I Got Nothin'

As you may have surmised, the interlude between posts has almost everything to do with the fact that I am not writhing in the crucible of Mathematics these days.  By comparison, the things I consider on a daily basis -- death and taxes -- haven't driven me mad enough to post.  Or more accurately, they are both too personal to post about.  Yet.

So, not much in the bloggage department, but in that way I'm not much different than the bloggers I follow.  The scandals come.  The scandals go.  The President has a SOTU speech?  Well, suh, as my grandmother used to say.

It has been a bitter season.  Short of a pair of snow pants I have enough coat hat glove sweater scarf boots to protect me and even I have found excuses not to go out much.  My gym membership has lapsed and I haven't picked up anything heavier than a carton of half 'n half for a month.  By choice and aptitude I am at home a lot pushing the peas of creative ideas around my plate.  I spend my time trying to stay ahead of the freezing cold which infects our plumbing so that there has been many a morning where you can't flush if you wanted to.  I share my yard with a very hairy skunk.  Just like me its coat has become thicker and whiter, but at least I don't fart when I'm terrified.  So, if we are in the yard at the same time (even at night I can spot her traipsing around on the snow) I cut her a wide berth and she extends me the same courtesy.  Occasionally she gets into it with a friendly neighborhood feral cat and I'll be sitting here watching some British thriller (my preferred oeuvre du jour) while trying to filter out the hissing, howling, banging and scratching right behind me.  If I ever hear shots fired I'll call Animal Control, but until then let the best mammal win.

This Just In ....

... I can not, repeat, can not do math.  Trying to do a quilting project that involves working on a 20" x 20" square.  Ya following me?  I measure, cut, and painstakingly stitch 1" strips of fabric onto the 4 squares that would be combined to make the aforementioned big square.  So far.  So good.  Strips go on.  Strips are pressed flat.  Four squares are combined.  I hold up the result.  Uhmmmm, I sez to m'self, this looks kinda small.  Being the genius that I am I measure the final product.  I had created a 11" square because I had originally cut 6" blocks.

Just shoot me.  Or similar sentiments ifya know what I mean.  How stupid can I get?  I don't even want to find out frankly.  Perhaps the only wise thing I've done in the past few weeks is to decide not to enroll in yet another mental labyrinth with no exit which is what higher level mathematics courses have become for me.  I need a respite from abject failure for a while.  I need to have time to screw up a simple sewing project or read a book before the local library sets a bounty for my arrest for late returns.  I need some time to take stock of a life that will certainly include death, taxes and replacing a major appliance or computer.  Life, in other words, I need some time for life.

Almost unbeknownst to me I have crossed a threshhold.  In a few months I will be on the other side of 60 but I feel it deeply already.  More friends than ever are telling me about the birth of their grandchildren.  I am amused, sometimes amazed at the changes in my body.  Unwelcome hair everywhere and always another test to take to rule out cancer or another serious disorder.  You learn, or you better learn, to live with uncertainty:  your body is more your antagonist than your glory, and you don't know when your ticket will be punched, but punched it will be.

So, get on with it, you tell yourself.  I spend a lot of time these days looking back.  The past looks more interesting than the future.  Gleaning my personal experience and others for answers, for guidance, for meaning.  And, now out from under the yoke of all-math-all-the-time, the imperative to write has surged in like water through an opened sluice gate.

All of this to say that at least for 5 months, I won't be whining (at least not about math) and there will not be any blood splatter on the monitor as I try to prove the infinity of ∏.   My plan is to do a self-study of linear and abstract algebra -- okay, I'll wait while you snort through your nose -- but like working out at home it's far too easy to jettison self-imposed deadlines and projects.  We all know it, but that's the plan.