Remainder

Last night I helped Thing One finish her math homework. She's learning division, but they're still at the stage of using remainders. I had forgotten about remainders until I saw her mark one with a capital R. I miss them. They make more sense now. When did we start to think we could figure everything out, carry something down to the last digit, the 1000th place or the 1000000th place?

It never works. There are always remainders.

"What's zero, really?" she asked, halfway through.

"It's not really a number," I said. "It's an idea."

"What does that mean?"

"It shows absence. It symbolizes what isn't there."

Thing One thought about this for a minute. "Yeah," she said. "Like it's a circle around nothing. Like, 'look, here's nothing!'" She laughed.

I nodded. I thought about the Chudnovsky brothers who built their own computer to calculate pi. When I last read about them, they had calculated out 2 billion places, with still no pattern found, no final number. There has always been something strangely comforting to me about that, about them. The faith it takes to keep going. The fact no end is in sight.

"I like the remainders," I said.

But Thing One had already gone on to the next idea. "Zero is like tomorrow. Like the word tomorrow."

"What?" I said.

"Tomorrow is an idea, too," she said. "So it's like zero. There isn't a real tomorrow. You never get there."

Remember how I was all "Thing One isn't as smart as I was, wah-wah-wah"?

Now? Now I have to DESTROY her!

*tm

Comments

[belgium]

Tomorrow is like infinity. It hovers in the distance in a place we can never reach. Sort of like the heat that hovers on sun-baked asphalt, the wavy lines we see as we're driving down a long stretch of road. Someday I want to reach those wavy lines!

But I never want to reach Pi, especially now that I know that Pi is a 2 Billion-long character Beast. Something like that just does not hover in the distance but threatens to devour you. Whole forests are necessarily de-treed every time some pointy-headed scientist wants to print out his calculations.

But enough digressions on mathematics. Have I told you yet that French Fries were actually invented in Belgium?

[Comic Hero]

...and to this wisdom I can only add: it is hope that fills in the weary gaps, the unfulfilled promises; hope stills the shaking hands, the bloody noses, the heart that otherwise wants to race till it explodes. What else could be the reddest charge towards desire, all recklessness and sweat, and the cool hand, lilac, shade, and lavender, on the back of your neck?

It's a damn small comfort, for sure; but I think I know better than to deny.

I guess the crucial difference (though I could be miles away) between faith and hope is that faith demands a certain protocol, a way of dreaming the future into being; hope merely holds her breath, long as she has to.

[Comic Hero]

And in conclusion, there should be an extra switch on this blog that follows*:

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO POST THIS? YES/NO

MAYBE YOU'RE REALLY F%!$*ING HAMMERED ON A SUNDAY NIGHT. YES/NO

WHAT IF YOU'RE GRADING MIDTERMS WITH A GLASS OF TEQUILA IN ONE HAND AND A BOTTLE OF CORONA IN THE OTHER? SHOULD THIS STILL COUNT AS A REALISTIC PORTRAYAL OF YOUR EDUCATED YET TORTURED AND DELICATELY POISED MFA GRADUATE WRITERLY SOUL? YOU STILL WANT TO POST THIS? YES/NO

*none of which detracts from the fantastickness of TM's blog tonight.

[Tink]

Damn, deep thougths for a small Thing.

[Friend2]

True. Twas deep.

Don't be delicate, CH. Back when I knew you, as FUTUREBOY, you were better at denial. Consequently, I offer you this appropriately overwrought ode to denial:

Denial can be necessary. It is the method of the man who refuses to check his credit card balance—better not to know than to face the damage. It's the logic of the drinker—better to lose yourself in liquid distraction than reckon with the sorry present. In a way, we start early with denial: as children we know Santa's a sham, but hope against hope for magic; made childlike again by age, we deny death. Who says there’s no courage in whistling a happy tune? Survival exists in the (Corona and Tequila supported) sanctuary between the unbearable truth and the unsustainable fictions we use to evade facing it. Were we to recognize our weakness in every moment, we would be unable to continue; we would be paralyzed, starstruck, stricken. Denial can be a blessing.

Yup. Also, yadda ya-dadda, ya-yadda.

Hope Vegas is kind these days.

[Friend2]

Oh, yeah. Kickass blog, TM. Thing One is now, officially, a philosopher of order high.

[jennifer]

I think Thing One is officially ready for Chekhov and Joel, and possibly a full-on lesson in imaginary numbers.

[Kari]

the idea that one of my instructors was grading my midterms while drinking tequila and beer is nudging Thing One contemplating zmorrow out of first place on the fantastical idea list.