Hey, look at that! It's the return of the Math Icon.

Okay, I am quite pleased with my brain.

I had taken a fairly long break from my math studies while trying to do everything else I've been trying to do, and was worried I would have forgotten everything in the intervening six months or so. But if anything, my brain seems to have integrated what I was struggling to learn last winter (I did say it had been quite a long hiatus, but hey, I'm doing this for fun, and the thing about lifetime learner projects is that they are, well, intended to stretch out over a lifetime.)

So I cracked open the books this morning and picked right up again with proportion and variation, including word problems, without any trouble at all.

Which means I have just the self-test on this, and then a review chapter with word problems (still made of hate) to do, and it's on to trigonometry. In fact, the book is staring at me from the bookcase across the living room as we speak.

In celebration, I think I will eat something that isn't carrot sticks.

Yes, I am spamming livejournal today.

Item the first: new folks

Hi!

Some in, get comfy. Introduce yourselves. Ask questions. Hang out. Hijack comment threads and talk about Greek history. Seriously, it's what it's there for.

I just ask you be polite to other comment-thread denizens, even if you disagree with them. And please be understanding if I don't answer every comment. I have somehow become a very busy Bear.

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Item the second: daily rambling

Well, I have not forgotten how to factor quadratic equations, despite not having cracked the math books since early September. I think I will be getting back into this, actually, because it gave me great joy to pull out the book and play with numbers and variables for a little while.

I seem to have developed rather a lot of hobbies, which between them may be making up for the difficulty I am still having in reading any fiction with enjoyment. (My critique function is stuck on. Which is useful to me as a writer and slush reader, not so useful when I want to settle down and enjoy a novel. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to affect reading nonfiction. Which is good, because nonfiction is a very useful thing for novelists to read.)

Man, tomorrow I really need to get this pile of email dealt with. I think I need a personal assistant. Unfortunately, I can't afford to pay one....

I've been thinking about my work schedule, because after WFC I am going to need to get mean and consistent about work again, as the deadlines are flickering up over the horizon. And about how I can manage to balance work and the things I need to do to keep sane/keep flexible/encourage my diversity of thought so I don't keep writing the same book over and over. I seem to have developed an awful lot of hobbies. (I am a dilettante. I am moderately bad at everything, but I do a lot of different things moderately poorly. Hey, I have my crowning passion; this other stuff I am allowed to suck at.)

Which are, to wit--

Things I am doing and want to keep doing:

1) archery/pistol shooting. Not only do I have an excellent archery store and range two towns over, but there's been some talk between netcurmudgeon, ashacat, taichigeek, and me about shooting some things that go boom in addition to the things that go swish-thwack.

2) guitar. I need, at this juncture, an actual teacher. I think I have plateaued in what I can figure out for myself.

3) maths. Almost done with the first algebra book, and having too much fun to quit now. Mmm, that problem-solving dopamine hit is the good drugs.

4) rock climbing. Yes, hooked.

5) hiking. So nice to be back in the saddle with that, after having seriously fallen off the horse some years ago. Also, it's training for Project: Kilimanjaro.

6) gym. Three times a week. And a couple of other days for non-gym exercise. Not only does it do a wonderful job of normalizing my serotonin levels, thereby making me into a striking facsimile of a neurochemically normal person, but it's essential for Project: Kilimajaro training.

7) Criminal Minds fandom. I get a fandom. Because it entertains the heck out of me, and because narrative analysis is good for my writer-brain. (Okay, I have several fandoms, but the others are all on the level of "I love my dead gay show," and therefor very low-maintenance.

---

Things I would like to do more of include:

8) I want a martial art again. In my copious spare time.

9) ditto, horseback riding.

10) ditto, travel

11) ditto, live music. God, it's nice to be back in the land of the traveling folkie again. Vienna Teng on Thursday!

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Things I need to do, professionally:

12) meet my writing commitments (novels, blog, critiques, secrit projekt, keeping up on the state of the genre, refining and expanding my craft, etc.)

13) keep packing the science and history and biography and politics and whatever else into my head, because it is needful to the art.

14) not take on any more commitments for the foreseeable future. I am full up, as they say.

---

Things that are non-negotiable:

15) making time for my friends and family.

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Here's a dirty shamefaced silent little secret about writing--or actually, no, it's not a dirty secret. It's a great crowing truth.

The more stuff you do, the more you undertake to learn, the greater your breadth of acquaintance and experience--the better your art is.

