Sam Eifling is a Medill senior. He can be reached at [email protected].

My eyes are asking me to sleep; I’m asking them to read. Right now, a couple of hours after midnight, I’m winning but just barely.

They’re tough, my eyes. Granted, there was a wrinkled eyelid helping out, but my right eye took a hearty ricochet when I shot a beer can with a BB when I was 12 or so. In elementary school I dissected a cow’s eyeball, which was like hacking through a cantaloupe rind. I have faith that my eyes are sturdy, but I can’t help but think I’d be nicknamed Patch had I been shooting with both eyes open.

I happen to have an astigmatism in my eyes, meaning they have a slight football shape, which misdirects the light that comes in and blurs objects far away. Squinting works to round out my eyeballs, but it gives me a gnawing headache — like I say, the little guys are tough. Four years ago I got sick of squinting at chalkboards and went for glasses. At one point in the vision exam, the optometrist shone in my face a light that illuminated every vein and capillary in my eyeballs in bright purple on a pulsing orange background. That sort of thing makes you wonder what you see with.

I can’t fault them, though, football-shaped they are. I abuse them constantly. Once, in junior high, I got a comic book with 3-D glasses, along with a warning not to look at the sun or other bright lights for extended periods. I wondered, Why can’t I do that? So I stared at a light bulb for a solid five minutes. To this day, I can see a faint reddish hue in my left eye, and bluish in my right, if I close the other and stare at something white.

Lately, which is to say winter, I haven’t used them properly. They get to see practically nothing in natural outdoor light. They’re subjected to heavy doses of television and fluorescents, when they’d rather see in vibrant real shades. Watching TV is like feeding a dog broccoli.

They and I are looking forward to the sun coming out sometime next month, to seeing shirtless kids diving for frisbees on the Lakefill, seeing aloof, skinny girls soaking up rays on beach towels in the sorority quad, seeing verdant leaves catch the wind like a sail, slapping trees around. One major perk of real light, my eyes notice, is that other people’s eyes take on bright, strange colors. Eyes that merely suggest green indoors become emeralds; eyes that hint at blue are like looking into the bottom of an aquarium.

I list my eyes on my driver’s license as green. But if I get real close to the bathroom mirror, with all the lights on, I find they’re actually a grayish blue with a corona of mahogany around the iris. My parents and both my brothers have similar eyes. Hobbes, the stuffed tiger of “Calvin and Hobbes” fame, once professed a preference for green eyes, and I’m with him on this one. What other body part looks good green?

On a self-assessment test I took when I was 5, I disagreed with the statement, “I have pretty eyes.” My eyes and I have since reconciled. They have agreed never to get fat, never to shrivel, never to wrinkle, even as my body withers and my skin takes on the qualities of crèpe paper. They will remain my most attractive feature that requires practically zero maintenance.

I, in turn, have agreed to take them out for a walk to girl-watch next quarter. And to lay off the 3-D glasses. nyou