Doubling

There's restlessness to the air tonight. The weather here is unsettled. As usual, the beginning of my workweek was intense. If weeks had an emotional cycle, Mondays often are times of uncertainty. By the end of the week, Fridays, I usually feel highly energized, engaged by my work, hopeful about the future.

But Mondays are times when problems can seem suddenly overwhelming, when my chosen path in life -- to swim uphill -- just requires more energy that I can muster.

At such times, my mind tends to revert to some very old patterns, most of them vaguely mathematical. My childhood propensity, whenever I felt anxious, to start doubling numbers (i.e., 1, 2, 4 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536 -- that's usually as far as I could go at age 8 without hesitating), has recently returned to haunt me as I drive alone along the highway, much to my chagrin.

I thought I'd eliminated this particular ghost over a decade ago.

Usually, something in my universe is not quite right; otherwise my mind doesn't race away into this mathematical wasteland -- this hopeless attempt to control the uncontrollable. Someone or something I love is on the move; the center of balance has suddenly shifted.

What's disconcerting is how I know these things without knowing anything about the particulars of what is destabilizing my universe. Sometimes, I find out a detail that helps justify these distractions; other times, the person or factor responsible chooses to remain silent, leaving me to no choice but these crazy calculations, which never end and lead to no conclusion.

My dear genius Chinese friend who is a Japanese Literature major, and her companion invited me to a ramen restaurant in San Mateo tonight (Santa); and somehow we revealed these inner calculation nightmares to each other. She gave mine a name (Doubling) and then discussed hers. She squares numbers to rectify her proclivity, even after eight years in this country, to translate miles back to kilometers, and Fahrenheit back to Celsius.

After thinking it through, maybe I'll adopt her particular mathematical obsession in place of my own. I think I like hers better; it's more practical. Luckily, she may move here this summer, and if so, I extracted a promise that she will teach me, at long last, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, crashing against which ended all notions that I might be a successful math major four decades ago.

Ramen took me back to Koenji, where I rather wish I was right now. The weather here is so unsettling; the skies are alternating dark and light; an uneasy wind blows. I wish I knew why I am so uncomfortable in my own skin tonight.

My Grandma believed she was psychic, and most of the rest of us reckoned she was. I have secretly always believed I am too, though I hate it, and don't want to be. I hate premonitions, even as I note them, silently, when they come to me, and recall them later when they turn out to be correct.

Not always are they real.

***

Fantasy Baseball is here and I feel such a relief! Now, I have a hobby to devote the great excesses of one part of my brain to, since no one pays me for that stuff, nor values it at all. But my dearly beloved Michigan Mafia obtained slugger Jason Bay, a couple good starters and a couple good relievers in the draft. I need to do some calculations (YES!) but I think we may well be better than we were last year.

-30-

...You've built a love but that love falls apart.
Your little piece of heaven turns too dark.

Listen to your heart
when he's calling for you.
Listen to your heart
there's nothing else you can do.
I don't know where you're going
and I don't know why,
but listen to your heart
before you tell him goodbye.

--Roxette