sudser.

[suhd-zer]

noun, Informal.

1. a soap opera.
2. any movie, play, or the like that is designed to provoke a tearful response.

This is not a sudser, it is a reason for my absence. I cannot look at a computer for more than twenty minutes without a stupid amount of eye pain for the rest of the day. I also have an appealing formation on my eye, and have for a while, so I finally decided I’d give $140 to an ophthalmologist. It took him .2 of a second to say, “You have chronic pingueculitis due to an overload of UV lighting. Have you been in a tropical place? Are you outside a lot?”

I told him about New Zealand and the hole in the ozone layer and working on farms and vineyards. He nodded along as he wrote a prescription for anti-inflammatory eye drops. The formation will not go away, it will just make me “less cosmetically appealing” (web research).

You are worth the pain to me, readers, to strain my eyes to tell you that I’ll be back one day. So hold off on your tearful response. Wear sunglasses always.

On a more exciting note, my twin brother and his wife had a baby boy last week and he’s perfect. It does not hurt my eyes to stare at him for hours on end!