The more real your life, the more closely observed and researched your stories will be.

Read. Do. Experience. Play. Explore. Create.

Or get old and stale.

Well, I have finished chapter ten of the Algebra book. Next up, chapter 11, proportions. I hope the sense of getting the hang of this I've been having is not self-deception, because I'm sort of enjoying it.

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Via lexiphanic, a meme where you set your playlist on randomize, list a lyric from the first 25 songs that come up (without cheating) and invite people to guess the song. GOOGLING IS CHEATING.

Made for me, right? Right.

Winamp says it has 13,871 sound files to work with. I will edit out the ones that are instrumental or in languages I do not speak well enough to transcribe.

Here goes.

1.) You can stake that claim. Good work is the key to good fortune. (Rush - Roll the Bones skidspoppe)
2.) Boiled in Lead - Cuz Mapfumo
2.) She had not pulled a rose, a rose, a rose but barely one-- (Steeleye Span -Tam Lin sovay)
3.) Ian Anderson - The Stormont Shuffle
3.) Movie sound file clip: "Spandex! It's a privilege, not a right!" Yes, I am about to turn 36, how kind of you to notice.
3.) Every night my dream's the same. Same old city but a different game. (The Arcade Fire - Keep The Car Running nebula99)
4.) You've been saying it's hard to sleep. You've been thinking of me. For some reason you're afraid to feel.
5.) I've seen a lot of sunshine. Slept out in the rain. Spent a night or two all on my own. (Oh man, hoist on my own petard.) (John Denver - Poems, Prayers, and Promises mrissa, though she tried not to claim it.)
6.) I hear your voice in every corridor. I see your face in every picture frame. I feel your eyes in every starry sky. Lover, am I coming home again? (Oh, MUCH better.) (Janis Ian - Light A Light warriorofworry; desperance)
7.) And you know there was twelve coal-black horses on Britannia Street. Twelve coal-black hustlers decked in leather, don't you know it?
8.) Got no time to pack my bags. My foot's outside the door. (Led Zeppelin - The Ocean rezendi)
9.) Tangerine Dream - Purple of All Curtains
9.) When all my hopes and dreams have been betrayed I stand before you. My hands are empty. (Tracy Chapman - I Am Yours sargent)
10.) Jethro Tull - Elegy
10.) One more day all on my own. One more day with him not caring. (Les Miserables (Company) One Day More sovay)
11.) Haul on the bowline, the captain is a-growling! (Bob Neuwirth - Haul on the Bowline sovay)
12.) She went to church on Sunday and sang the anthem sweet. The parson was a misery, so scraggy and so thin. Look here, you motherfuckers, if you lead a life of sin-- (Nick Cave - Fire Down Belowsovay)
13.) Big time rollers. Part time models. So much to plunder that I think I'll sleep instead. (Rufus Wainwright - California caoilfhionn)
14.) Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake, Op. 20, Waltz
14.) Mystery Science Theatre - Gypsy Moons
14.) It's you that I adore. You'll always be my whore. (Candymachine 88 with Tina Root - Ava Adore -- half credit to erinya, half credit to the_red_shoes)
15.) He came from Heaven, two stakes in his hand. To stalk the vampires and free the land. (theme from Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter: "Everybody Gets Laid Tonight" blackaire)
16.) Then Marcus heard on the radio that a movie star was dying. He turned the tuner way down low so Hortense could go on sleeping. (Phil Ochs - Jim Dean of Indiana the_red_shoes)
17.) Kraftwek - Pocket Calculator
17.) Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata
17.) I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. (this is a live cover version. with a lot of brass.) (Oingo Boingo - I Am The Walrus-- half credit to erinya, half credit to "rosefox)
18.) I see the clouds move across the sky. I see the wind that moves the clouds away. It moves the clouds over by the building. I pick a building that I want to live in. (Talking Heads -- Don't Worry About The Government Half credit to stotangirl; half to jeffsoesbe)
19.) It's happening now. Not tomorrow. It's happening now. The crazed in the hot-zone. The mental and diva's hands. The fisting of life. (David Bowie - Outside stillsostrange)
20.) Does your memory stray to a bright summer's day when I kissed you and called you sweetheart? (this particular version is a duet performed by both performers who made this song famous.) (Elvis Presley & Roy Orbison - Are You Lonesome Tonight, 2/3rds credit to slrose, 1/3rd credit to the_red_shoes, who got it with a little coaching)
21.) The naked dutch painter in the kitchen does not want to fuck you. She's got seventeen boyfriends and an eight o'clock class to get to. (Stew - The Naked Dutch Painter gwynnega)
22.) Some folks love to feel pain. Some folks wake up every morning. Some folks live for no reason. Some folks die without a warning. (Alice Cooper - Some Folks jennifer_dunne)
23.) And the change in your pocket is beginning to crumble and you reap just about what you sow. (Fairport Convention - Reno Nevada carbonel)
24.) We wake alone in the blackness. We sleep wherever we fall. (Shriekback - This Big Hush - zanzjan)
25.)  Cross Nevada at a 110. Highway 50 and there's nobody there. Sign says, "NEXT SIGN 30 MILES." (The Dead Kennedys, Buzzbomb From Pasadena the_red_shoes)


