Remedial Math, or "How Did It Come to This?"

This morning, I got off the subway at 8th street, New York's only stop that has mosaics underground proclaiming "New York University!" with happy tiled faces of students presumably milling about Washington Square. I was pretty occupied with hating the weather and all the humidity I thought had been mercifully chased away by September as I walked along towards Silver room 203... or, as I would later consider it, towards Uncertain Death.

You might know it by its more common name: Laboratory for "Natural Science I: How Things Work."

Yes, ladies, gentlemen... and others. (The GLBT at NYU is endlessly more popular than our baseball team. I'm totally cool with it if you're a dude-lady, or vice versa). Here's the deal: I'm taking Physics. I am taking Physics for the first time since, oh, I don't know... JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL. Do you know what else I did in junior year of high school? I went to prom. I got my driver's license. I wore hideous sequined flats and thought leggings under denim mini skirts were a good idea. I WORE POLO SHIRTS. I spent at least three days of the week playing the saxophone in the dingy high school band room and whispering rumors down the rows of instruments about who did what in the band room closet (hint: it was sexual.) In other words, I was approximately, like, three billion light years from where I am now, sitting in Brooklyn, about to finish my undergraduate degree. Yes, that is the last time I did physics.

So today, when I swung my patterned-tights-clad legs over a stool at a lab table, I felt more uncomfortable and unnatural than I have in the past three years of college. We all went around the room and introduced ourselves as our TA, a tall, bespectacled asian man with the same proclivity for social situations as a smooth piece of balsa wood, awkwardly flailed his hands around while he spoke and tried to comment on our choice of a "favorite performance" we'd seen in the past 5 years. Me: "Well, I saw Geoffrey Rush in "Exit the King." That was really awesome." Him: "Yeah, uhh, yeah totally I think you should all, uh, like see a musical in the city before you die." Uh huh. Exit the King is a piece of absurdist theatre by Eugene Ionesco. Not a musical. Not even close. One girl even had the audacity to name "A Walk to Remember" as her favorite movie, and NOT EVEN IRONICALLY. God, freshmen. When will they learn that at NYU, the right amount of pretentiousness is everything!

Sorry, I'm off topic. What I want to tell you, loyal readers, is about what happened next. After I eye-rolled my way through some really uninspired introductions. Somehow, amidst a sea of "uhhh"s and "yeah"s our TA managed to explain that todays lab was a math review.

Wait, math review?

Yes. A Review of Math. Before I further explain this, let me review the math that I have done since the days of high school:

- Tip calculations, as in "How much should I give this bartender after he gives me this ice cold brew?"

- Clothing sales, like "How much does this dress cost if it's 20% off and I also have a coupon and almost no money in my bank account?"

- Train schedules -- "If The Boyfriend is leaving at 3:53 and his train gets in 44 minutes after that, how long must I wait to blow dry my hair so that it is at peak performance when he walks in the door?"

Yup. This is the math I do in my every day life.

So, of course, when I turned the pages and saw such horrifying words as "logarithms!" and "sine! cosine! HYPOTENUSE!" I was overcome by a cold sweat and an overwhelming urge to vomit on the beakers beside me. For the past three years, I have been studying Neapolitan chords and ledes and interview tactics and Uta Hagen. For me, final assignments included papers that, I kid you not, were based less on what we wrote about than how honest we were about our feelings. I do music, I do writing. I do classes where we analyze text, where we conceptualize and shit.

You know what I don't do? I don't do logarithms.

Somehow, (and I don't know how), I survived. With the help of the freshman across from me I realized I am not as math-inept as I thought, only severely out of practice. "Oh yeah," I thought to myself, "Riiiiight, all I have to do is multiply both sides by 2" or whatever. I had to remind myself, rather quickly, that at some point I was taking calculus and knew what these words meant. "You're not an idiot," I assured myself. "You're just an artist now."

