Brainy Specs

"Aw, and out they come! The brainy specs! You don't even need them! You just think they make you look a bit clever!" -- The Tenth Doctor

I got my first pair of eyeglasses at the beginning of the sixth grade -- horrible round-ish lavender wire-framed atrocities -- and, consequently, I hated my life for the next year. I swapped those out for a sleeker pair with Flexon frames in the seventh grade, then swapped out those for even sleeker bronze no-wire frames in the eighth grade. Then I went to high school, got contacts, and only wore my glasses for the five minutes in the morning before I could pop my lenses in.

After three years of contact lens-wearing, my prescription had deteriorated to the point where I had to get the lenses on my glasses replaced. I opted for a new set of frames too -- and chose a Nine West style modeled in chunky black plastic. Now this was 2003, way before horn-rims came to epitomize geek-chic, but since I hated the way I looked in near-invisible frames, I figured I'd try the other extreme. I found that my new glasses fit my personality surprisingly well, and for the first time during my vision-impaired life, I didn't want to vomit when I looked at my glasses-wearing self in a mirror. I started to wear my contacts less frequently and ignored the countless critics moaning about how my frames looked too retro and hid half my face.

Halfway through college, I swapped out my chunky black frames for an even chunkier pair. The same year, David Tennant replaced Chris Eccleston as the title character on Doctor Who and chose a pair of rectangular tortioseshell frames -- he called them "brainy specs" -- as part of his new costume. This blew my mind; I wore glasses like The Doctor's because they didn't make me completely hideous, while Tennant wore them because he wanted to. He was suave and confident while wearing his brainy specs, and for the first time in my life, I started to view my glasses as stylish... and even kinda hot.

I'm now on my third pair of brainy specs, and I love them so much that I only wear my contacts around once a week. I can slip them on with my Chucks and feel nerdy (in a good way). I can slip them on with a pencil skirt and pumps and feel professional. I can slip them on with an armful of unintelligible textbooks and feel smart. I can slip them on with tousled hair and an intense look and feel sexy. My glasses are a part of me, and I'm a total advocate of people like Tennant, Tina Fey, Diane Keaton, and Johnny Depp who try to redefine the public's notion of beauty by wearing their glasses to public events.

On Sunday night, I sat down to work on a graphics commission and turned on the Primetime Emmys for background noise. Andy Samberg was interviewed on the red carpet... wearing reddish glasses. Then Justin Timberlake presented in a pair of plastic tortioseshell frames. Then Simon Baker walked out wearing chunky horn-rims. Then Dana Delany slipped on a pair of brainy specs before reading a list of nominees. All of them looked absolutely gorgeous, too. I stopped caring about the winners and started watching for bespectacled audience members... and there were far more of them than I ever thought possible.

When I climbed into bed that night, I took a fond look at my brainy specs before setting them on my desk. It seems like the world has finally caught on, and the sixth-grader in me is jumping for joy.