I know. Put my earmuffs on the cookie.

Lots of little things.

---

This morning I was listening to my iPod on shuffle while waiting for the bus. ("My iPod on Shuffle While Waiting for the Bus", or any subset of that, is not the title of a song. While I was waiting for the bus, I was listening to my iPod, which was set to shuffle. Of course, "My iPod, Which Was Set to Shuffle" sounds like a good title for a song too.) A really catchy instrumental song came on. I was cool and dramatic and exciting, and it took me awhile to recognize that it was the theme to the TV show Dallas. I'm glad I never watched that show, so that I'm able to imagine anything I want happening during the song, and not just those snooty rich people from the show. (I think there were snooty rich people on the show. Like I said, I never watched it.) It's a good song.

---

I got a cool parking ticket on Monday. I say it was cool because it was the best possible parking ticket to get. It was stamped with a time which was seven minutes AFTER the time stamped on my receipt for paying for parking! I appealed it, and just got a letter that my appeal was accepted, or course. Along with my appeal, I gave them the following link, which is a scan of the ticket and my receipt: http://www.math.cornell.edu/~goldberg/receipt.jpg.

---

Yesterday I went to one of those humongous book stores and bought a comic. With my receipt I received one of those offers to call and tell the company about the service in the store, with a reward of 15% of any item. I don't care too much about the coupon, because I get coupons from that place all the time with no catches, but the cashier is really nice and I wanted to put in a good word. Tonight I called the number, and started with the answering of questions. "On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 meaning ~~~ and 4 meaning ~~~ and ... and 1 meaning ~~~, please rate ~~~~." They repeated the scale several times. I just didn't have the longevity to finish the call. I gave up after ten minutes. It was just too intense.

You know how they use that information, right? When you're asked to rate the service of an employee on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, they put your answer into one of two categories: "5" and "not 5". It's a binary scale masquerading as a much larger discrete scale!

I love the big bookstores. Not only are there so many books, and also so many comic books, and now so many CDs and DVDs, but the atmosphere is great. And it's such a social place. I see more people I know there, than almost anywhere else, except school. Although, to be fair, that's something of a biased observation, because I really don't go anywhere except school, bookstores, and my apartment.

---

I had an IM conversation with a girl I know recently. It started with her saying, "I have a random question." Boy, that always makes my heart skip a beat. The random question could be anything, which is, of course, what random means. But I start imagining things, and the things I imagine are pretty random too.

"What is a covering map?"

"What's the capital of Spain?"

"Would you donate your kidney to me?"

"Do you want to go out some time?"

"Are you gay?"

"Can you give me a ride to the airport?"

"What's the last day of classes?"

"What's your favorite color?"

"What's your favorite compact manifold?"

"Are your parents married?"

"What kind of shampoo do you use?"

"Are you wearing pants?"

"Am I wearing pants?"

And so on.

Another noticed thing

Sharing some pizza with the Prospective Students and basically everybody else either in the building or within a short radius of the building, I was watching the different groups of people. I thought of something that I think is ridculously funny.

You know how, supposedly, a shark can only keep breathing so long as it keeps swimming? Something to do with having to force water past its gills, or something? Well, I think there are a number of people in the department who can only keep breathing so long as they are talking.

Furthermore, some of these people can probably keep breathing only so long as they keep talking about themselves. Further furthermore, they may need to keep talking about how great and awesome they are, especially in comparison to whoever they are talking to. (More appropriately, "whoever they are talking at".)

I'm not kidding. I really think this might be true. Just you look around you.

Noticed things

Ok, I just met with some of the Prospective Students, and they're not that bad. This whole mess isn't really so horrible, I guess. Although it's just started. I may change my mind again before today is over.

