Taking a sharper look at the dull things in my day. Copy, fax, log, file, phone, log, file … whir, zip, ring, buzz, “call holding on line one”… and then some. This is not where satisfaction is found. Write a little, read a little, make something with my hands; cook something new, pick the perfect wine to match; I am alive again. And so goes my days.

Oh I wondered into a little room with not much in it and got lost for hours and hours. The dog sat on the rug in front of me, ears perked up, head cocked to one side in that “what the hell are you doing?” pose. Nothing. Ok, not nothing. I’m contemplating infinity if you must know. Exactly what dimension would infinity be in anyway?

I finally get it. You know, I’ve aced most of the math classes that I’ve taken in my educational career, and it’s only now that I realize, I didn’t have the first f#%$ing clue what I was talking about. I should go back to my high school and tell Ms. Mikesell that 10 years after having been in her class I’m finally learning something from it. No, your lectures were not wasted on me, it only seemed that they were at the time. I’m beginning to understand that all the pictures and numbers that came so easy to me back then, and made math classes so boring, had massive conundrums lurking behind them, waiting to stagger my little imagination…. Negativity is relative. So are positive values. Everything that is given a numeric value is relative to zero... or to some other value. Well, what if there was no reference point? What would be it’s value then? (Can we change the value or definition of anything just by changing our perspective?) A negative is only negative with relation to something else… so in essence it still has value (Absolute Value). But the word “absolute” implies that the value we have applied is, most definitely, the only value that can be applied; when in reality, it is the only value that can be applied from that perspective; using that particular reference point. Shifting our reference point changes the absolute value of any given point. How “absolute” is an absolute that’s relative?

The essence of our understanding of the universe stems from the grasping of the concept of zero. But do we? Zero is the nothing that is everything. It has nothing added to it and nothing taken from it. It has nothing, it is nothing, but still it exists. It is now. Not 2 milliseconds from now, not 15 minutes ago. And if we go from this point on into infinity there is time without end. And if we take this moment and go back into infinity there’s no end there either. (Assuming, of course that time is linear, which it isn’t. But that’s an entirely different conversation.) Our little brains have to start somewhere. We have to start here. “Now,” you are saying, “you are mixing Geometry with Time. You can’t do that”. Who says? How sure are you that they’re mutually exclusive?

We exist here, now. Our lives have a beginning and an end. We endeavor, therefore, to apply our own limits and mortality to everything. Our 3rd dimensional perspective demands that we give everything a beginning and an end; even time. “In the beginning there was darkness and God said, ‘Let there be light.’”

You asked me a lot of questions that night. Do you remember what you asked me? Do you remember what I said? I don't. All I know is, if you asked me those same questions tonight I would have very different answers.

... I am a highly motivated self-starter who is eager to jump into a fast-paced, challenging environment.... Does anyone really buy that crap?!?! really? Just once I'd like to write a cover letter with a little truth dashed into it .... I am highly motivated by the fact that I'm in debt up to my @$$hole and am about 15 minutes away from having all of my worldly possessions repo-ed by "the man". I will do anything, regardless of how monotonous and boring, and I'll even try to act like I care. I won't complain when I am asked to spend 4 months performing a task that requires no more cognitive ability than that which is inherently given the average 6 year old, even though the job description specifically stated "4 year college degree required". In spite of what you might read on my resume, I'm probably over-qualified for YOUR job, which I will prove to you inside of 6 months, but promise not to rub in your face. I don't need your respect or your false politeness ... I don't need for you to stroke my ego... and I would prefer it if you wouldn't stroke anything else of mine either! ... I don't want company picnics or Christmas parties, all I want is your money twice a month. Sincerely, Sidis.

