A Happy End of Calculus Dance

Calculus B.C. is over, thank goodness. Unfortunately, I can't discuss the questions, as I signed an affidavit (I actually don't think that it is an affidavit, it's just that I'm rather fond of that word. Too bad I don't know what it means) that I wouldn't.

The nice part about calc is that I got to leave school early after the test was finished. Naturally, The Diner was the chosen destination. Nyx and I left school and headed out. I got out first, and, seeing a car approaching from the direction of the typically closed side entrance, elected to take the shorter exit route. Just as I was pulling in, a freckled arm emerged from the window of the small car and began to make an odd sort of wave.

The car drew level with me and Boris called out "Go back. It's closed!"

He then drove away. I made a twelve point turn (as Nyx described it "I was going to go that way, but Tea's truck was sideways.") and exited by the more accepted route, where the security guard was, per usual, not bothering to check anybody's school-leaving-identification.

Excited. Exited. Two words that are spelled far too much alike. Regardless, I got to the diner without missing the turn (which Sergio, reportedly, did). I waited stood outside of the diner with Boris until Nyx showed up, then spent the time getting a table trying to explain to the hostess how I didn't know how many people were in my party.

By the time we hit the tables, we were seven strong. Upon discovering that only six fit in the booth we had, four people went to the second table (Sergio was, I believe, following Gnatta, which he can't seem to bring himself to stop doing. Then again, I still do the same to Mario, so I can't talk). Tybalt stayed with Nyx and I despite an announcement that "there was nobody at this table."

Apparently Nyx and I aren't people. Thanks, Tybalt. Thanks a lot.

Anyways, Mario and Dino soon arrived, Dino's speech replete with complaints about Mario's driving, to which Mario's response was "at least I drive better than Irving." Honestly, the amount he talks about him, its no wonder we joke about their nocturnal activities.

Nyx and I spent at least some portion of the lunch laughing at the way Mario wriggled his hands about (look! I'm flexing my finger muscles!) while speaking. Tybalt also finally formulated the perfect Dino-directed response for "Where's Kathrya?" which is one of his favorite questions. "Where's Lauretta?" seems to be functioning quite well.

Continued Ruminations on Reunions

Yuma has his own energy startup. He runs it with full employee support, miraculously. He somehow managed to develop some astonishing social skills. At some point, he bought my battery concept, the one I'd held onto since high school, and incorporated it into his business plan. The money from that allows me to fund a reasonable lifestyle while still doing academic research. It allows him to be a billionaire, so everyone wins.

Gnatta runs a strip club where the primary attraction is Rachel (that suggestion was Ginny. The strip club was me, though) and the magically duplicating twins (two of Mario's clones). At one point, Sergio went to the strip club, and, seeing Rachel, elected to try to rescue her. He went back to talk to her and ran into Gnatta. The two get into a huge fight, claws out. Then, "Gnatta trips, falls over, and accidentally kisses Sergio, and they discover they've secretly loved each other all this time, and the fights were just denials, so they make up and come to the reunion holding hands, but, once there" (Ginny quote!), Scott declares his undying love for Sergio. Sergio struggles between the two, but then Scott snatches Sergio away, and the two run off into the moonlight and live happily ever after.

Julie is an astronaut, and she has just gotten back from the moon. She brings a moon rock to the reunion, and it has special properties, distorting electrical signals. When she comes near Dino, he short-circuits even more severely and collapses to the floor. Melissa, who has apparently been there the whole time, rushes over. "Oh, dear," she says. "This happens sometime. Ever since we extracted his circuit for multiplication purposes-"

We look at her blankly.

"For our children! They are small and lovely and will never grow up."

"Wait," said Cammie, who had wondered over, robo-baby in hand. "How old is this little fellow, then?"

"Well, 14. But you still look two, don't you honey." Melissa accepted the baby and pinched its cheeks. She then extracted a key from it, restarted Dino, and continued as if nothing at all had happened.

