some fears should not be overcome: a humiliating story for your entertainment

Imagine a woman who dislikes treadmills. She wants motion, not just the illusion of motion. But more than that, she is afraid of treadmills. It is unnatural--moving, but not moving. And imagine this woman in a hotel, in a strange city, in need of exercise. The woman makes three mistakes:

1. Rather than going outside to run like she ought to, she opts for the hotel exercise room.
2. In the exercise room, she has two options: a stationary bicycle or a treadmill. She decides to face her fear of treadmills.
3. She forgets about an important principle called velocity.

Now picture this: The woman programs the treadmill and begins to walk. She wants to run, but the treadmill is going too slow. So, she increases the speed. Still not fast enough. She increases the speed a little more. And more. And more. Soon she is at a good pace for her run. But the ground beneath her feet begins to move faster. And faster. And faster. Soon, the ground beneath her feet is moving faster than her legs can actually move. She decreases the speed. But nothing happens--at least not fast enough to to prevent the mismatch between the speed of her legs and the ground beneath her feet. She is too panicked to push the pause button on the control panel or the stop button that's on the handrail at her side. No, those bright red buttons are just too obvious. I won't tell you the rest of the tale, as I am sure you already have the frightful image in your head.

Some of you may remember my telling you about the road burn from the 4th of July road race. This is much worse (although, happily, confined to one bruised up knee).

Sometimes, it is a good idea to face your fears and overcome their burden. But there are some things you should be afraid of: grizzly bears, semi-trucks driving the wrong way in your lane, treadmills.

my new career path

I am quitting teaching. Yes, I am quitting teaching to become a wood chopper. My friend has a piece of land in Hanksville where he has a small, rustic cabin and big kiln where he fires his pottery. And he needs a lot of fire to operate that kiln. And thus, my new career. He said he would pay me $5 an hour plus room and board. So, I can live in the desert and soak up the sun and hike as much as I want (when I've recovered from the strain of wood-chopping). I'll have to practice a bit as I have no eye/hand coordination and I might initially be a danger to myself and the rats and lizards. But I will eventually have burly arms. The problem with my new plan, however, is that G. only fires twice a year.

So, my other plan to support me in the wood-chopping off-season is to become a Citizen Blogger. I went to part of a panel discussion last week about the constitutional right to protest the government and the title of one of the panelists was "Citizen Blogger." No other qualifications. I already have some good, blogging experience. However, I don't think that anyone will want me on a panel to discuss my random thoughts about life or the books I'm reading or the food I'm eating. So, I have to think of a new blog topic where people will beg to have me on their panels. I am currently taking suggestions.

math as poetry

Over the weekend I saw Proof, the movie version of David Auburn’s play. Watching the movie (which was good enough—and who really cares, anyway, because Jake Gyllenhaal is pretty) I started wondering why there are so many narratives with math as a backdrop, when most of the people I know find math to be painfully distressing. Is it because we are more willing to accept a character’s purported brilliance if it’s numerical brilliance? Is it just that the precision of mathematics provides an interesting counter-metaphor to the chaos of human relationships? Or is there something inherently poetic about math? Do we hope that there is in fact a theory of everything and that somehow math will save us?

I was never particularly good at math. I could get it done and get the answers right, but it always took me a long time. Part of the frustration was that no one could tell me why I was doing the proofs I was doing: “Don’t ask questions! Just do the steps!” I can’t blame my teachers, though. Most of them were football coaches, not mathematicians. Midway through my junior year of high school, I dropped out of trig and pre-calculus and finished my education blissfully math free. But with the decision to quit math, I also abandoned my latent desire to become an astronomer or a botanist.

In college, I opted for an English degree instead of Journalism because I didn’t want to take statistics. But at the very end of my four years, I took two semesters of symbolic logic—what I considered the easiest way complete my math credits (somehow proofs seem a categorically different thing if they are housed in the philosophy department). I loved every moment of my proof writing. I spent hours working out proofs, fitting them into every spare moment, watching the steps unfold one after another. Maybe what I liked so much is that we actually learned what the proofs were about, why it mattered. When I read about Goedel’s proof, I was amazed at how much it explained, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. Once, I completed a proof in fewer steps than my teacher had. At first he thought I was wrong, but I argued my steps, showed him the move from one premise to another. And it was dazzling and elegant and surprising—even to my instructor. It was the proudest moment of my educational career. I don’t know what the proof was about or how it related to anything in my world, but as I guided the elegant progression of each line, I was certain of its poetry.

my hour with the salt lake literati

Last night, I went to hear a 50th anniversary reading of Howl. I don't particularly like Howl or Ginsberg or the Beats. Earlier in the week, I told a friend (who is a big Beat fan) that while I recognized the cultural significance of the Beats, I thought their writing was lame (or something to that effect). But, yesterday I heard Gary Snyder talking on NPR about the first reading of Howl, and he made it sound exciting (or at least worth considering). Partly in an effort to be more open-minded about my tastes and partly because I had nothing else to do, I went to the reading.

The evening began with quite a bit of obnoxiously self-indulgent poetry by various local poets, a film interview that Trent Harris did with Ginsberg, and some decent jazz music. Then, Alex Caldiero, self-proclaimed "sonosopher" chanted a dirge for Ginsberg and then (as the advertising for the event claimed) "channeled" Ginsberg for the reading of Howl. His reading was pretty impressive. I was downstairs from the library's auditorium in the overflow section and there were moments when you could hear Caldiero's voice reverberating down the stairs. I still don't like Howl much, but I can certainly appreciate its energy.

Not surprisingly, I ran into my friend who loves the Beats at the reading. We (the friend, his wife, and a couple of their friends) were going to go out for coffee afterwards, but D. somehow got himself invited to the after-party at Ken Sanders' (the used/ rare bookstore for you non-Salt Lakers). We walked over and there's a list (which of course we weren't on, but because D. is friendly and often loiters at the store they let us in). I've never been to any party with a list, so I felt all at once slightly cool and totally lame. I would be tempted to do some name dropping here, but I'm not even hip enough to know who's who. I will say that when we arrived, Scott Carrier was tending the bar, which I found awfully charming.

I realized that there are people who belong at parties like this and those who do not. I am among the latter. I don't know how to schmooze or network or converse with strangers or whatever one does at such parties (and more so, I don't particularly care to). While we did wander through the crowd a few times to get food and drink, we spent the hour we were there hidden among the stacks. And when you consider that we were chatting amongst all the P's and S's of the literary world, it was a pretty good way to enjoy a party.

confessions of the perpetually late

Today, I tried to check out a book from the public library and apparently I owe them so much money ($33.60 to be exact) in overdue fines that I no longer have borrowing privileges. It takes a special sort of person, I think, to be cut off from the public library.

The most pathetic thing is that I probably only finished one of the books that garnered me the thirty dollars in fines. I blame this sorry book-borrowing behavior on two factors: a) my friend Heidi and b) Blockbuster.


When I was in college, I constantly returned library books late (quite late, far beyond the advertised grace period) but I never got any fines. Then my friend Heidi, who worked at the library, told me that the advertised grace period was not the actual grace period. All that really meant is that I kept my books a week or two longer, to the point where I did extend beyond the actual grace period, and I got fines. But because I had a friend working at the library, all of those fines were magically forgiven.

I used to pay a lot of late fees at Blockbuster--not $30 worth, but enough to keep my slackerly habits in check. Now, with the end of late fees, I continue to live with the illusion that no one cares when I return borrowed materials.