So here I am, in the middle of Manhattan. God I love this town. Wait, what’s this? A gun. Two guns. I’m a police officer and apparently I’m a bad-ass. My assignment, given to me directly by the chief of police, is to scour the city looking for the former chief of police who turned bad and is now terrorizing Manhattan along with his many minions (officers loyal to him who turned bad with him). What’s that noise? Turn the corner, there’s panic in the streets, people running everywhere, trying to escape. Here they come. I draw my gun… and my other gun. The old chief comes flying around the corner. “Shoot him! Shoot him!” but my partner freezes and now its just me and him. He starts walking towards me, staring me down, breathing hard, grinding his teeth. I point my gun at him, right at his head. Not the nickel plated sissy pistol, the other one, the big one, the revolver, the one that weighs more than I do. He’s still coming at me. I take a step back, two, three (shoot him, shoot him). I try the trigger, but it’s hard to push. I drop my little gun and use both hands –BANG!!- The bullet goes right into his eye. I watch it bounce around inside his head. “Do you know what happens to a person when you shoot them in the head?” he growls, still walking towards me (I hit him. I know I hit him) “The bullet enters the front of the head and then BLOWS the back of the head right off!” he emphasizes with a reward sweeping motion of his arm. “You can’t imagine the mess it makes.” (Should I try again? I’ll try again. Maybe I missed) “Now why would you want to do that and make a mess of this beautiful street?” Too late. He grabs me by the arms, my grip fails on the gun, and lifts me above his head. “After all, I’m the chief of police!?!” He shakes me as I try to kick him in the chest from my elevated position. He doesn’t even flinch. He just laughs, deep and loud and horrible.
[ring] wha [ring]
Hello? [click] &%#$ing telemarketers.

How did I feel about it? I had no answer for you, Glen, and I said so. “I’ll have to think about that and get back to you ,” I said. So this is me getting back to you. I didn’t feel anything at first. Amazement, denial, disbelief. All of the symptoms of being truly disconnected from a moment. There was a strange (and in hind sight, shocking) calm in me. Either an acceptance of what is and what will be and of my inability to change it or, more likely, a shutting out of what is and a denial of what will be, and a refusal to believe that it has anything to do with me.
I walked home from work that night. (Is it over, or is this just the beginning?) The sun had already crept out of sight (will there be bombs? … more airplanes? … biochemical warfare?) and darkness had already settled on the park. But I wasn’t scared. (I’ve never heard New York so quiet) Every cop in the tri-state area was four miles south of me and everyone knew it (no cars, no horns honking, no people talking). But there would be no muggings that night. I was sure of it. (A siren. And my heart didn’t even jump in the slightest. How quickly I become conditioned) Two blocks from home, I pass McCaulay Culkin coming out of a liquor store, brown paper bag, I walk on and I’m home, back, safe to your apartment. Familiar walls, familiar view. All is right with the world in here. (I wonder when Glen will be home?) Nothing else to do so I turn on the tele.
I saw images on the television of people falling. My body lurched and gagged and became so stiff and rigid that I had neither the ability to be sick or to cry… both of which my body seemed to want to do. Obviously I felt something in that moment, but what it was I can neither describe nor explain. But it was only a moment and the moment passed and that was the extent of “tragedy” for me.
Is this still a “cop-out of an answer”? Maybe. The first step was understanding the difference between what you let everyone around you think you are feeling and what you are truly feeling. I believe that I have done that. I know that the only truly honest thing that I felt occurred in one brief moment. But, I supposed I haven’t truly answered your question until I can come to terms with what it was that made my body react the way it did to images that I saw. The prospect of exploring that frightens me. I don’t want to revisit that feeling, much less analyze it. I’ll have to get back to you.

My name is Sidis. I am named for a misunderstood genius who "wasted his life" in occupations of the most remedial nature. He never once considered that he might take up an occupation where he might "do some good" with the considerable intellectual resources at his disposal (and of course make a million dollars in the process) like find the cure for cancer or some such other blissful, cliché-ic, "for the good of mankind" pursuit. No, our man, Sidis (Not to be confused, by the way, with one William James Sidis with his "Unconscious Intelligence" and his Isomorphism’s) no, our man, Sidis was a man who used his hands for a living. Or... maybe I was named after that other guy. Ask my mother. What's in a name anyway? Some mysterious power, not just of differentiation, but of being; of me-ness. To know my name is not just to know that you won't forget it between now and the next time we meet. To know my name is to know that it belongs to me and I to it. That there can be no other name for me than the one that you know is mine. Attempting to apply any other name to me sounds silly. But does the ORIGIN of the name carry the same weight of oneness? Certainly I am not the same man as the Sidis(es) before me. Certainly I have ideas of my own.... right?

I could sit in this chair for hours. I will sit and transfer, one by one, the tiny nuggets of nourishment from one cheek, crack, crunch, spit, swallow, chase it with a gulp of Heineken, too foamy on my thickly coated salty tongue, and seemingly from no where.... from the furthest reaches of my own cavernous hollows, drift one tiny nugget after another. Those are my ideas; from my head. How very exciting. I should tell someone. Next week I will pick up and thumb through my favorite (or favorite for now) book of really old guys with really old ideas and there it will be! Hey! That was my nugget! Wasn't it? But his name isn't Sidis. So what's in a name?