Math is just Math
In a popular Friends episode, Ross emcees a quiz showdown between the apartment neighbors of Monica and Rachel versus Chandler and Joey. One question informs us that Rachel claims her favorite movie is Dangerous Liaisons, but a followup question reveals that her actual favorite movie is Weekend at Bernie’s. If you’d asked me at any point in school, I would’ve said my favorite subject was English. It’s not a lie, but my BEST subject was math. Numbers have always come very easily to me. So why wasn’t it my favorite, if I was so good at it? Simple. Because math is just math.
Basic, high school level math is just numbers into formulas, essentially. No matter what, the formulas will always work the same way, the answers will never deviate. There is no interpretation — no critical, analytical thought — required at all. You’ve done it right or you’ve done it wrong. There are no gray areas. It’s just math.
English (or Language Arts, as it’s sometimes called now) is almost all interpretive. As long as you can back up your viewpoint with examples from the text, there is no wrong way to analyze literature. I once completely flaked on writing a literary analysis paper because I hadn’t read the book yet (I always struggled with reading assigned texts, even though I read for pleasure all the time — this is apparently common for ADHD). A week after the fact, I’d managed to dash off some bullshit nonsense about how I didn’t think the book was all that great — not one of the suggested topics, by the way, but technically “one of my own choosing” — and turned it in to my teacher with some bald-faced lie about how I’d totally written another paper and was totally going to hand it in along with everyone else, but I was just so unhappy with it. I said my essay didn’t sit right with me, so I held it back and wrote another one. My teacher marveled that she was so behind on grading them that she hadn’t even noticed, and I ended up I getting a higher A than one of my best friends who was always doing her work on time and never would’ve ever conned her way into turning some nonsense in. She haaaaaaaaaaaaaated me for that. Heh.
My point is, it’s all made up. Even the stringent rules of grammar are surprisingly malleable in the world of creative writing, whether fiction or non. Sentence fragments have impact when used strategically, as do dialogic misspellings and other tricks of the trade. Double negatives? They’re not not useful. Clichés? Moderation in all things. Starting a sentence with a conjunction? And who, pray tell, is going to stop you?
These skills all engage what I consider the higher levels of your brain: the critical analysis, the creative imagination, the problem solving, and the abstract, conceptual thinking. To be clear, advanced mathematics engage these areas of the brain as well, but the basics of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and even calculus covered in high school are much more formulaic in nature. It’s just math, and it has never floated my boat, no matter how easily my mind manages numbers.
Steaks, Blowjobs, and Pi
At some point in the late ‘90s or early ‘00s, I think (because of course), some idiot man got his boxers all bunched up over the fact that he felt obligated to pay attention to his girlfriend or wife on Valentine’s Day, so he declared the date exactly one month later — March 14 — to be Steak and a Blowjob Day. This really happened. I swear, men are the biggest fucking babies.
ANYWAY.
It’s billed as a “satirical” holiday but you know guys who bring it up mean it as “satirical but not really, heh heh.” And hey, it’s not like it’s just about sex, because your man also wants you to cook him up a good meaty steak, heh heh.
Listen, I have nothing against doing whatever sexual acts you’re into, as long as they’re consensual, but the whole idea of a Blowjob Day kind of feels like a mandate. Y’know? Nothing about Valentine’s Day is a mandate, believe it or not. You don’t have to celebrate it at all. Or you could celebrate it by doing something nice for your significant other just because you love her and NOT be a whiny bitch about it. You could even use that big manly brain of yours to come up with an idea that doesn’t cost a bunch of money or make you feel emasculated or whatever it is your big complaint about Valentine’s Day is. Maybe, just MAYBE, you could even consider it a day for BOTH of you, not just her, to be romantic with each other and to revel in your companionship. Just a suggestion.
Of course, another problem with Steak and a Blowjob Day is that it’s piggybacking onto a day that’s already a holiday — Pi Day. Pi is an irrational number integral to foundational mathematical formulas, and yet it can’t be represented as a simple fraction and as a decimal it never ends and never repeats. In it’s simplest form, Pi is recognized as equalling 3.14, which is why March 14 is Pi Day. And since Pi is a constant in the calculation of both the area and the circumference of a circle, what better way to celebrate than by eating pie?
Pie is a great dessert because it’s utterly versatile. There are your traditional fruit pies, with their flaky short crusts that can be full coverage, decoratively latticed, or crumbly. There are cream pies, custard pies and mousse pies with cookie crusts that run the gamut from citrusy to sweet to richly decadent. There are even savory pies that can have thick, flavored crusts and comfort food middles. As in English language arts, there are no wrong answers. Whatever kind of food you like, there’s a pie for you.
So go ahead and have your steak and your blowjob if your partner is willing, boys, but just remember the day ends with eating a big slice of pie.
St. Paddy’s Madness
As if steak pies and blowjobs weren’t enough for one weekend, it’s also the weekend run-up to St. Patty’s Day and the March Madness basketball tournament. Technically, the tournament doesn’t officially start until next week, but there are tons of big impact league and conference games going on now, and the official bracket selection takes place on Sunday. Plus, with St. Patrick’s Day on Monday, this weekend is going to see a lot of green-tinted vomit in the streets.
Be forewarned, however, that green beer is simply the lightest color beer available, mixed with a drop of food coloring. Best bet that’s the cheapest, weakest, worst beer that bar has on hand. Do not drink it. You can get more drunk on better shit, truly. Do it like a true Irishman, with Guinness and Jameson, for godsakes. Even Bailey’s Irish Cream, with an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 17%, can get you drunker than cheap beer. Just because you’re on a culturally appropriated bender, doesn’t mean you can’t have good taste.
Actively Not Dying?
So this is a little change of pace, but instead of taking this time to muse about something gone wrong, I’m going to celebrate a few successes.
Over the past 12 months, I’ve gone down 3 — almost 4 — pants sizes. (I’m sooo close to the 4th; I can get them closed but they’re still too tight to move in.) My bloodwork is looking better than ever too, so things have improved inside and out. I’m feeling sexy and gorgeous and embracing my bad bitch goddess energy for all it’s worth.
It’s funny because I’ve always thought the best weight loss plan I’ve ever been on was clinical depression — a deep depressive episode leaves me completely unwilling/unable to eat — but this past year, despite some major stressors that continue to plague my life (and treatment-resistant clinical depression, which doesn’t go away but has been mitigated by the cutting edge ketamine drug therapy I’ve been undergoing for it since last summer), I’ve been stronger and healthier in my mind and yes, happier overall. It’s kind of like I could maybe be happy and healthy and not dying all at the same time. And how weird would that be? (Is this how people live, like for real? Sounds insane.)
At any rate, I would love for you to share your successes with me as well, big and small. Or you can call me a snobby elitist for saying math isn’t hard. (It’s not hard FOR ME, which is different than not hard AT ALL.) Whatever floats your boat. Just make sure to celebrate your weekend responsibly, whether it’s with steaks, blowjobs, pies, green beer, Irish liquor, basketball, or some combination thereof. Good luck!