol) don’t help. So I’m reduced to wearing the glasses, which are not unattractive, just make me feel like a stereotypical librarian!
Hey, mild-manner bespectacled librarian by day, gorgeous, fun-loving chick with contacts at night! Works for me! (Except substitute computer geek for librarian.)
I wore contacts for almost ten years, and wore them religiously. I mean, I wouldn’t be caught dead in my glasses, even if that meant wearing my contacts 18 hours a day.
But my eyes got a lot drier as I got older, and wearing contacts got impossible. I had to resign myself to going back to the dreaded glasses. And I can tell you that now, I really don’t mind so much. My only regret is that I have unusually large eyes (a real distinctive feature) but my eyesight is to bad, my glasses lenses reduce them to the size of pinpricks. But all the things I used to loathe about glasses really don’t bug me now. I love how easy it is to just slap them on my face in the a.m., and how easy it is to just fall into bed at night without going through the contact cleaning process.
I had contacts that I can wear for a few hours (like, for special occasions I guess) but I don’t even bother. Welcome back over to the dark side.
Also, do reread the thread about “(Possibly Surprising) things that make a woman attractive to you”. A lot of Doper males said glasses were a big turn-on
“why, peedin, without your glasses, you’re… red-eyed, bleary, and unhappy!”
I used to wear contacts a lot, until I started working places where they were breaking down & moving cubicle walls, and the contacts had to go. Don’t miss them much.
Is there any chance you could get the library to beef up their air filtration? If there’s enough dust and mold to irritate your eyes, chances are it’s not too healthy… plus, you’re going to get patrons wearing contacts, too.
Have you all tried the disposable contacts? I have sensitive eyes, and these work WAY better for me than standard soft contacts.
Or you can get one of those personal air filtration thingies you wear around your neck (as sold in the Sky Mall [sub]tm[/sub] catalog. Very stylish! 
Glasses are very cool. You can get a few different frame styles. Some of those frame styles definitely do not say “stereotypical librarian” and instead say thinks like “Yowsa” and “wild woman.” You can also just wear your contacts at night as TroubleAgain suggested.
Actually, I love chicks in glasses too . . .the smaller type or granny glasses especially. The big round ones where the temples drop, . . . ah not so attractive.
Think Nell from Ally McBeal. Good stuff. Of course, being somewhat attractive to start is a plus! 
Peedin, you didn’t by chance change any solutions did you? Also, how often do you clean your contacts and with what? I’ve had more problems with these fuckers in my eyes than I care to admit, perhaps I can help?
I hear ya. After about 11 years of wearing contacts I’ve been ordered to stick to glasses except for “social occasions”. And on those social occasions, I find after just a few hours my eyes are starting to get red and irritated. I hate wearing glasses - partially for the librarian factor, partially because the weather where I live (always raining) is really not conducive to them.
So next week I have a consultation with the laser surgeon.
Dorothy Parker was one of the most clever and devastatingly witty women of all time. As near as I can tell, she only made that one mistake.
All those dust and mold spores
dhunnnn dunt do dunt
Gunked my eyes up and what’s more
dhunnn dunt do dunt
I wanted to tear my eyes out
Can’t wear my contacts anymore
My girlfriend just had Lasik surgery, and did fantastic with it!
They corrected her astigmatism, and her vision went from 20/2200 to 20/25. Freedom from glasses, contacts and all of that.
It amazed me when she could not read 2 foot letters on a sign a mere 12 feet away before the surgery. Afterwards, she was reading license plates out loud, and said she did not realize that there are block numbers on the street signs. It must have been like removing a shroud off your eyes, and seeing a brand new world.
She requested that I be there and watch the surgery, which I did. It was flat amazing.
Now Taking Siggestions.
Update on eyeballs…Been wearing my glasses for 3 days, and have decided that life will continue even if I have to wear them all the time. Although I will resent it. My eyes feel normal today. I was also thinking along the lines of Vinnie, in that maybe I’ve become sensitive to the solutions I’ve been using (gas perm contacts, using the Boston line, and I clean them daily). I’ll try a solution that is preservative free. And now that the frost has killed the ragweed, that’s one less irritant. Lasik is not an option for me–eye doctor said I’d still have to use glasses for close work. (Bifocals, you know).