introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- oh, math the cusp of unlucky - 12/13 december 2013 "it's been a bad day / please don't take a picture / it's been a bad day / please"~R.E.M. guys, it's the holiday season and i'm starting every day with a smile that isn't entirely half-hearted, honest to goodness. i'm trying to be here for you in this economy, america. i'm trying to do the right thing. this holiday season, my gift to you, america...i will eat your pains. i'm seriously here to make this easier. america, be nice to people this holiday season. this is a pretty emotionally ragged time in the customer/service industry, boy-howdy. this psa has been brought to you by like...santa or that creepy elf guy or whomever. be nicer. it is officially winter in western peeyay. today didn't see more than 20F. i broke out my favorite floral print long-johns and layered the heck up. my dog muttered and grumbled at me when i tried to get him to go out. his poor old darling bones. still, he went out, scoffed at me, crated himself and settled into his new dog bed to nap for the rest of the afternoon until sean would return home. the heater was on at a grown-up actual-job warmth and still, when poured the hot coffee from my old trusty stanley thermos, it still had a breath coming off it in the coldish kitchen. everything still feels warmer. well, it's the old irish wool cable sweater (hijacked from sean's pile of never-worn clothes) with two layers underneath that and yes, the long-johns under my jeans. layers. always my advice for any season. (rainbowstarthemoreyouknow) there is a frozen crunch in the snow and every breath is as tight and surprisingly arctic as the first you took when you opened the storm door. the turkeys huddle together under the low hanging pine branches. the roads are white with salty sparkly brine. it's gorgeous and constant and not dirty or gross yet. it just keeps refreshing itself in a maintainable way. this is the time of year when the yearning hits me the hardest. i have only about 4 months until my next big adventure...but i'm just pining for something bigger. i specifically expressed my interest in applying for this position in chandler, az yesterday at work. an offline position doing something interesting, brand new, challenging....this is what i need right now--not that i don't love you, america...easy, now. i'll take anything. i just need something new to think about, i think. i officially enrolled for 4 classes for next year to just have some background in things like project management and business-y things you just don't learn when you're getting your liberal arts degree. most days, i am so confident that i'm doing a freaking knockout job...and then...sometimes, i open that wee spot in the center of the motherchip of my robot heart that leaves me vulnerable to letting something stupid get into my head. fucking math, guys. speaking math is a unique challenge. i have to stop for math. math takes me some time. it's the most embarrassing thing about my brain to me. i cannot simply perform math functions. when entering into a tangle with numbers, my brain enters red alert. my breath quickens. the most surprising part of all of this is that it isn't the math functions themselves that bother me. give me a formula and things get turin machine easy-peasy. my problem is that something kicks in in my brain that is unstoppable. a need to check. and double check. and triple check. "there is nothing subjective about math. it is either right or it is wrong." "check your work. did you check your work?" in fourth grade, i was struggling to wrap my head around math functions. i knew in second grade that i was already behind, not understanding something that everyone else just seemed to get. it wasn't that i didn't want to understand...i just didn't get it. i wonder now if teachers really knew to present different ways of teaching things like math to brains like mine. it wasn't until i was 28 that i had a truly incredible professor that made math make more sense to me than it ever has in my life. i left the class with a near perfect score and still felt disappointed that it wasn't perfect. if it wasn't right, it was wrong. i remember an overhead projector with a multiplication table and it still makes me want to cry. i just didn't understand what i was looking at...and because of that, i spent the subsequent summer chained to a deck of flash cards and my father and my grandmother trying to drill it into my head...as if repetition explained a concept. but how could they know what my brains were (or weren't) getting? oh, the 8o's. so math gives me a complex, guys...that's what i'm getting at. it is my achilles heel. the weak point that takes down the robot. boo. but i understand math more now than i ever did and meeting it on my terms isn't such a big deal. i don't panic so much. the panic comes now when i have to actually explain math to someone else who may or may not understand math, either. i think i've got generally decent communication skills when i'm on even keel...and i'm pretty practiced at painting a picture of math concepts when i'm explaining things to customer's at my job. bill stuff. pro-ration. no big. tonight, though, i felt the panic. explaining a bill cycle change to someone is something that i haven't mastered and it gets under my skin so damned much. i have to figure this out. i will. still, a last call of the night left me feeling like a stupid 4th grader looking at a multiplication table. it didn't help that i was just saying numbers to a person who refused to bother to look at the bill with me, i admit... i have to get better at so many things. speaking math is something that can only come with practice...but i need to know how to do it and so i'm going to fucking learn. enough sad soppy math stories. seriously, i hate math. and i hate that lady for making me feel like i was subhuman. and now i forgive her because hey, lady, i don't blame you. it's some confusing shit and numbers are a pain in the ass. i forgive myself for not being able to paint a better picture. whew. now we're all good, america. i'm still here for you. anyway, winding down. one long twelve hour day yawns before me before the weekend. my new year's eve menus are coming together beautifully and my meat order (2 whole boneless pork bellies, rind-on, rib meat still attached...that's poetry right there, guys) is coming saturday. december has been a whirlwind of visiting and planning and snow...crunchy snow and wet snow and the hopeful promise of a snow day this winter, maybe...and long-johns...and gingerbread houses made at a party at the smith's...and stuffing balls from tom's mom in indiana...and peanut butter pie and pot roast for rae...of plastic on the windows and extra bird seed for the mouths i promise to feed while i'm here...and cookies that aren't christmas cookies made with the moms and old man walker...and waffles with strawberry sauce and reddiwip and breakfast meats.... crunchy snow. long-johns. absorbing this. chin up. a special friday the 13th xo, america. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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