However, part of my writing this blog post is as a big, hearty, farewell. I can say with almost complete certainty that this class doesn't actually require most of what we did on that math review. This is very basic physics we're talking about, that requires more thinking and using common sense than actual hard core algebra. So, with that being said, I would like to say a "Smell ya later" (or, more appropriately, "Smell ya never!") to math of the more difficult, less useful kind. I will probably never again in my life do this stuff, this algebra stuff. I am on to bigger and better things that I actually enjoy and don't make me want to puke all over my TI-83. In fact, I never want to see another TI-83 again in my life, unless it is in the context of looking over the shoulder of my child one day as (s)he struggles with his or her own algebra homework. And even in that case, I hope our conversation goes something like this:

"Mooooom, I don't understand! Can you help me with my homework?"

"Sorry, kid. I don't do math."

Worst Intern Ever

Three simple words: Epic Coffee Fail

This morning at my internship, I went to get [really crappy] coffee at the little kitchen station when I realized both of the coffee containers were empty except for decaf... and really, who does decaf at 10 in the morning? Please. I've been sleeping like crap, mainly because it is like a humid, sticky deathtrap in my room and under my comforter and I've been watching too much Dexter - which, of course, makes me imagine that every little sound outside my windows at 2 a.m. is a sign that someone is somehow wedging themselves through the impossibly skinny spaces between the bars in order to slice me into little pieces. Nice.

Anyway, back to the coffee. I'm all alone at first, so the pressure is off - I'll just make a fresh pot, I figure. I read the directions on the coffee machine, but unfortunately I find myself in a Catch-22. How am I supposed to be able to figure out making coffee when I haven't even HAD any? I mean, I can function fine without coffee, but problem solving at 10 a.m. after a restless night without any sort of caffeinated substance is just asking for too much. That's like, superhuman.

First step: I take the little plastic bag of ground coffee out of the jar. Then, I open it. FAIL. Coffee all over the floor, all over my little red shoe. Possibly IN my little red shoe, although I haven't had a chance to check as of yet and am not looking forward to it. I give a little glance, side to side, and realize that I am still alone until a spindly redhead with an empty mug approaches. I act like, hey, there's no coffee in my shoe. No luck. "Oh!" she says. "Look at that," pointing to the spilled coffee. "Yeah," I laugh it off, "That's what happens when I try to make coffee before I have coffee!" Ha. Ha. We have a laugh.

The coffee's all ready to go, I place the coffee holder thing beneath the spout and it starts going... but not exactly into the hole, making coffee pool around the sides. I figure, why not leave it like that? Who cares? But the redhead scoots it over so that, although the holder is tipped, the drippy brown liquid is still making its way in. She has saved the day. I still look incompetent.

Redhead leaves to wait for the coffee to fill, but now there is a line of people looking forlorn, undercaffeinated, overtired. I stand by the rapidly filling coffee pot, feeling for a moment like a savior for bringing the people what they crave. A savior, that is, until it starts pooling around the hole again and dripping out of the spout... onto the counter, dangerously close to dripping down the white cabinets. "Shit!" I think, but don't say, because even my lips aren't functioning the way they will in about 10 minutes when the coffee really kicks in. I grab some paper towels, drop them, and then decide to hold up the canister so that the goddamn coffee actually GOES IN the hole. While I hold the big black cylinder up, like an idiot, a guy comes over and says, "Uh, you don't have to hold it the whole time." Oh, thank you, wise coffee master. I want to say, "I know, you greasy haired fool," but I do not. I regain composure. "It was spilling out of the spout," I say, and point to the mess that I was trying to cover up by standing close to the coffee and hoping really hard that I looked radiantly beautiful enough to distract. [Sarcasm.] The guy, who is wearing some weird button down T-shirt thing which signifies to me that he can't possibly be a member of the decorating, collecting, style, or even crafts departments (which of course leaves Food and various tech crews... and Garden, because let's be honest, Gardening people aren't known for their fashion sense) straightens out the pot and explains to me why it was spilling. I couldn't care less if there was scalding hot coffee pouring directly onto my retinas, but I act like his theory is revolutionary so that PLEASE GOD I will eventually get some coffee and get away from this table before the redhead, who has returned, realizes that I have spilled TWICE during my coffee exploits. Jesus. This is getting embarrassing.

