Tiny editor
(in case you're still reading ... you are, aren't you?)
This evening, after Arthur and I were working on binary and hexadecimal numerals (yes, yes, I know, nerd alert), he wanted to know if there were any other ways of writing numbers. So of course I told him that I wrote a book on the subject. That was where my trouble began. Then he asked how many books I've written, and I told him: just the one, but I have another one coming out soon. So naturally, he asked me how long it was, and I told him, about 300 pages, to which he replied, "Well, I can see why you aren't done it yet, then!" Hmph. And then he wanted to know my publication plans for the next several books after that. What will the next one be? Well, I wasn't sure, but I thought it might be on my stop signs research (for which he has been my field research 'assistant' in the past), but he remarked skeptically, "Why would anyone care about that and why would it be a good book?" Fair enough, I suppose. I probably should be able to answer that question. He then wanted to know about the next one, and I told him it might be about my Math Corps research. He looked at me and then said seriously, "Your first book was pretty good. It was about a specific subject in math. So you should do that again." Then he suggested that maybe what I need to do is to publish a 'special edition' of my first book, with 15% new material so we can just put a sticker on the cover. I told him that I already put everything I knew about numerical notation in the first edition. He suggested that that was a mistake. So there.
On the plus side, when I showed him his name in the acknowledgements of Numerical Notation, where I wrote, "Arthur Chrisomalis provided useful firsthand insights into the childhood acquisition of lexical and graphic numeration,
and rekindled his father’s wonderment at the magic of numbers," he gave me a big hug and told me he loved me. Awwww. Then, for his bedtime story tonight, he asked me to read to him from Numerical Notation, which of course I did, and he even laughed at the joke on page 2 (where I give as an example of ordination the list, "1. Wash dishes, 2. Sweep floor, 3. Finish manuscript"). However, after reading a long and dense paragraph I turned to him and asked, "Did you understand any of that?", to which he replied, "I wasn't really paying attention to half of it." So, I'll count that as a half-win.