Learning woes, continued, no math whiz, I

I was, and still am a disaster in math, unless money is owed, or if I need to frame some art, then I’m sharp as a tack. My math teacher, Archie Williams was one of a handful of positive teachers I had at Drake High School. Did I learn foundations of algebra? No. 

But I held his Olympic medal in my hand and learned about Hitler and racism in America. I loved and adored Archie. I hated how disrespectful the class was. Joey Doyle’s spitwads and Rodney Warnerhoff’s rubber band missiles and lame paper airplanes. A sign of the times. 

I remember Archie, who was also a former Tuskegee pilot, picking up one of those failed paper airplanes scribbled with bad math homework from the floor and turning it into a teaching moment. He refolded the plane, gave it a bent nose, and talked about aerodynamics— lift, force, and thrust. Then let loose the plane that sailed like a hungry gull in the late afternoon classroom. 

Was he also delving into geometry? Probably. Like I said, we got much much more than foundations of algebra with Archie. I wrote about Archie many times. I can’t say the same for my other high school teachers.

“My ab-fab foundations of algebra teacher, the late, great Archie Williams was a real Olympic champion. Archie won the 400-meter race. I got to hold his Olympic gold medal. I sucked at math, but Archie was the kindest, gentlest mentor I ever had. Not his fault that math didn't take. Oh, but the stories he told us, of winning the Olympics, of running with Jesse Owens, and meeting Hitler. At 13, we hardly knew who Hitler was, but we held that same gold medal that Hitler bequeathed to Archie. Archie was a a man who broke world records, and race barriers.” Olympic Pride, American Prejudice 

During the 1990s, I had to take the CBEST test and, as expected, I passed the literature aspect with flying colors. I utterly failed the math portion, but I expected that, no surprise there. So, I began my retro homework in earnest with third grade math workbooks, as that’s where I fell off the learning wagon, the year I learned to read. A year of either, or—not both. I clearly did not operate on the proscribed learning timeline. I was madly marching off to my own drummer. I was gifted at art, something that was of no value within our culture. Education had failed me. Writing would come much later.

Determined to pass the CBEST, I had notions of becoming a certified teacher in those days, I worked my way through those old math workbooks. My head hurt in new places, and I literally cried my way up to the sixth grade level. Then, because I was stuck, I found a woman tutor on Craigslist, who was getting her MA in math and needed a guineapig for her dissertation. She was fascinated by my quirkiness, as I was pretty unschooled, as it were.

She had me approach geometry and algebra problems—unschooled as I was—to see how I would approach them—and she discovered that I was bored with lower math, plus I had a form of math dyslexia as well. Though I didn’t get the answers right, I was approaching the concept of higher math correctly. In fact, she was fascinated by how I was resolving the questions, I was innovative, and quirky, at best. I passed that CBEST test second time around. Not with flying colors. But solid.

Passing the CBEST was a big deal, healing an old wound, as I was a whack job math student. Who knew I had dyslexia in math as well? I’ve been known to add and subtract sums in the same column without even catching the error of my ways. 

Ironic, as the math gene runs in the family—my mother‘s cousin, who grew up in Austin Nevada, was a bona fide math whiz. She disappeared after high school. Government job. We never knew would happen to her until much later. She sent us a postcard from places like Alamogordo, White Sands, Chicago. Decades later, after she had died, we found out she was a mathematician working on the Manhattan Project.

Revised from a Facebook post, from the comments for the same one on learning to read, 1/21.

Letter to Whitman McGowan, Math Rant Night Before the CBEST Test

Letter to Whitman McGowan: a Math Rant, Night Before the CBEST Test


Hey Blue Dawgge,

As ever I am amazed by your steadfastness....bravo on CD & all the gigs...

I really wish I could see youse all tonight at Cafe Amsterdam. I was also invited to see a play, Helen of Troy...but alas I have a CBEST test in the morning (math which I've already failed once; I aced the writing section...me, a dyslexic writer, I coulda passed the whole test on my writing ability alone but Noooo, I need to pass each section) the test which tests my anxiety over math, not my ability. 

It's not about logic. They're nuts asking stupid, illogical questions...splitting hairs or maybe atoms. They're the ones inventing the next wave of dumbass teachers and we wonder why our schools are so bad? If you pass the CBEST, congratulations, you're teacher material or maybe even George Bush material. And you know where that leads to. So I keep failing the practice test by a few points...

I even went to a tutor and made amazing inroads, I learned several years' worth of math literally in days, with a 95% accuracy rate—circumference, volume, equations, you name it...I even taught myself beginning algebra. My head hurts constantly: geometry hurts above the ears, algebra at the back of the head, and volume/area, the top of the head...I should be in a MRI scanner while doing math, my head is melting, no, exploding.

I have been doing math 6 hours a day for a week, I dream in mathematical symbols & equations. I even took the 12th grade math exit exam...& passed w/ flying colors (w/ exception of higher algebra which I got 100% wrong). It's all about decoding language. I haven't yet found the key, the Rosetta Stone.

