I have sty-le

I don't think I'd ever imagined that I'd be sitting at my desk with a tea bag stuffed behind the right lens of my glasses, attempting to write with one eye, while drinking tea at the same time (waste not want not).

My father had one eye. He lost his right one while out shooting. A man shot down the line (instead of straight ahead). The bullet went in through his nose and migrated to his right eye where it severed the optic nerve.  He said he could do everything without his eye but judge distances. He continued to drive -- either very fast down the middle of the road or with one wheel in the ditch, while whizzing down country lanes -- and managed with frequency to knock over trays in waiter's hands because he couldn't see them when they came up on his right side.  I practiced driving this way down Laurel Canyon yesterday, before I had the need to put a tea bag on my eye, and realized that one's depth perception is completely gone.  It's amazing he didn't complain more, although my mother thinks he was decidedly more grumpy after the man shot his eye out.  In fact she told me once, when I was still quite small, that she did not hate anyone in the world except for the man who had done that to my father.  That made me tremble in my boots. Hate is an enormous word when you're 9.

So here I am making light of the fact that I have a sty in which a small pig could happily live, on my right eyelid, and it is swollen to the size of a young apricot and glowing pink.  The one good thing is it does set off the blue of my irises quite wonderfully; they are a shade of cobalt Yves Klein would envy.  I can't wear make up and I've been instructed to use hot compresses. I'm keeping my glasses on to complete the look; one part old Estonian woman, one part Robin Day, and one party hardcore pot smoker.

Nothing can be done. You have to wait it out, they say, and apply hot compresses or teabags. I'm doing both liberally.

I'm glad that I'm not in the oldest profession in the world or I'd have to resort to an eyepatch. Although I suppose the pirate look could be hot.  Kinda like Dana Perino.

It is, however, somewhat mortifying.