my boss refused to give me the afternoon off for tired. I am going to take a stab at this "work" stuff. YAWN!

Here's more context (if folks want I'll post the whole thing):

It is no secret that our collective knowledge of math is a woeful mess. Any number of studies lament this country's mathematical duh-ness. In the late 1980's, John Allen Paulos, a mathematician at Temple University, wrote the best-selling book "Innumeracy," which examined mathematical illiteracy and found it to be rampant.

Have we since improved? Not significantly, Professor Paulos says. "Fewer Americans are going into math," he said the other day. "A disproportionate number of math professors in this country are foreign-born."

Similar concerns are expressed by Alfred S. Posamentier, a mathematician who is dean of the School of Education at City College of New York. Math, he said, is "the only subject in the curriculum where adults are proud to say they were lousy. From childhood on, kids have heard it from their parents."

So, I think it's just a math guy's perception.

My mother did often say her math was lousy. Her arithmetic, on the other hand, was freaky good. And, really, in day to day life plus her job requirements, she was well set. It's mostly arithmetic.

I'm pretty proud to say I'm lousy at math. Maybe it pales in comparison to other high school subjects because I can't buy a $5 machine that reads French for me.

Barriers to a subway to the beach in LA may be coming down.

I'm not proud to say I'm bad at anything. It's just a thing. Not pride-making.

I'm kind of sad that my mathiness petered out after freshman calculus. It's sort of like there was a line in my head that read, "This is the sum total of math this person can handle." I re-took calc. just to see if I could move past it--no go, C's both times. Disappointing.

I was fine in math until second semester calculus. Somewhere around square roots, my head exploded.

I totally kicked ass at every math class I took. Which was a bunch of classes beyond third semester calc.

The Cthulhu Circus

[link]

(Family Circus meets Lovecraft)

Huh. So it sounds like I was freaking lucky to get out of Chicago last night. It's all windy and overcast and spitty outside.

I was fine in math until I had a theory class. Give me a practical problem and I could figure it out (until thermo) but theory? Brain don't do that. It's kind of odd.

I need to call my brother. Kind of dreading this. OTOH, I can't talk much still (voice got worse- sure it was all the plane air) so I'll just be a good listener.