When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
This is going to be pet peeve week (and just fyi, the term “pet peeve” is a pet peeve). What drives me nuts is when fiction writers use eye signaling to stand in for story or emotion. She looked at him, she glared, she glanced, she stared, she lowered her eyes, she batted her eyes, she looked away, she looked beyond him, she looked right through him, she smiled with her eyes (how the fuck, but never mind), she looked around, she looked down, she closed her eyes, she half-closed her eyes, she blinked, she rapidly blinked, she saw right through him, she looked inside him. Her eyes surveyed the room. Her eyes met his. She furtively looked. She locked eyes. She saw the world as if through a silver platter.
Can you add to the list?
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Betsy Lerner 
She looked at him adoringly, he looked at her suspiciously, she gave him the evil eye, her eyes caught his, she squinted at him, she peered at him, his x-ray vision saw right through her, her eyes melted into his, her kaleidoscope eyes (the girl with) hypnotized him, her eyes lasered into his, she peered at him, she dissected him with her eyes, her eyes were glued to his….
She fucked him with her green eyes. (Okay, so, I can personally attest that I have fucked with my green eyes.) Just to be argumentative, Betsy darlink.
Haaaa – Anonymous! You win on Betsy’s blog today, maybe forever, b/c that is the BEST COMMENT EVER! Or, maybe it’s the one below too, “welcome to the insane asylum.”
SNORT! Made my morning. Although coffee thru nose = ick.
Wait. Let me check the ms I’m working on. I’ll find a bunch.
hello. first time commenter here. i would like to add telegraphing with the eyebrows. raising eyebrows, wiggling eyebrows… i mean, i guess people do stuff with their eyebrows but, ugh, i do not care for it.
Welcome to the insane asylum.
I’ll look.
She looked at him with her one good eye and saw that he was only half the man she had dreamed he was.
LOL
“Which eye was he looking at me wiith?”
“The Brown one!”
Well, the eyes have it. I got nothin.
Speaking of eyes:
Moana meets Shiny the giant “crab-ulous” crab.
His balloon like eyes, spaced yards apart, zero in on Moana.
Like watching a tennis match, or mom and dad during an argument about whose turn it is to change the baby, Moana’s eyes dart right and left trying to focus on one of Shiny’s eyes. Left eye, right eye, left eye, right eye.
“Just pick an eye babe,” he says, “I can’t concentrate on what I’m saying if you keep…pick one, pick one.”
The Royal Bar in Plattsburgh quite a number of years ago, a dive if ever there was one, long since razed and replaced with an upscale restaurant, but drink there I did a time or two. Quiet man on the barstool next to me, the only words I heard him utter all night were when the jukebox played a Rolling Stones song. He said, “The girl with the paralyzed eyes,” and I’ve never been able to listen to “The Girl With the Faraway Eyes” without thinking of him..
The eyes have it indeed.
Plattsburgh, NY?
Yup. On City Hall Place, right across from The Smoked Pepper. “Irises” restaurant is there now, I think. The Royal and Wylla’s were next door to each other, two bars I was warned to avoid. I worked a late shift at a pizza place called Duke’s Dugout and stopped in often for a few beers; Wylla’s was a country bar, the Royal more rock.
I was born in Plattsburgh. Still here. I know about all those places. Back then, everybody was warned to stay away from City Hall Place unless you needed your shoes repaired. Then you ran into the shoe hospital and back to your car–during the day–if you wanted to live.
Don’t forget all the romance-genre paragraphs dedicated to wandering eyes (a plot for a horror movie, if anyone wants to claim it).
Her eyes were indeed the window to her soul and her gaze torched me from the depths of hell. It was heaven. The eyes have it.
He eye balled her. She gave him the stink eye.
“She winked.” Winking in a book drives me nuts.
Whoa! That’s quite a list. You know I won’t be using any of those in MY writing. In fact, maybe my characters will be blind. 😉
We miss you Betsy. Really we do. Hope all is well.