total toast

I lied my way through my physics tutoring session today, nodding about notations, giving muffled mmm hmms when he asked, So you understand how we got that answer, right? It took an hour to do one problem--a cruel reality regarding the subject that I'll never get used to, even with a genius for a tutor. The thing about having a genius for a tutor: he can also tell when I'm lying, but he doesn't just come out and say it. He'll smile and say, OK. You tell me how we got that answer. Which usually means I'm toast. Like today, I was total toast.

Eight Balls and Apple Jacks

I used to spend time in apartment full of boys who had a white board that took up an entire wall in their kitchen. They covered it with numbers--equations to stump each other. Sometimes the same problem would be there for days.

They talked about math for fun. They wore those big black watches with built-in calculators. When we watched basketball they discussed the arc of the 3-pointers. During executive billiards, they'd talk trajectories until the 8 ball slipped into the corner pocket. They epitomized cool nerd.* No matter the activity, any time I crossed the threshold into their apartment, all I could think about was the fact that the pictures in their apartment were hung about 8" too high.

Half of them are now engineers, the other half dentists. Perhaps if I had paid more attention during their number wars (made slightly more bearable by the occasional bowl of Apple Jacks) I might be able to finish my physics homework.

*There's such a thing, you know.

Isaac Newton Knows How to Party

We forgot to close the door to the study room tonight, so the whole library got to hear a brief and passionate discourse on equilibrium until the man in a green shirt with green bleach blotches and tortoise rimmed bifocals came to shut it because for heaven's sake "There are people trying to write papers out here!"

Nothing, however, was said to the mother of three who held screaming twins, one under each arm ready to fire like bazookas, while the other held fast to her pant legs as she tried to make her way through the aisles to find "Dora the Explorer" on DVD. Nor the pair of tweens laughing loudly over an issue of Teen Vogue in the corner by the water fountain. Or the dude slowly going deaf because his laptop was giving an unsolicited (he thought seemingly silent) concert of the kind of music with the language my father doesn't even know exists. Or the woman outside petitioning every exiter about the latest scandal Walmart is inflicting on our innocent souls and how can we even sleep at night?!

So, pardon us if we seem to have gotten a little caught up in fictitious David and Goliath sling shot simulations and Newton's law of inertia. Heaven forbid we talk above a whisper when you're trying to write a paper out there, because we're learning about constant velocity in here thank you very much, and maybe just for once we might be 0.000001 nanomilligrams excited about it.

the tablecloth trick

He brought a bottle of San Pellagrino for an object lesson on frictional force. After all the object lessons were over, he told her where to get the best Philly Cheese steak in the city. But he'll see her long before she goes to Philly.

Last night after the snow stopped falling, we convened at the round table. After a few moments discussion, it was unanimous: despite the snow and cold, we were going out. A quick secret mission. Just down and back. No one would even notice we'd gone.

Then this morning, in a twist of fate and destiny, (and perhaps some unknown external force) their paths crossed. 7:55 a.m. and there he was in his rolled jeans and great shoes. (He has really great shoes.) He opened the door for her and she walked right through.