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Monday,
April 1, 2002
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I'm collecting my dark reflections...yep, I mean photos
"There are two kinds of fools:
one says, 'This is old, therefore it is good'; the other says, 'This is
new, therefore it is better'."
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who's a fool? It's one of those days where I wake up a couple of times, each time remembering the dreams. The first was a teeth falling out dream. I was trying to collect them in a container for the dentist. I awoke, realized I could bypass the dentist. (I was planning to say to him, "I'm having a really bad day with my crowns.") The second (or subsequent) time I awoke I was in the midst of a complex dream that was sort of about work. First I was visiting someone with a small girl and a baby. I had brought a present for the girl. The baby was too small to understand, I said. But the baby was playing in an elaborate water apparatus, sitting high and dangerous. The girl and other kids were playing, too. There was some kind of high speed toy train contained in an enclosure. Then I was called to a work assembly. Famous cowboys were there trying to convince us on the behalf of our bosses that we were in a crisis not unlike WWII. Then I was being asked to sign release papers because I was being dismissed. Laid off. Or fired. A woman and I were sitting on a park bench looking at the papers, filled out in longhand. She wanted me to sign it straight away. I wanted to read it. Then I was distracted by the little girl seemingly being hurt in the elaborate water playground. One of the caged trains had escaped or something. I talk to a friend about whether I'll attend a conference and give a paper (at my own expense). She says I should. I start across a cobble-stoned street to find the woman with the papers. As in many dreams, she isn't there and I can't figure out exactly where to go. The baby is surely an artifact of the movie we saw (A Beautiful Mind) but the rest of it is odd. Except for the famous cowboys. (Just kidding.) But the baby reminds me that, after the movie, FFP said he was glad the baby didn't get hurt. We don't much like violence in movies, no we don't. I'm a big sissy about it. FFP isn't much into it himself.
I started reading A Beautiful Mind last night. Apart from thinking about theorems, it occurred to me that the distance between number theory and numerology might be shorter than we think. (I'm kidding. I want to be as rational a being as John Nash wanted to be. And actually was. Only John heard voices that confirmed irrational thoughts. I wake from my dreams and recognize them for what they are. He lived (lives?) inside them, I guess.)
At work, I prepare for and attend a telephone conference for this industry committee I'm on. The idea is that we agree on certain things so that we can exchange information. It's a difficult process, not surprisingly. I don't have much time for lunch between meetings. I go to the grocery store and get some nacho stuff, some already cut carrots and some vegie dip and some of that thin smoked lunch meat. When I get back I notice the dip is a week past 'best used by' and, while it doesn't seem spoiled, it doesn't seem exactly fresh either. I should return it. But I won't do it. Too much trouble. After the next meeting, I make some nachos. My stomach isn't feeling too great the rest of the afternoon.
After work I stop at Barnes and Noble to look in some of their computer books for a particular reference. I have no intention of buying one of these tomes. I make notes on what I'm interested in. I look through some of the math books, trying to find a reference to the theorem that tortured me last night. I find one. It's in a paperback book. I'm pretty sure that I have the hardbound version. When I go home I actually find that book. I put it in the small pile of books that I've been glancing through while actually trying to read A Beautiful Mind and a book of the best essays of 2001.
There is so much I don't know. So much education I've forgotten. My life is half over (if you consider the formative years a wash and the longevity of my family, maybe more than half over if you are less generous in this regard). I don't feel useful.
I succumb to the TV. A rerun of Boston Public. I don't think I'd actually seen it but I'd seen episodes before or after. A new Third Watch. A rerun of Crossing Jordan. I'm sad that I know when these shows are in rerun or not. I read a few sections of the newspaper piling up. FFP is trying to work the crossword in the New York Times magazine. He asks me some clues. I never attempt so hard a puzzle. He never bothers with the easy Monday one. (Today's has the same word for answers over and over with 'Lookinthemirror' in a cross down the center. I worked it online this morning. I offer to go find clues for him online. He declines. "I'm not ready for that yet.") I read a little of my book. I'm tired, having slept poorly the night before.
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179
JUST
TYPING