a wolf angel is not a good angel

I was going to talk about tell, and explain how it’s had this odd — but possibly mistaken — influence in our theories of questions. (But points — the meaningless, Whose line is it anyway? kind of points — if you can get any kind of feeling about the truth value of the following:

John was having a conversation with Mary. He intended to lie to her, but he was misinformed. John told Mary who was at the party.

It’s important not to put something like As it turned out, then, John told Mary . . . I keep going from “yes you can say that” to “no you can’t”. You can’t say something like “John told Mary who wsa at the party. He was deliberately lying.” You can say something like “John told Mary who was at the party. He was mistaken.” I normally use my cats’ names instead of John and Mary, but I never use them as liers or murderers, so that’s out. Anyways, I know some Johns (in the “people named” sense, not the goes to prostitutes sense) I don’t like.)

But what I have decided to talk about instead (”Instead”? I made the earlier bits concise and left out all of the references — no doubt to everyone’s relief — but I did actually cover most of whatI had intended) is the poker version of tell. The one where it’s a noun.

In poker, for those people who didn’t read Poker Nation this weekend[1] instead of, say, work[2], a tell is your giveaway. You might stack your chips when you have a good hand, or look out into nowhere when you have a bad hand, or something else along those lines. Most of us have tells when we’re lying, too. And don’t we have them about everything? Some of them are more obvious than others.

What, I wonder, are mine? Oh, not the ones where I lie, or where I’m happy, or even where I’m scared. No. What are my tellls when I’m unhappy and feeling inadequate? What are the ones when I am sure, so sure, I will always be alone? Or where I feel I’m someone else entirely, or when I worry that if anyone really knew me, they’d hate me. Those tells.
Sometimes I wonder if I have them. Unless I deliberately let slip — and I will be honest: it is always[3] deliberate — people don’t know. Oh, J said, you were terrified and not sleeping and crying before you gave that talk last year? Wow. I didn’t know. How not, I wondered. Oh, A said, when we were about to study for an exam, when I had been applying for grad schools and one thing went a little wrong and I burst into tears, you always seem so composed. I didn’t realise you were even feeling stress.

Oh.

These aren’t good friends of mine. Good friends know. I will talk about myself less (though subtly, and I will talk about things *around* myself more. So you can hear about my roommates[4], but not about my research. Most people care more about other people than research, so it’s a good hide).

Last week, in class (indeed, the class in which I did not at the time understand Matthew’s paper, nor did I understand A’s question, nor N’s response, but I finally understood when S explained it to me, and I did get the professor’s answer, which was just a proof) my brain went I am too stupid for this class, I don’t understand anything, I can’t do [this subfield] at all, I want to do it, I can’t, I don’t know anything,I don’t have the background, I could never understand anything well enough to get the background . . .

You can, I am sure, imagine how it went. The problem is that I think this is the subfield I want to be in. If not, I want to be on an interface with it. Now, yes, A and N have much more math background than I do, which is important in this course. And all of them are year(s) ahead of me in the program. And everyone is perfectly happy to explain to me whatever I don’t understand — A is phenomenal at this: he is brilliant, and an incredible teacher, and a great guy, and I hope that he gets a great job some day.

I wonder why I feel this. Do I need, somewhere I didn’t know I had, to be the best? I don’t think so, but perhaps. I just feel, terrifiedly, Not Good Enough. Not. Not ever. Can’t be, why even try to be a [this subfield]icist? I don’t know what to do or say about it. I could tell people. I have. J (a different J, as it happens) says it takes time for it to sink in. A says I’ll get it in time. S suggests I work harder at the articles (fair enough: I do need to). My mother says it’s normal and that I’ll get it in time. Or I won’t and I’ll do something else.

I want to go to the people I know who would comfort me, but I wouldn’t believe them when they did.I want to go to the professors here, but I don’t dare share this much fear with them, not yet. And I worry, too, that they’ll tell me I’m *not* good enough, I should leave now.

And all this is contradictory and I don’t know what to do with any of it, exactly. I am avoiding people. I am not writing friends. I am not phoning friends. The only people I talk to at all regularly are my roommate and my mother. (My father and I just can’t communicate on the phone. At all. We’re fine in person; I love spending time just the two of us. But on the phone, well, there’s better use for my long distance dollars. Including phoning for the time in Australia.) And I talked about this briefly with my mother, but that’s it.

I’m going home next weekend, and I think 2 people know. I leave Thursday. I need to do something, but I haven’t been. I feel guilty. I am a bad friend right now. Very bad. And I know this and I feel guilty and plan to be different, and I’m not. Because –

Oh, this isn’t going anywhere. I feel horrible and not good enough, and no one knows. And I don’t know if it’s that I’m a good liar or that no one wants to bring it up, because they feel the same way.

[1] Actually, reread. And I think I might’ve read an article by the same guy, too. I really don’t understand the lure of gambling.

[2] Not entirely true. I did some work, too. I understood Matthew’s article! (We’re allowed to call it that because Matthew is at our university and we see him all the time, plus it’s what the professor calls it.)

[3] When I desperately need to talk, but can’t quite find the way to say that. Because of I’m not sure. So I say something that will lead my good friends to ask. Because I have at least been able to tell them how I do this. I’m not entirely self-sabotaging, just mostly.

