Chemistry, where there is none
I’m bad at math. So, so poor. So excited to receive adequate marks in middle school algebra, I celebrated by making it my AOL screenname, something like IGotA95InMath. What’d I get in math? A 95, and damn proud of it. (Sidenote: AOL and ICQ were much more helpful in learning to type than any typing class. Very helpful when trying to live-transcribe radio interviews of fast-talking basketball coaches.)
Anyway.
I have a social sciences mind in a world that pays drastically better for people in the actual sciences. Instead of long equations and solving for x (I almost made the cliche Twitter joke here), I can tell you the different parts of speech and why adverbs ending in -ly grammatically aren’t connected with a hyphen. Compound modifiers, the highly recommended (and not highly-recommended) word choice of exaggerated prose.
I was going to write about writer’s block. I’ve never had writer’s block. I’ve read about and heard about writer’s block, sometimes in drastic cases the reason some can go weeks or months without being able to string together coherent sentences, just like Steve Blass or Rick Ankiel suddenly realizing they can’t pitch the ball over home plate. But I’ve never had it.
Mostly, it’s the opposite. The thoughts come pouring out. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. When I talk, sometimes I go from Point A to Point D because in my head I’ve already made those connections and moved on. That usually leaves the other person seeking context. The context is that’s how my brain works.
It’s like a trick from high school chemistry class. Let’s say you have a 24-ounce bottle of Diet Coke you want to empty down the drain (because of the aspartame and whatnot). Just cracking the top and turning the bottle 180 degrees will get the job done, but not as quickly as air forces its way inside.
The quickest way to do such a task — I’m imagining I’m being held at knifepoint and will be slashed to death, realizing my worst fear, if I can’t complete this absurd ask in under 10 seconds — is to rotate the bottle while it’s pouring out, creating an air vortex. If I was better at science, I’d explain.
When you do that, the contents come rushing out.
Drink of the week:
Tina’s is such a better name than “Teabag’s.” Anyway, the Negroni.
Further reading:
John Fetterman, Hoodie and All, Is Adjusting to Life in the Senate — and fury [New York Times]
This passage: “You realize when you become a senator, you’re going to be spending 50 percent less time with the people that you love. That breaks my heart. I get emotional thinking about it. FaceTime is much better than just a phone call, but that’s the worst part of the job.”
Father John Misty: Misty Mountain Hop (2013) [Magnet Magazine]
If there’s anything you should know about me, it’s that I love a decade-old celebrity profile.
Inside the subsea cable firm secretly helping America take on China [Reuters]
When’s the last time you thought about deep-sea internet cables being laid across the ocean floor?
Music opinion:
Post-retirement Jay Z. Solo Beyonce. That music video.