My Boss Is Back and You're Gonna Be In Trouble

HEY LA, HEY-LAAAA, my boss is coming back today!

Hooraaaaay; I can have a life again! I missed you all, too; thanks for the e-mails and the phone calls and the comments and the threats telling me I'd better start blogging again soon.

In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to come back from a long business trip only to start my GRE class, become certified in proofreading as well as first aid/CPR/defib (not the same course) and take on the work of a woman who generally does the work of four people while also supervising three people.

I've been losing a lot of hair lately.

Part Most of the reason is due to math. I haven't touched the stuff since I quit it way back in 1998. That was the time I was introduced to the concept of the imaginary number, which only confirmed my suspicions that math was completely made up. Imaginary number my ass; you can't just make shit up and call it logic! I entered a twelve-step program called Liberal Arts College, and with a lot of therapy and history courses, I made it through some dark times. But now that I have decided to go to grad school next year, I have to take the GRE, which means I have to spend eight weeks learning math, take a test, and then promptly forget the math- again.

I don't remember the math I learned in school at all, which is a good indicator that I never needed it in the first place. What my brain has retained over all these years is math anxiety. Between the fracternators and denominations and radimexponals and quadrelbra and don't forget to reduce, for the love of all that is good and holy in the universe! my heart rate hasn't gone below 192 bpm in three weeks. The math I'm learning is inexplicably divorced from logic - we're just taught a series of random functions to get a specific answer, not the logic behind it. If I have to perform perform tricks, I'd better be getting some peanuts, a funny red hat, and the opportunity to dance on an organ. I would also take a scholarship in lieu of the peanuts, but the funny red hat is essential.

Soon, I'll be able to knit a sweater from all the hair I've lost.

Math makes a good foundation to build a giant ball of nervous stress. At one point, the Object interrupted my studying to tell me that his mom (who is awesome) watched a show on t.v. and decided that we need to buy a house. Happily, the Object has the reflexes of a cat, which come in pretty handy when a real, live cat is being thrown at you. He escaped with most of his limbs intact. That was the point at which he insisted that we buy a new vacuum to deal with the new accumulation of hair around the house.

Work has provided little respite. Here's a sample sentence from a report I asked someone to prepare:

While it is not based on strict criteria, economic or otherwise, he analytical criterion taken into consideration to define developing countries are composition of export earning and other income from abroad, a distinction between net creditor and net debtor countries, and, for the net debtor countries, financial criteria based on external financing source and experience with external debt servicing.

Apparently, math isn't these only thing these days that is incomprehensible. Another tuft of hair, gone. Now that my boss will be back, I can focus my efforts on constructive things, like growing that hair back. I'm going to need some Rogaine, some deep-conditioning treatments, and some candy.

I dare the IRS to tell me it's not a work-related expense.