I really love seeing a ton of male grad students hovering around, or even hovering over, the desk of a female grad student. Part of why I think it's so funny is that it's just SO damn obvious. If I'm honest, another reason it's funny is that I have little doubt that it's something I've done myself. But I hope I was more subtle about it.
The
I drove to school today. It's raining periodically, and the thick blanket of snow is thinning, but also becoming more homogeneous and blanket-like under the pelting. What I noticed, and have surely noticed before, is all the ridulously stupid people who didn't have their headlights on. The thing I noticed today is the strong correlation between having the headlights off and having a car whose color is quite similar to the color of the surrounding sky and land.

It was dark and stormy looking today, and all the cars I saw with their headlights off (excepting the parked ones) were black or grey. I remember during some of the strong snow showers we've had recently that most of the cars that didn't have their lights on were white, or light grey.

Incredible. Darwin is rolling in his grave.

Another thing I noticed, this while driving last night, is how caught up I get by watching pedestrian crossing lights when they start blinking. You know how the light shows a white pedestrian when it's ok to cross (walk), and a red hand signaling "stop" when it's not ok (don't walk), and when changing from the former to the latter it shows the red hand flashing. I am absolutely fascinated by the flashing red, especially in that moment when the pattern of its flashing is interrupted early by its change to a solid red. It blinks on off on off on off on off on off, and during one of those "off"s it switches to "on" an instant too soon, and then stays "on".

I find that unless I concentrate, I habitually watch the blinking light, waiting for the pattern to be broken so abruptly. It's not a problem yet for me, but it might become one unless I watch it.

By the way, one of the coolest names for a cafe or bar or whatever it was that I ever saw was The Corner of Walk and Don't Walk. It's on the corner of two streets (of course) in Manhattan, one of which is Bleeker Street. I don't remember what the other one is.

2. An invisible force surrounding a living creature.

I hate Prospective Student Weekend. I'm generally uncomfortable in large social gatherings, but I'm also somewhat fanatical about knowing what's going on at any given time, so, paradoxically and quite unfortunately, I don't like not going to large social gatherings. This weekend promises a large number of them.

I also don't like all the new people suddenly wandering around, or being showed around. I'm very possessive of the place that I work, and I get nervous when people I don't know are around. I hate it how I'll get introduced to the person, and the person will get a short bio of me. "This is Tim. He is a fourth year. He doesn't like the weather here." Which is ridiculous. I love the weather her. I just call it crappy weather because that's what the consensus reality says that weather like this is. Crappy. I like it.

If I'm going to be grumpy, I want it to be nice and grumpy in the sky too.

I was sitting around with some people, and one of the organizers of the Weekend came into the room, and said to herself but also kind of to the room in general, "Now who can I ask to drive visiting students around?" She wandered around the cubicles, walking right past me. I knew that she could see me, because she detoured a little bit around my chair so as not to trip and fall right into me, not that I would have minded that especially, because she is very very pretty, but it was like I had some aura around me that made me invisible. She completely ignored me, both coming and going.

I should have just stayed quiet, but instead I blurted out my thoughts regarding this mysterious aura of mine. And of course, now I have to drive some students to a party. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

This same aura virtually guarantees me a seat to myself on the bus. It is uncanny the lengths to which some people will go so as not to sit next to me. Especially girls. Creepy guys, on the other hand, are completely unaffected by my powers. Naturally.

Also in the category of my paradoxical dislikes and desires, I found that this year, like all of them in the past, I have been almost completely unapproached to have anything at all to do with the visiting students. Someone did actually ask me to meet with a student for ten minutes, because the student is meeting my advisor right after or before, and I expressed my wonderment and at my general uninvolvement. She suggested that people are probably trying to concentrate on getting younger students involved, who will be here for a long time with the prospectives should they choose to come. But this is no different from any other year.

The one time ever that I was asked to go out to eat with a prospective was when the prospective was my friend and was actually staying with me. And even then it was almost iffy.

So I think that being involved would be a horrible uncomfortable nuisance, but at the same time I am grievously offended that nobody wants me, or thinks to want me, involved. It's this aura. It says "Go away." Or it sets something off in people that makes them want to go away.

This is not a good aura for a lonely person to have.