I think the happiness boost from almost graduating is wearing off. It reminds me of a lecture on happiness my former friend and I went to earlier in the semester, where some philosopher compared happiness with the delta-meter on a sailboat. Happiness, qua sailboat, is only a measure of the rate at which your place in life is changing. It reflects nothing about your actual well-being.

Thus my position has improved, and yet life is once again the same as it was.

I have a childhood friend moving to the ciity. At the same time I just ruined one of my longest Maryland friendships. It occurred to me today that I might have some unconscious urge to hold my number of friends constant, which is why I purposely sabotaged things with Chris. I wouldn't put this past myself.

I would ordinarily start writing about you now, but all I know is that you had a run-in with a wine slushing lush at a party. It seems like girls would be more wary of you kicking their asses.

Regarding my office-mate Dave, who will never read this:

This morning he underwent a procedure to have a sebaceous cyst lanced. This is unremarkable in general. However Dave's cyst is/was located just inside his anus. The operation was minor, but apparently required general anesthetic. The cynical reader will wonder if this is just so that the doctors would not have to tolerate an hour or so of extremely strained conversation. I have no doubt that this is the real reasoning of the anesthesiologist.

This afternoon I had the experience of being with three other individuals, who all know Dave, and all assumed the others had no clue about the operation. Unfortunately someone broached the topic of surgery, and everything fell out after that. Surprisingly, no one cracked a smile.

My life in bullet points:

*My adviser told me I could graduate this May, but suggested I spend another year in penury so that I can go to the Sorbonne.

*I have a student who's dying. She sends me emails about her problems that are frankly a little long winded, but still tragic.

*I bought an alphasmart portable word processor.
--I must describe this device in more detail. I suggest you google it yourself. There's a small black and white display and a full-sized keyboard. You can type on it, but not much else. It has 512k memory, and can hold about 100 pages of text. On three AAA batteries it supposedly runs for 700 hours. It saves after ever keystroke, so you can simply turn it on and off like a calculator. It weighs 2 lbs.

One might notice (since the theme to any blog is vanity I do not blush to mention this) that this entry is more concrete and less pleonastic than previous entries. This is because I've realized recently that I can't do math and write at the same time. Possibly, I cannot do either activity even in isolation. This is a grudging admission for me, because I've always felt that categorizing intelligence into Analytical/Verbal was extremely artificial. Good evidence for this position is that math graduate students (this is not just professional loyalty) can generally do everything better than everyone else. I say this not so much about myself as others that I know in the program. I will not defend this claim.

It took me five years to realize that the key to making progress in mathematics is obsession. The only way to solve a complicated problem is to fixate on it to a ridiculous extent, muttering, pacing, drooling, etc. This is because all the elements of the problem must be held in mind all at once, and putting them there is a time consuming process, like booting a computer. Rather than commuting to and from one's problem at morning and evening, one has to simply move in with the problem, live like a vagabond on the right angled streetcorners of its mathematical neighborhood. Unfortunately this is incompatible with writing in the evenings, at least insofar as my poor brain is concerned. The only thing that doesn't upset my Wa is vegging out in front of Battlestar Galactica.

Incidentally I think Battlestar Galactica is the greatest piece of art ever produced.

Speaking of stupid aesthetic claims, I have something painful lodged in the pocket of my brain. Last weekend I ate dinner in a salon style setting at a friend's apartment. The friend is actually two people, who are married. I won't reveal their personal details, since they are accomplished enough for each to be identified by broad-strokes descriptions of their lives. We all became quite drunk, and everyone said things I'm sure they regret. I have an unpleasant memory of talking about Uranus and why there were no testicles hanging from the sky, after launching uninvited into a bombastic and nonsensical discussion purportedly about the artist El Greco. Even writing this makes me curl my fingers in discomfort at the idiotic things that must have come out of my mouth.

The next morning I had an uncomfortable encounter with the hostess, and I've spent the last two or three days trying to put my finger on the source of our tension. One possibility is that I didn't make out with her friend from New York, who was seated next to me intentionally. For this I claim plain excess of booze as my defence, which leads to the second possible source, which is excess consumption of alcohol. I believe that towards the end of the evening the remaining wine, champagne, both bottles of brandy, and a 40 proof dessert liquor of some sort had all found their way to my placemat. How I can remember that I even drank them all, I'm not sure. I have a feeling that I behaved unseemingly in many respects.

Merry Christmas.