Turnover

Geometric series, I remind this student, are multiplicative; arithmetic series are additive. Thinking laterally and tangentially, fatigue blurring thoughts across each other, I wonder which series would better define these past two or three weeks. Is the deadness at the back of my eyes, built into these hamstrings, undoing thoughts even as they're begun - is this a multiplicative or additive function? Perhaps such growth - an impatience that builds so slow, then tips forward, shoots towards a flashpoint - is an exponential curve. So few days remain for the seniors, and truthfully? I'm somewhat thankful for it.

But, tonight's the smaller, more intimate graduation celebration. The same student gives me a rose, thanks me for getting her through trigonometry, her peers through other math and science classes. The few words I offer catch, and the larger truth: these students, maybe more so even than of my others, are family. They're mine. I'll miss them terribly, even if they can be such shits sometimes.

An email from a friend sits in my inbox; I toy with replies, but only come off blunt, rough-edged, not entirely kind. Sleep deprivation dots my i's and crosses my t's, and that's not the gentleness I wish her, even if she has been torching my deconstructions these few unpleasant dates I've had out here. Really, I know, she might well have reasonably been far harsher. I am admittedly an elitist asshole. So it goes; there's no news, only old stories re-done.

You're a free moral agent, another friend says; the same in another shared code: I do what I want. And, well, I do. I do the things I fancy, yes, and everything else, not a chance. This is the definition of selfishness, sure, and hardly an endearing quality, I realize - but sure is one hell of a way to live in the moment, isn't it? I've no qualms ignoring the moral high road it seems, that hardly being the sort of topography I excel at.

We've each our avenues of escape, don't we? I've a run and a beer awaiting me now, but the larger picture's just a week and a half away. Open road, open road, open road, and Proud Mary's wheels turn over and over and over. What changes is always so little.