...you know, my music collection really does read like a coded list of people I used to be in love with. Every relationship leaves behind a detritus of new music....

So, today's math lesson was extracting square roots by hand. And I was finding it exceedingly frustrating, because I kept getting several of the sample problems wrong, and I could not for the love of little green apples figure out what I was doing wrong. Nor could I figure out what I was doing different in the ones I was getting wrong as opposed to the ones I was getting right.

Well, it turns out, two hours of cursing followed by two hours of internet research later, that I wasn't doing anything wrong. The bloody math book just cleverly salted in a few problems with special case solutions, and then never bothered to explain how to work them.

Fuckers.

Anyway, I got the right answers this time.**

Dammit.

I am quite pleased with myself, although it took hours of frustration to get here.*

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*for those of you joining us in progress, yes, I am studying math that most normal people learn in junior high.
I am studying it because I am not good at it.

**Even though the web page that explained how to work the special-case solutions is written by somebody who is not a native English speaker, and his sample problems are wrong.

The difference between me at fourteen and me at thirty-five is that me at thirty-five knows how to learn things, which me at fourteen had not yet learned.
And me at thirty-five has that mighty tool, the internets.
And is slightly more stubborn than your average ox.

People keep asking me why I'm teaching myself math at the ripe old age of 35.

And you know, it strikes me as odd that so many people think you need a reason to learn something. Because it's kind of its own goal, isn't it? But then I realized that there's a better answer.

And the answer is, of course, because I am a writer.

And then they look at me funny.

But it's true. If you're interested in writing books (well, in writing anything, I would guess, but books are what I know from), you might as well get invested in the whole lifetime learner thing now, because you are gonna need it. See, the problem with writing is that you need to know everything.

No, I mean it.

For example, for the seven thousand word fanfic I posted the other day (just for a fanfic!) I looked up: Boston street maps, Boston public transportation schedules, Boston bicycle routes, statistics on handcuff escapes, how to pick a pair of handcuffs, the name of a specific handgun firing position, various information on the current state of the art in large-caliber handguns and suppressors (and somebody wrote me to complain, but I have given up arguing with experts, especially since no two experts ever agree), HIV needle-stick infection rates, a whole bunch of information on abnormal psych, the procedure for obtaining a marriage license in Boston, the relative heights of a couple of actors, ballistic vest failure rates, a bunch of stuff on Pavlovian and operant conditioning, information on how the brain handles denial, information (spotty) on homosexual serial killers, a whole bunch of stuff on David Berkowitz and the Zodiac killer, and about seventeen other things.

For a fanfic. That I only did one draft of. And that I didn't invest a lot of time researching, because it was for fun.

Now imagine how much research goes into a novel.

I've walked through or at least driven past every real place I describe in Blood & Iron. (I have not however ridden a horse the entire length of Broadway.) I have however ridden a horse, and read accounts of it by people who actually know what they are doing. I've swung a sword. I've fired a gun.

I am not really a novelty seeker, but I try to make a point of, whenever an opportunity to do something new comes up, giving it a whirl. (I'll never water ski again, though. Ow.)

And even so, when I write any of those things, I still stop and research.

And the thing is, underneath that research there needs to be a layer of general knowledge that tells you when to stop and look something up. Because it's not the things you don't know that trip you up. It's the things you *think* you know. That you don't stop to think about.

Because often, you are wrong.

And that's why I'm learning math. And guitar. And why I practice archery. And why I juggle. Even though I do all of those things incredibly badly.

And it's also why I go for long walks. And read constantly, about as many topics as I can sustain an interest in. And why I love reading blogs and books written by people who live in other countries.