I've studied dead languages. I can translate from the archaic Irish. I can tell you of the battles of Fergus and Cu Chullain, the Hound of Ulster and of Medbh's arrogant pride. Or of Pryderi's follies, the one who knew for naught, in medieval Welsh.

But I can't pass the fucking CBEST so I can't substitute teach in the schools...and artist in residency programs are up shytecreek, thanks to Bush & team. In other words, I'm broke, outa work for way too long (any leads?) first time in 20 years, and I'd really rather come hang with youse guys but am feeling positively homicidal (a side effect of doing math—why the fuck they want to test us with dumbass trick questions, they don't even want the answers...the most senseless hurdlejumping I have ever done, otherwise why would I be doing this to myself in the first place, worse than Soviet bureaucracy and I speak from personal experience there too...)

So I'm wondering what patron saints to invoke tomorrow morning, maybe you, maybe Helen of Troy, I mean I can't take this too seriously, right? You guys are the doctors of irreverence. And then I thought of my second cousin, Marie Walsh, the one who died of cancer, right? I mean, she qualifies.

I come from a family of geniuses. OK, so they're all whacked, eccentric. But brilliant. My mother's ghosts: her father taught himself algebra, read at the speed of sight. He left her with other genes more insidious, the random Foresight upsetting the linear logic of the present. I can even tell you the words for it in several dead Celtic languages.

And her cousin, Marie, the math genius, was whisked away out of high school, she had the highest math scores in the state of Nevada, my family didn't know where she was but she had all these weird addresses: Los Alamos, Alamagordo, White Sands, Oak RIdge. We never saw her, only occasional post cards. 

My grandmother said as a child she was like a little angel, always worried someone was going to blame her. Saying I'm a good girl. I'm a good girl. Really I am. Maybe it was the Foresight having its way with her. They say Julia, her eedjit cousin, still haunts the International Cafe in Austin. She makes coffee for the unexpected travelers from the other side.

Wooden horses aside, ask Helen about those names. Helen was my mother's middle name. That expains a lot. Ask her why my cousin lived so long in secret in the desert heart of New Mexico and we had to wait until her death to find out the code names. 

Say it: Manhattan Project. Say it: the Age of Light. Say it: fusion/fission. Say it. Fat Man, Little Boy. Big Bertha. Mea maxima culpea. 

She died for it, she died for it, the equations glowing in the dark like star patterns in the geometric vortex of the sky. The dark cancer growing in exponentials, growing toward the light. The white desert sands of Alamagordo melting into kryptonite at her feet. Emerald green like her lost homeland, her lost blessed isle of green. No Superman to save her. Just her fate. All the pure numbers and equations dancing in her head.

Just let me pass the fucking test!

maureen

PS Tell Gary I miss him...how long is he here for?

(And so I did).



Dear Hurley,

Yeow, I am way behind in some emails!  I'm sorry, you asked me at the bottom how long Gary was around and I didn't read that in time before he left for San Jose or something.

I hope things are turning better for you, I really do.  Have ye a paddle at least by now?  Are you clinging to a branch about to go over the falls?  I hope not.  C'mon you genius descended of geniuses, you will think of something.

I've got a buddhist name now so I can probably burn the candles of least three religions for you now: Christian, heathen or buddhist. First I was an alter boy, then a born again nutter, then I went in a couple of other directions. I was made an honorary Druid the day I met your Mom and now I am Trungpa Bumbleshe, according to my minister friend, as of yesterday!  Now all we need is a power outage.  I forgot to tell you I'm part Scottish?

You missed a rather poor showing by moi in Marin. Gary and Margery were good, but I am not a great team poet, and the group presentation has a different set of problems than a solo set.  I guess I wasn't as into it as I should have been and I didn't like being a part of a sideshow of a three ring circus.  The rest of the show was pretty good, a jazz band and a human beat box, not to mention a balloon lady, a magician and a poetry slam, which was kinda of cool, kind of lame.  But it took forever and the service sucked.

If I owned Cafe Amsterdam I would hire some extra help and sell a thousand drinks. Nobody came to our table for two hours. It was kind of stressful, not knowing why I was waiting to be told to cut our set short, playing the poetry fool, paying for my dinner and dying of thirst at the same time.Had a couple of real good session since then, so I'm over it now. But enuf about me!

Are you okay?  Are you dancing barefoot because you passed the test?  Are you cutting yourself because your cousin helped blow up some atoms?  Your mind, is it still full?  Your body, is it all systems go, in harmony with itself, healing you?  You were going a mile a minute when crammed full of info for the test; do you have a brain chock full to the brim with something tonight?

I think I may take a bubble bath now, and I suggest you do the same.

Whitnaked "T.B." McGod, Doctor of Irreverence

Dr. EyeReverence,

Well burning candles at both ends leads to a hot arse, but at three ends? What does that lead to, Trungpa Bumpershoot? T.B.rolly in the bath with bubbles? How does that affect the outcome of luck, good, or otherwise?

I already knew about the Scottish bits...probably one of the first things out of your mouth when I first met you... It was the blue woad thang.... I'm trying to remember when/were that was? Do you? Was it thru Gary at that place on Roblar Road in Cotati-Petaluma? I remember later, being surprised that you knew my ma. She moved in exquisite, if torturous circles.

