- Private: memoir: about this series
- magical thinking
- sharp things
- neutrality
- depression
- in which my father deals with post office shenanigans
- Lincoln Park Zoo 1959
- visiting
- men in bars
- grandiosity
- The Bat, the Knee, the Bicycle, and Dick, the Doctor
- what came before; what’s coming
- Mathematician Update and Statutes of Limitation
- Irritability and the Mathematician
- the anniversary of my mother’s death
- islands in the storm
- the mother-granddaughter (dis)connection
- the inbetweens
- 25 years ago just before Halloween
Any thoughts on what to call somebody who stays calm and just fixes things? Because I married a person like that.
The Mathematician is competent past all good manners. It would be nice if once in a while he just couldn’t figure something out. The worst part? He teases me.
I’ll say: What’s wrong with [the window, the cat, the washer, the car, etc etc] and he’ll immediately respond: Well, I don’t know. Then he repeats it, with a bit of a huff, trying out another word for emphasis: I don’t know.
Then I retire to wait. Because (1) he does know and (2) he will fix it. He’ll just pop his head in and say: fixed it.
His mother tells a story about how the car wouldn’t start. He was about twelve at the time. So he’s looking under the hood, standing next to his father — a highly skilled engineer. Nothing’s working. Bill walks away and sits down in the kitchen. He stares into space for about ten minutes and then he looks up, walks out to the car and says to his father: try this. And the car starts.
I think he automatically says idunno because (1) it’s irritating to know everything (but not as irritating as it is to live with somebody who knows everything); (2) he wants to keep me guessing as in: Crickey, did I really find something he can’t do? Will I have to call (ominous drum beats) a repair person?
Those words “call repair” will galvanize him into action. He hates other people fiddling around with the house. Oh, the little games married people play.
Once I decided to test him. I said, “I called the repair guy to come look at the oven door.” I wish I had had a video camera. The looks that passed over his face: wait, you did what!?!?
And then it came out of his mouth: Why did you do that? I’ll look at it..
Unfortunately that faking-him-out approach only worked that one time. That’s the thing about people who are really, really smart. You can teach the Mathematician a new card game and after two hands, he starts winning and (unless this is a game of chance) he’ll keep winning. It’s inevitable.
You've stumbled across my official website and landed on the front page of my weblog.
Ok, now I know I’m addicted. You take your blog away for a few hours and I start to worry, think crazy thoughts LOL. Sarah Supreme thank you.
Looking forward to the excerpts and the storymachine challenge.
This is a great place to be.
Yes – I noticed. I was in the process of submitting a comment on the delightful Toaster story and all of a sudden a large message appeared across my whole screen.
And you know how it is. You look at it. And then you realise it actually means something. Oh no! It’s all gone. Some desperate clicking of the ‘back’ button and then you further realise it really has all gone.
I didn’t despair though. I knew Sarah would fix it. “Sarah saves the day”
Thanks.
As to what to call someone who can stay calm and fix things. ‘A miracle’ springs to mind. And may I say that it doesn’t quite seem fair that you seem to have 2 of them at hand.
I am really looking forward to the Pajama Girls excerpt. I have been curious about this story every since you gave us the first teaser about the two main characters. But if this book and Book Six were available at the same time on the sme day, I’d still go read Book Six first.