Because you never know where the telling detail will come from. And that detail is everything.

The more you know, the better you write.

Also, learning things is fun. And, you know, you have that neuroplasticity for a reason.* You might as well exploit it.

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*neuroplasticity is cool. I started juggling in high school, took it up again in 1994 or so, and then pretty much abandoned it, like everything else I used to do for fun,. when I moved to Las Vegas. Having now taken it up again for six months ago (and when I say I suck, I really suck) I'm noticing that it's having effects.

For example, when I drop something these days? A lot of the time, my hand just sort of reaches out and catches it without bothering to inform the conscious mind that it's about to do that.

That's pretty cool.

Or will be until the thing I drop is a red-hot frying pan or a just-sharpened kitchen knife.

More on this later today, after I finish the Schwartz book. But first, food and then math.

Today's aberrations from the left side of my brain: subtracting 3 from 7 even though I wrote the addition sign down correctly, and consistently seeing (and writing down) a one instead of an eleven in the coefficient of a term, even though there is no earthly reason for there to be a one there, because the one is implied.

I suspect I am so strongly right-brained simply because the left half doesn't really work very well. Something got crosswired in there somehow. Possibly, my left parietal cortex has atrophied.

Fortunately, that does give me the ability to thing in weird intuitive leaps, even if it makes arithmetic and formal logic hard.

Also, it probably cuts down on my denial, as that appears to be a left-brain function. As does conservatism.

...I will not say that that explains some things.

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Goat cheese, Greek olive, tomato, pumpkinseed and pistachio sandwich on oatmeal toast?
OMG yum.

Thank you.

Also, diet ginger ale is better if you dice up some candied ginger and squeeze a lemon into it

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In other news, my manpurse finally came (2)(1), and it is awesome. I can get a moleskine and two or three trade paperbacks just into the little book pockets.

It has a phone pocket. And many interior pockets and zipperses. And little elastic seatbelts for my pens and pencils. And three inch wide soft canvas straps. And a place to tuck a couple of shopping bags.

It's black leather. With brushed silver fittings. Goff Manpurse!

I like it a lot. *accessoryloff*

Finally, an auctorial tote bag that works.

I have rigged it up with my Eye of Sauron keychain, and I am ready to roll. *g*

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(2) UPS has had it since the 9th. Apparently, there was some weather or something. Silly UPS.

(1) because I am way too invested in my butch identity to carry a "purse," but I never leave home without a notebook, I have been using a black canvas ammo bag to lug stuff since 1992 or so. I killed one, and the second one was a little too small, and won't fit a notebook *and* a standard hardcover book, and so was starting to come apart under the strain. So I finally caved and bought a manpurse.

Okay, so what with one thing and another (scrubbing the shower, writing a letter, sleeping late to make up for it being 2 am before I unwound enough to fall asleep) I'm just getting around to doing my homework now, and then I'm going to play guitar, and then I might try to get my words.

I'm excited about math.

Something has happened to my brain.

Eunice needs an alternator. And I'm having them rotate the tires and check the brakes while they have her taken apart, since I need to replace the front pair after that blowout anyway, because a sidewall went.

Man, the snow is really coming down out there.

Cat: *hogs the big chair*
Monkey: *pushes cat over and climbs into the chair with her laptop*
Cat: *washes claws nonchalantly*
Monkey: *sits in the big chair and types*
Cat: *waits until the monkey isn't looking and snuggles against the monkey's hip*
Monkey: *tickles inside the cat's ears*
Cat: Hey!
Monkey: *pets, contritely*
Cat: Hmrn.
Monkey: *scritches*
Cat: *washes*
Monkey: *scritches*
Cat: ...
Monkey: Well?
Cat: ...
Cat: All right. You are the best monkey.

---

1010 words this morning, which brings "Periastron" 2037 words, counting outline notes. Basically, it's just an excuse for a huge gonzo space battle, but even that requires a little setup. And a planet where it rains pellets of molten iron is just the place to set the scene.

My word count for the year so far: 91,315. I am doing *so* much better than last year.

372.6 miles to Rivendell.

I suspect this algebra book I am using* (Practical Algebra: A Self-Teaching Guide, Selby and Slavin) was written by people with a serious gift for getting their point across. Because I am actually understanding everything they're getting at, on a theoretical level.

