Nora Roberts, BtVS, Roswell, LASIK

[sarea]

Met/saw Nora Roberts today w/ corianderstem. NR had a dryer sense of humor than I was expecting, and that made me like her. <g> She was also very no nonsense; she has a specific process for things, right down to the autographs. She said she was v. disciplined and linear when she writes (6-8 hours every day), which is why she's able to write so much. She gets a first draft out pretty quickly, without editing or rereading, and then goes back and does that later. (Personally it takes me HOURS to edit my own stuff, and we're not even talking novel length; I don't know how she does it.) I did end up buying her latest, Northern Lights, less because it sounded interesting than because I like having signed copies of books by authors I've met. : ) Won't it be a pleasant surprise if I do like it?

But really how NR won me over was by saying: "Does anyone watch Lost? That show is fantastic. I had to find something to watch now that Buffy's gone."

OMG NR is a BtVS fan! That strikes me as being v. odd, but cool. I mean, she's such a no-nonsense, put-together, dry-witted woman that I just don't see her being a BtVS fan. I could tell the older women in the audience were like, What huh? :))

I've been watching my Roswell S2 DVDs. "Christmas Carol" is so, so good. It 'feels' more like an episode of My So-Called Life, and reminds me that Jason Katims was fairly bigwiggy at the end of that show's run. I genuinely like all the characters in this episode -- including Tess -- how did it all go so wrong? Sigh. And Jason Behr, when he's saving all those kids ... so hot. But speaking JB, he's in a movie w/ Sarah Michelle Gellar, called The Grudge. It sounds v. interesting, and "Lie to Me" (an ep of BtVS that JB and SMG did together) is one of my favorite eps.

Also, I'm contemplating getting laser vision correction, like LASIK. My normally killer health plan does not cover it, although I am able to get a discount. I've wanted to do this for a long, long time, since contacts/glasses are such a pain in the ass, but I've always had this fear that I'll be that in that miniscule percentile in which something goes horribly awry and I'm blinded for life. Plus we don't have very many studies about the long-term effect of the procedure; in the U.S. we only have 3-year clinical trials. :-S Still, at least it's cheaper now than it used to be -- $799 per eye (unless I want the custom treatment, which is $1,199/eye) -- and the doctor seems good (Mark Walker, though why is there no picture of him?).

Comments

[corianderstem.livejournal.com]

"No-nonsense" is a great way to describe her. I was going to end up describing her as "like she's done this a million times and knew just how to do it."

[lissannej.livejournal.com]

Am curious, sweetpea -- how is it you seem to get to meet so many authors?

And wow, that's expensive about your eyes! Let us know what you decide.

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

corianderstem works for a company that puts on these types of morale events for their employees; they hire authors to come in and speak to whoever's interested (usually just a small gathering). She's always nice enough to invite me when it's an author I might be interested in/that we've heard of, and the company is cool about letting her bring me. : )

[lissannej.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's cool of her! Sounds like she works for a great company -- am jealous!

[madannekidd.livejournal.com]

I would actually quite like to meet her. Frequently she displays her humour in her books, the kind that makes me snort with laughter as opposed to polite laughter, that's-somewhat-funny-I'll-laugh-to-that.

Ouch. On the laser eye treatment. Does it really cost that much. *winces* I can't really form an opinion on it, though I do have to admit on having the same fear if I do think about it.

[seldon.livejournal.com]

I've had LASIK - I was blind as a bat before the operation, and now I can actually get to the shower without bumping into the bathroom wall.

Granted, it was cheaper for me because my sister - she who studies medicine - pulled some strings with her tutor, which specializes in Lasik surgery to get a very generous discount in his fees. But so far, even if I had paid double, it's been worth it.

I can't say anything about the long term effects, but my sister says that the only one she knows about is the fact that, like every other mortal cursed with the disease of ageing, we will lose our newly found sight and we might not be able to go under LASIK again. My sister underwent the procedure a couple of months before me and she has started to lose a little sight in one eye, but she was always the blindest of us siblings. I've kept the same graduation, and my doctor predicts it'll hold another couple of years before I start sliding, but I shouldn't need the same prescription of glasses I used before the operation for quite a bit of time.

All in all, even if I lose my sight next year, I'm glad I got Lasik-ed. I still haven't found words to express how nice it is to see without glasses - colors are much more livelier, for example. It did have two drawbacks: I've found out that I can't read prints as small as I used to without some effort, and my night vision took the better part of a year to come back (and I still haven't recovered it all) but those are fair trades for peripheric vision and the ability to finally perceive depth.

I must reiterate that I was *blind*. I had 8 1/2 in one eye and 8 in another (I don't know if you Americans use our same system for measuring nearsightedness, but for reference I couldn't, literally, see past my nose - everything was a blur), so the price was worth it for me, but it might not be the case with you. Only you can measure that. Plus, it's been scientifically proved that girls with glasses are sexy. ;)

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm so glad that someone I know has had the treatment and so can speak to its value. I totally want to do it, fear of the treatment itself notwithstanding (I'm not too queasy about it, though I do worry about being in that percentage of people who have something go awry during the procedure). Plus now that they have this "custom eye" thing, I'm of course wondering if I should take that option instead, because this is my sight we're talking about and do I really want to go cheap? But obviously, everyone else up to this point has had the 'generic' procedure, and they're doing fine, so does it really make that big a difference?

I'm not quite as bad as you were -- if we are talking about the same vision measuring system -- mine is -5.5 in both eyes. And I know that natural aging and what not will occur, so it doesn't mean I'll never have to wear glasses again, but it'd be nice not to have to worry about it for awhile.

Plus, it's been scientifically proved that girls with glasses are sexy. ;)

V. kind of you to say. Of course, I usually don't wear glasses at all; not only am I vain, but after a few hours they really start to bother me. Generally I love my contacts (I have hard, gas permeable), but they are kind of a pain in the ass.