MAKE MATH EXCITING AGAIN

i have a story to tell. it fits in with the current climate and the world of society. where at large is getting smaller and smaller. my dad was destined for great things. he had worked his way up to adjunct professor as you were supposed to. not a whiff of scandal attached to his name. he was on the career path not cos it was the scenic route but cos there was really nothing else he could do. the minute he wrote a screenplay he was labeled pretentious. they were railing against Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. dad argued that where else, in what other part of society, are you allowed to be pretentious? you can't be pretentious pumping gas. of course movies are pretentious, they're supposed to be! THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT. be as wildly pretentious as you possibly can BE when you make a film! invent your own philosophy and language. make it so hard to understand it becomes inscrutable to its writer. that's what dad was going for but alas in this cruel world of ours the ones with the revolution and foresight are kicked to the curb. which just proved dad's point about society and such. they relegated him to the graveyard shift of teaching college math. stowed away like a serf. nobody wants to teach college math. college math is doomed.

nobody wants to admit math is boring. and nobody wants to admit that from the womb---when you're learning your numbers in kindergarten---math is arbitrary. because numbers are arbitrary. they're just things we made up to try to explain the incalculable universe. much like money or daylight savings with an s. dad did his darndest but he was itching all over his hair all the time. he needed to break free and be free. he needed to try out for Jeopardy!. he suffocates himself on his dreary work life in order to escape to his mind. inside where he can hide and touch. they didn't allow him to paint cos the paintbrushes were too pointy and sharp-objecty, so all he had as tools were his students and a spongy white eraser that was really black but covered in chalk. he labored and lorded over his chalkboard, those majestic Green Monster chalkboards that only uni lecture halls have, as if to declare that this ain't no kindergarten no mo'. chalkboards which required an antiquated ladder and many stools and could be pulled down three times three stories high like the collage at the back of a MAD magazine. he flipped though his cracked datebook looking for that one unsolvable equation that still needed unmystifying. when he got too close to the mystery he allowed the mystery to envelop him, for that's the only way to feel lived-in in a mystery, you can never conquer a mystery, only hope to swim in one. finally he hit on one, the theorem that was trying to do away with the equals sign, claiming we didn't need them anymore, formulas could work just fine without them. HE SOLVED IT!!! and he used only ONE equals sign, the very first symbol he chalked to the long winding salamander sentence which scribbled and scrawled its way down to the right corner of the last board.

dad turns around and is confronted, instead of comforted, by his most vile student, the one with the white dollop of vanilla ice cream for hair, and a one-dollar bill for his tongue.

student: get a haircut, hippie.

dad strokes his long hair for the first time since when it mattered. it hasn't been shampooed in decades and is starchy and bitter to the touch. crunchy and stinking of granola. he remembered his artsy-fartsy days and farts in protest. he shoots back and commemorates in his head those exciting times when dark ages were gray and you could still speak your mind, stand for something, and feel out of guilt if you wanted. when flowers and marches were matched the next season with flowers in March, nature heard.

dad: what is your name, son?

student: Mike.

dad: Mike? Mike?! just Mike. anonymous Mike. how dare you use my name in vain, you fucking cuck. that is the name my beloved son calls me. except he calls me dad. you think this is funny? you're probably one of those stupid Christians who thinks he can stand up to all the atheists on campus with a rousing benighted speech about equivalence like that Chick Tract.

student: yes.

dad: that Chick Tract never happened. that was apocryphal, as is Christianity. God is still dead and you're trafficking in conspiracy theories without a license cos you're too young. you give cartoons a bad name! for your penance say out loud the Lord's Prayer in an embarrassing gym room 10 times and work on the next season of Archer. you know, a cartoon that makes fun of everything, you could learn something.

student: i am not a talented drawer, sir.

dad: then don't draw conclusions. open your mind so wide you crack your skull when you fall off your skateboard cos you had too many stickers under the wheels of the wheel well.

dad takes the shoulder of the old visiting janitor, wipes his brow with his oil, and breaks out in song, shouting "Let The Sunshine In" angrily a centimeter away from the kid's face. the kid turns beet-blue and beats it.

the next dewey morning dad is collecting his things in one brown shoebox and peers out his window for the last time. it's a blue window with curved arches so high they're taller than the wall they hang on.

dad: *sighily rustling papers* too big for their own good.

outside on the grass under a nut tree the students are all naked. as is the old adjunct professor, who's really a third-year student. everyone is naked. they stroke each others' pocket sitars and mini-tambourines and dance flightily with one another, singing and humming and snorting out all the nut milk they've drunk. protein shakes served at the caf instead of coffee. no more donuts, unless they are plain. the lesson this morning bright-and-early: what exactly is a circle?

dad heaves a ho and turns back around.

dad: object lesson.

he gathers his things and wits and quietly exits the stage. when he reaches under the stone gate of the tower he takes an ill-advised sip of his cream soda. he drinks it too fast and the fizzy suds end up in his nose, he can't breathe for a week cos his sinuses have formed a needling mustache on his upper lip. he tosses the can of cream soda down the sewer grate.

THE EVENTS TRANSPIRED MUCH LIKE THIS, CLICK HERE

happy weekend, my babies, only you can make it happy.