I still can't do arithmetic to save my life, but that's where the dyscalculia kicks in, I guess. Fortunately, since I am not actually attempting to pass tests or doing homework I am graded on, when I get something wrong because of a stupid multiplication error, I can go back and figure out what went wrong and fix it. I wonder if I would have had more success learning this stuff in high school if the grading process had been less based on getting the right answer and more based on understanding the process. I suspect it would have: I got high Bs in physics.

Math, well. Let's just say that a passing grade at my school was 70%. And I... passed.

Mostly, I suspect, out of teacher pity.

Anyway, this chapter is positive and negative numbers. I remember more of this than I thought I would. And the processes make perfect sense.

I wish I always got the same answer for 2x3, though. That's embarrassing.

Well, off to get cleaned up and dressed and eat something and practice guitar. Because we do more in our pajamas by lunchtime than most people do in their pants, all day. *g* Er. So to speak.

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*In conjunction with the Algebra Workbook for Dummies, which I like much much less.

I can do this.

And I figured out, after screwing up an equation and having to go back and do it over again and seeing quite clearly how I screwed it up (which was by messing up my order of operations, thank you very much), why I can do it now when I couldn't, fifteen years ago.

It's because I've spent the last fifteen years of my life teaching myself to process information in a linear fashion so I could write books that people understood.

Which is why, fifteen years ago, I couldn't write a short story to save my life, but I generated poetry like dropping leaves. And now, if I try to write a poem longer than a sonnet, it turns into a narrative on me, because the gestalt thing I used to be able to do is not so easy anymore.

Holy shit.

I PATCHED MY BRAIN.

Which means maybe I can teach myself to write poetry again. And--moreover--I bet it means I can teach myself to read the way I used to, and codeswitch between gestalt and linear thinking styles. And between gestalt and linear reading styles.

DUDE!

I CAN HACK THE GRAY JELLY! I mean, I knew I could hack the gray jelly: I've figured out how to hack my biochemical and trauma issues pretty well over the last twenty-five years or so. But the idea that I can hack the synaptic processing and the right/left brain divide? 

That's so freaking awesome.

bwaaahahahahahahahahahahahah.

I love my brain.
*smooches brain*

Dear brain,

All is forgiven. Yes, even that. And that other thing, too.

Love, Bear.

So, not too long ago, I outed myself here as learning-disabled (I was diagnosed with discalculia when I was 21, after many many awful years trying to brute force my way through math with varying levels of success.) Since one of my projects for adulthood is patching the holes in a formal education that could best be described as spotty (like most of my family, I'm pretty much self-educated: though I did spend four years in college, it didn't go well, for a variety of reasons such as lack of support, lack of emotional maturity, and Unresolved Personal Issues), I just bought an algebra workbook and self-teaching guide. 

The guitar study is also part of this process. Once upon a time, I was something of a promising young polymath. And then there were ten fifteen twenty Bad Years, and I feel like--other than the last five years of writing--I've overall wasted myself. Oddly enough, apparently a side effect of more or less finally having my shit together is the urge to do more with my life than I have been. (I've also been thinking of seeing what it would take to renew my long long lapsed CT domestic violence crisis counselor cert, and seeing if Interval House would take me back as a volunteer a couple of days a month, but I'm not sure if I'm emotionally ready for that yet.)

(Not that writing science ficion and fantasy is easy, mind you. But it is focused.) And I am bloody well going to get them back. What's the point in being allegedly multi-gifted if all you do with it is sit on your ass and eat bonbons?

This sudden urge to OMG LEARN THINGS again also tells me something I suspected, which is that I'm reaching a point with my writing where it's no longer productive to bend my entire will upon it, but rather that I need to practice my art mindfully and follow where it takes me. Which means, well, I need something else to sic the brain squirrels on.

Besides, if I keep doing the same stuff over and over again, I am going to keep writing the same stuff over and over again, and that is so not on.

So. I will be attempting to teach myself algebra, and if that works we'll see how we do with geometry, trig, and--I shudder even to name it--calc.*** And when I mentioned it to cristalia, she double-dog dared me to blog about it.*

Ahem.

We'll see how this goes. The eventual goal is to get far enough into calc to make more sense of astrophysics and geology than I currently can, but don't expect those results next month.****

Eventually, I'm also going to have to sign up for those language classes I keep talking about.**

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*the "bearmalion" tag is her fault.
**A conversational French refresher, dammit, and I do want to learn Russian. I've become monolingual through disuse, and it annoys me.
***because if you aren't growing, you're being cut back.
****this also may mean less fucking around on the internets, which can only be good for me in the long run.