After awkwardly making acquaintances with the man who has so graciously saved my coffee [Sarcasm Part II] and telling him I intern in the Editorial Dept. without so much as asking what part of the building he works in, the coffee sputters, drips, finishes. I put in my half and half, my skim milk, my one and a half Sweet & Lows (What? It's a very delicate procedure. Don't judge.) I stir, and I Get The Hell Out of There. But not before sweetly smiling at Mr. Button Down T-Shirt and saying, with a hint of self-deprecation, "Thanks for helping me out." Pink-lipsticked, toothy grin. I am, after all, an intern. An intern who can't make coffee. FML.

Groove Is In the Heart

"Your groove I do deeply dig..." ~Deee-lite

A Scene:

Instruments are being strummed, battered, plunked, picked, or blown. A voice, maybe a few voices, are singing, amplified by modern technology. A melody, a harmony, a bass line. Tempos fluctuate as screams punctuate the chorus, improvised vocal percussion.

Now, imagine you’re peering down on the concert scene. It’s a bird’s eye view – all you can see is a teeming crowd of people, cheering and singing along and bobbing, moving, in an amoeba-like form. Arms are raised and waving, side to side, back and forth; a crowd of music lovers, not a single one distinguishable from the rest.

Zoom in on a certain prim-looking brunette in jeans and a black tank top. She’s bobbing her head, tapping her foot. She’s got rhythm, and when she hums along it’s apparent that she isn’t tone deaf. Her fingers tap the sides of her thighs, her arms are straight-jacketed to her sides by the crowd. Every now and then she claps and gives a high-pitched half-hearted “woo!”

You’d never know that she’s a total fake, a fraud, an imposter.

Or at least, she feels that way. She, of the finger tapping and the head bobbing, is Cupcake Lover. She’s at a concert, The Boyfriend’s favorite band, and of course he is next to her, looking like he just ate his favorite food, drank his favorite beverage, was magically transported to his favorite place on earth, and immediately after found out that all of his wishes for the next 50 years will come true. Here’s a word for you: Blissful. Definition? Characterized by perfect happiness. Boyfriend looks Blissful. And me? Uhh, I mean, she? Confused. Definition? Embarrassed and not knowing what to say or how to act.

That might be an overstatement. I wouldn’t say I get embarrassed at concerts, per se, but I do feel confused. I don’t know when or how it happened, but at some point I stopped being able to listen to music. I just can’t do it. I listen to technical proficiency, I listen to the bass line, I listen to contrapuntal motion, I listen with an ear to where the music fits in historically, to what movement it belongs to, to what other artists it is inspired by.

But… [here's my confession]… I just can’t groove.

And, of course, I'm dating the most Epic Groover of all. Time and time again, I’ve been in cars and bars and my kitchen and at weird outdoor barbeques where music has played and The Boyfriend has gone all… groovetastic. And then he looks to me, like I’m supposed to do something. Like, “Okay, your turn to groove.” What do I do?

Smile through my suddenly escalated heart rate and say, “I like the time signature. Did you know it’s in 7?”

Lame, I know. But you know what the worst part is? The absolute worst part? I like listening to music and I like thinking critically about it. I really, really enjoyed myself at that concert and I actually find my own bliss in other peoples’ love for listening. But when you don’t know how to groove, people think you’re not having a good time. They think you’re miserable, that it’s not your kind of music, that you’d rather be anywhere but there. But that’s just it – I like almost ALL kinds of music. I find something charming and intriguing and fascinating in almost everything I hear. But I have lost the innate human ability to subtly groove to something. I can’t play air guitar like The Boyfriend does so skillfully (on my thigh, usually, or my arm.) I’m not going to whip out my faux drumsticks and play a little beat, or close my eyes and really feel it. Because to feel music I just have to sit still and listen for a second, and think about it.

So, yeah, I’m a big fake. Any grooving I do is totally contrived and based off of what I see other people do… because I may be bad at grooving, but I sure am good at people watching. And there's no shortage of different types of Groovers to copy from. Some favorites include the Hands In the Air Like You Just Don't Care Groover, or the perennial favorite, Sway Side to Side Like You're High On Something Groover. Obvious, I've been taking on a more subtle groove flavor, what with the foot tapping and the head bopping, but I'm getting there, slowly but surely. Making my way toward music-listening normalcy one finger point at a time. Who knows? Maybe some day I'll groove with the best of them.