We move on, then, to Cammie, who has been working as an English teacher at our dear old Paperclip High School. She almost didn't come to the reunion, but decided, at the last minute, that since it was so close, she might as well. Anyways, she somehow (and no one is certain how) ended up marrying Lyle directly out of college. They had a couple of tight-pants-wearing children, and lived the perfect cookie cutter life. Then, one day, (again, completely inexplicably), Eccentrius decides to visit. Of course, being eccentric, he does this by showing up with a can of paint that changes colors in the sunlight, climbing over the perfect picket fence, and beginning to paint. Cammie, naturally, has no idea how to respond, but, after a good deal of running about, Lyle runs off with his secretary, who turns out to have chlamydia, and then Cammie and Eccentrius get together. They marry while hanging upside down by their legs from a tree. The minister sits upon a suspended tire. The newlyweds honeymoon in Swahili, where they visit Nyx and get some much-deserved sun.

While they are gone, Avon watches the kids. She manages to fit them in around her busy schedule at her private pediatrics practice. Her partner there is Lucas. Nobody expected him to go into medicine- to be honest, no one realized he was that good at school- but he hit college running, got into med school, and ended up, somehow, in pediatrics. When Avon wanted to start a private practice and started looking for doctors in the area, she found him, and the two established their own office. They worked together platonically for quite some time. After all, he was married to Cora Lee for quite some time, until he realized that she was just a bit mad. However, he neglected to tell Avon about the divorce for months, despite the constant flirting. Poor Avon was in agony, convinced she would hurt Cora Lee, certain she was being morally unsound. She finally caved when, while at Lucas's house (for a completely explicable, nonsexual reason), she saw the divorce papers sitting on his desk.

Anyways, I think that's enough of the future for the time being.

Avoidance

I'd been avoiding writing about SHP, mostly because, although Melissa, Irving, and Mario haven't objected to my joining their little group, I can tell that they really wouldn't mind if I wasn't there. Not that that's some huge issue- there are now seven or so people on the train, so one or two missing wouldn't make that much difference. It's more this general dislike of them that's developing after listening to them bad mouth virtually every other smart person. I'm exaggerating really, and they're probably people I wouldn't like either For instance, I am perfectly willing to join discussions about how ridiculous Boris is, but even so, Boris doesn't really bother me, he just kind of is. I think maybe I'm just a bit less sensitive to ingratiating behavior. I mean, I can barely remember why I dislike Gnatta at this point, and even Dino, cruel as he may be, is bearable.

Funny how much nicer Mario seemed last year, when it was just him. Right now, his comments about freshman girls (See that black Nissan? There's a bed in the back. You up for it?), let alone the one's about middle schoolers ("I was hoping I misheard you, but, no, Mario, that is not an option," in Archie's words) are mostly making me want to punch him. Granted, this may be a defense mechanism designed to get me over him faster, and perhaps indicates that some portion of my subconscious has finally come to terms with the futility of it all, but maybe he was just a dick and I didn't notice it before, or this may be a statement about how nasty people become when put in groups, or about how males, when confronted with societal expectations, feel the need to act like nasty bastards.

I'm not sure, to be honest.

Amazing

is that a group of people in my science class (Ali, Gnatta, Christoph, Dino, Tybalt, and Sergio) were able to have a long discussion about shoe sizes (Dino, for any interested parties, had the largest) without devolving in the slightest bit to making size jokes. There weren't even any snickers and pointed glances. I'm somewhat shocked. I thought that other high schoolers spent as much time in the gutter as I do!

On a more serious note, we had a discussion about gender distribution during math today. For some reason, only one third of the B.C. calc classes are female. Why did this happen? Oh, fellow females, why have you abandoned me so? I think the whole "guys are better at math" thing is utterly bogus. Do guys really just care that much less about grades? Maybe they don't feel that constant need to prove themselves, to show the teacher and fellow students that they really deserve to be in the tough classes. Are girls just scared out of the big, bad, b.c.? It seems difficult to believe. And when, precisely, are we getting funneled into lower levels. It doesn't seem to be early on, so why such a skew at higher levels? I don't get it! Does it have to do with us just assuming that guys are smarter? I mean, look at Gretchie's and my valedictorian list. Sure, we managed eight guys on the last one, but that took a fair amount of manipulating on out part. The first people we thought of on our extended list were all male, and we had to talk ourselves into adding girls to the top spots on the final. And as far as reputations go, the smart people, when others are asked to name them, are Bryant, Tybalt, Livny, and Mario. Never mind that Julie took B.C. last year as well, or that I keep up with Tybalt just fine much of the time, or that Livny has an ego far larger than anything else of his (that was a size joke), or that Mario really isn't much of writer. It's always the guys who get listed! It's just so utterly infuriating!

End rant.