I haven't much felt like performing ever since the car accident with fucking Verona Seiter nearly 7 years ago!!! I think I tried to perform too soon after, I remember gettting sick, throwing up, the shakes, my pain threshold overmaxed and absolutely no reserves. My candle at both ends was very nearly snuffed out, now it's only lit at one end these days...yo pienso que si pero...

I still get back spasm from stupid stuff, probably from sleeping wrong, spent Mon/ Tues (last fortnight) in amped pain module trying to break spasm with Flexeril. Genius? stupid as a fish comes to mind.

Cafe A'dam sounds like a 3-ring poetry-circus.  And a dry one at that.

May 9 I'm off to Miami to perform with world-class pianist duo Kirk Whipple & Marilyn Morales, from the Unconservatory. I wrote a suite of poems as Kirk was composing them: 12 nocturnes, Elemental Portraits of Sonoma Co. musicians. 

I used to lay under the piano and freewrite as he tried out riffs, read from his dreambook, etc, then wrote, and then I interviewed the people. Wove the story around them. We were going on the road when the accident happened, with a punctured lung, I literally had no breath by which to read.... 

They moved to Miami (bigfish/mudpuddle syndrome; Mari's family is Cuban--she missed them) and enroute, they got sorta famous. Played at the Kennedy Center. So, we're resurrecting the old show (vs saw?) for da SnowBirds and Republican JebBush supporters. Oughta be real interesting.

And yes, I passed the effing CBEST math test with 18 points to spare (55 out of a total of 80; 37 was passing) and no, I can't remember much of what I learned other than E=mc2 but I already knew that fission/fusion thang. We're having a rare Walsh clan gathering in Santa Rosa June 27. Home Ranch & Marie Walsh will be invoked at one point or another.

I got a few CPITS gigs in Fremont, Healdsburg, and a YABA gig in Clayton so I'm spread pretty thin, I'm working but earning diddlysquat and resenting the shit outa the govt thang, etc...fuck taxes, the irs, etc....

Other than that, all quiet on the western front. We're still on spring break. More like broken spring for me with the rental manager hanging me up for days on end while fixing the sink (it was literally falling thru the counter) and he took apart every faucet in the house, while painting the closets with sealer as the roof leaked, and ALL my clothes & things are mouldy. 

I won't mention the mondo moth attack. Well, I needed to downsize and get rid of sweaters (the past) anyway. I had to wash every stitch of clothing and the dryer isn't working right. Talk about being the Irish washerwoman! I've wet clothes everywhere.

And last week, the ONE day I left my silk painting manuscripts out of the portfolio, leaning against the piano bench--as I was scanning them--and I wanted to redo them--I went off to teach a class in Healdsburg and when I came back they were all wet!!! The ceiling had to leak in that one spot in the whole house. Luckily, they're covered with visquine but the mats got wet and I was afraid of migration...not one color shift. I must've used fixer in the dye with them, thank gawdess!! I had to spread them out all through the house to dry.

I'm borrowing a digital camera (from my aunt) and I'm having a blast taking pix of flowers, cats, etc. I was worried about not having the software, drivers, etc., for it, and of course, I couldn't find Toshiba drivers for it, but it showed up anyway on my elder Mac's (8.6) USB card, like a little itty-bitty hard drive. I was so thrilled! Now I can document my art work after all these years.

Neil returned home Friday from Scotland last night reeking of cigarette smoke, (his mum is a chimney) and I'm so allergic it's not funny, so now his clothes are all outside as well...what a time for the dryer to break!

About the Scots, to avoid Longshanks (Braveheart comment), Neil got inducted into the Caledonian Club...they put on the Highland Games, oldest in the nation I think...you gotta be Scots born AND male!!! we went to the Tartan Ball...I just don't DO that sort of thing...like put on a dress, nylons (hose) I refused at that...let the men do that, skirts, I mean, not hose unless they really want to.... Anyway, they were toasting this and that...And I about gargled when they toasted "our dear President Bush," the office, yes, but NOT the man. Needless to say, the mayor of Pleasanton (where the Games are held), my tablemate and  I abstained from toasting.

I thought I was in for a right torturous dour evening, until about the 10th toast, when they shed their wee dour selves and the party began!!! ... isn't there something, say, a nice medium between dour and stroppy/ lunatics? Anyway, it really did take them the entire evening to warm their cockles, the real party or should I say, ceildhe, began in someone's hotel room after midnight, with Neil on the guitar and all these drunken Scots caber-catching themselves in kilts...mine wasn't the only stray hand feeling the underside pleat job. And hotel security (Airport Hilton) coming in to join the fun or to shush us up...was it the snare drums or the pipes someone had the audacity to complain about???

Hmm, forget the bubblebath, the sun's out. I must flog my man around the lake (Merritt) if he's to shift his circadian clock from Scottish time...

Moski

PS I sent rhiannon your Colorado gigs, you may want to follow up.

4.21.04