[4] One of whom I like, very much. The other one I don’t mind, though I wish he’d wear less aftershave, because the kitchen always reeks of it in the morning. I also wish he didn’t smoke, but so far it’s only outside, so that’s fine. Ish.

Yet another successful library day: I return six books, take out ten.

I also reread an article while in the cafe at Borders. Success! It’s beginning to start to make some sense. I need to go over the math Very Carefully, but I’m getting the gist. It’s absolutely fascinating; I wish I were more intelligent and understood better.

M has decided to terrify me today.

She is sitting in what she has claimed as her chair. (Why can’t she sleep all day on my bed?) There’s room for me to scrunch in with her, so I sit down and start patting her. Now usually she accepts this for a minute or two, then leaves. No, today she loves it! Loves being petted! Loves cuddling with me! Love, love, love.

This should make me happy; in reality it makes me suspicious.

Because she has a great big tick on her neck. (Well, I didn’t know it was a tick. But the internet is useful, sometimes.) A bug (yes, just the one)! Is she sick? Is that why she’s being so cuddly? Or is it because I’m barely home Wed/Thurs and she missed me? No, she’s a cat. When she’s this loving, it must mean she’s dying.

Search search search.

There’s a disease that ticks carry and give to cats. It results in almost certain agonisingly painful death for cats. Now, it hasn’t gotten further north than North Carolina, which is south of me, but it’s carried on bobcats, which are not. Fine, the disease has never been seen where I live, but what if my cats are the first ones? (I have no reason to think they would be — and even if this disease were seen here, it would be too early for her to be symptomatic. But what if?) Should I keep them inside again? They’re so happy now.

Search on ticks and what I’m supposed to do. Pull it out. Don’t forget the head! Get the head! I can’t; the rest of the tick is in little pieces, the head is embedded in her neck. Worse yet: she’s letting me do this to her, not even beginning to try to run away. She must be dying.

Search more on ticks. Wash the cats with tick shampoo stuff. Pull out the ticks. Call the vet if the bite gets infected. Use Frontline, which can prevent ticks from biting.

Worryworryworry.

Hello paranoia! Hello I’m-terrified-about-school-so-let’s-try-to-pretend-it’s-a-little-something-else! Oh cats, please be okay. Some of it is paranoia, but not all. I want my cats healthy and safe.

Another present from my cats today: a bird. A full-grown bird. Which, my roommate informs me, they had initially brought in alive, but it was put outside. Oh well; I’m glad they’ve taken so well to being outside. Sort of. A little. (Glad, that is. They’re doing far better than sort of.)

I also have my weird disease back, which means I am falling asleep everywhere and all the time. This is not going to work out so well. That said, my presentation went well. Except now I need to think about what using the verb “tell” implies, and I really don’t know anymore.

Expect a post in a day or two discussing this in more (boring) detail. Once I’m awake.
Now I’m going to watch the season premiere of Law & Order (which I hope will be better than SVU) in my new pyjamas, eating cookies.

I was still trying to work out the coffee-to-determine-if-there-should-be-a-date-evening.

But then I saw the guy again, and he went from table to table, talking to any girl he saw. I suppose he’s really looking. And I’m really lucky.

I just need to remind myself that saying, look, I don’t want you to touch me — well, someone I need to say that to (on the very first time we meet)probably isn’t someone I care if I alienate.

Today, under my dining room table: a little dead mouse.

I threw it into the garden. S, lovable cat that he is, saw me throw it, picked it up, and left it on the porch for me again.

I don’t actually know who caught the thing. M just strikes me as the hunting kind of cat; she’s also eating less food, but not getting thinner. But I tend to underestimate S a lot.

It doesn’t amtter, though I will soon need to figure out new ways of letting them in and out, because the first time I find a no-longer-living rodent on my pillow, I will be thoroughly revolted.

On reading 2 of the article I’m supposed to present next Wednesday, it’s starting to make more sense. Except neither of the two authors know how to bake. If I ask you “how many eggs do I need to make this cake?”, I’m asking for the minimum number, sure — but if I can bake it with 4 eggs, I most certainly can’t bake it with 12 unless I triple all the other ingredients.

I’m changing that example when I present. It’s too stupid to be in print.

It’s actually interesting, and the good thing about having to present the article is that I need to read it in depth, so I might actually understand it, instead of giving up halfway through and rereading it after it’s been explained in class. I had forgotten I was presenting; luckily the prof mentioned it, and we’re meeting to discuss it on Monday.

I seem to have a very reasonable workload. Which would be fine, except I’m not doing it. Who needs to read this article if I can blog instead (or make a cake, or do laundry, or walk around my new neighbourhood listening ot a book on tape)?

I fell asleep in class today, a bit. I just couldn’t stay awake. I napped after, until they ran a meeting in the room I was napping and was kicked out.

So am I (a) going to bed so that I am rested tomorrow or (b) not?

I made the butterscotch squares (featuring chocolate chips and walnuts) I’d been intending to make for a while. Tomorrow, hoping fora storm but not too bad of one, I have planned to rent some movies, watch them while eating popcorn and making hot chocolate. If the weather works, it will be perfect.

I feel trapped, but I don’t know by what.