April 02, 2003

Liquid Courage

When I was thirteen-years-old I had a major crush on a track star who went to a different junior high. (I ran the 200 hurdles and the 400-meter relay and admired him while pretending to adjust my cleats.) I once practiced my flute for 350% longer than usual just so I could have permission to go to a track meet at which his junior high was competing but mine was not. I'd read his track meet scores in the paper and cut out pictures. I considered digging in the burn barrel to retrieve pictures. I looked up his address and memorized his phone number. I went to air band contests just in case he'd be there.

I held on to this crush for two years. Then I found out he was bad at math. Goodbye, Trackstar. I'll never measure your hypoteneuse; you won't be graphing my cosine.

My question is: what happened? I'm not denying that I still drop folk for my varying definitions of being Bad at Math, but what happened to the part of my brain where I just looked cute in my cleats and thought he would think so? When did it move from "I think you're neat so I'm going to make sure I can even be near you" to "I must question whether or not I actually like you based on the fact that if you were gay I'd so be friends with you but since you're straight maybe I'm supposed to like like you and I can't even tell so howsa about I just act all diplomatic and drink a bunch of beer and tell loud stories and get to wondering about imaginary numbers?

Gaw. Somebody's a scaredy-pants.

Posted by Ida at April 2, 2003 12:07 AM
Comments

"I'll never measure your hypoteneuse?"

Posted by: flamingbanjo at April 3, 2003 02:10 PM

well, that makes sense. she obviously knows the lengths of the legs.

Posted by: benlau at April 3, 2003 03:22 PM

Huh. Am I miscontextualizing if I assume this in any way relates to dinner with the B-boys last night?

Posted by: THE COMTE at April 4, 2003 09:09 AM

And if memory serves, she only needs to know the length of one leg and the two adjacent angles or conversely both legs and the one contiguous angle to determine the length of the hypoteneuse.

Posted by: THE COMTE at April 4, 2003 09:12 AM

if memory...or GOOGLE serve.

or is it, if memory, then google.

Posted by: benlau at April 4, 2003 10:30 AM

It is safe to assume that if you--no matter whom "you" may really be--are trying to figure out what I meant when I said something cryptic, that, yes, you are miscontextualizing.

If unclear, then mistaken.

Posted by: Ida at April 4, 2003 01:09 PM

I wasn't assuming -I- was in any way directly involved, but it certainly wouldn't have been the first time I completely did not pick up on something going on right under my very nose...

Posted by: THE COMTE at April 5, 2003 11:21 AM