Seeing Double

Now that I’ve digested the news of having twins, I decided to buy some replacement sunglasses. They were much cheaper than the last pair – I couldn’t bear to lose such an expensive pair of sunglasses again, but I’m very happy with them, especially the discount I negotiated!

The real problem I have with sunglasses is that I’ve never really worn them and am not completely used to the idea yet. As such I find it impossible to casually glance at people and good looking ladies by just moving just my eyes that are hidden behind the shades – I still turn my whole head and give the game away every time.

When wearing them I am also starting to realise how much I used my eyes and that part of my face to communicate – I often find myself not saying anything, but making some sort of facial expression, and then I realise the person who I am talking to can’t see my face because of the sunglasses. It reminds me of a section in the book “Blink”, recommended by the Belgians, which talks about a taxonomy of facial expressions – the scientists Ekman and Tomkins catalogued every single muscular movement that the face could make. Each individual muscular movement was called an Action Unit (A.U.) – there are thousands of them. Combinations of action units tell a story e.g. AU’s 1, 2, 4, 5 20 and 26 or 27 are fear; disgust is AU 9 or 10 plus 15 or 16 or 17 etc.

Nice sunglasses, it’s just a shame they are stopping me from communicating.