RP: X+Y= Confusion

[isaacgreenberg]

Date: February 21, 2011
Characters: Isaac Greenberg, Libby Weaver
Location: Student Lounge at TCU
Status: Private
Summary: Isaac takes on some math tutoring to keep the bank account padded.
Completion: incomplete

Comments

[libby_weaver]

She'd taken the plunge, made the jump, asking her math professor for an avenue of help, and sent an e-mail. She hadn't expected a reply, but when one had come from 'Isaac', she pushed the anxiety aside and replied with an agreement to meet

[isaacgreenberg]

He slouched gratefully into the seat, taking a pen out from his pocket and a pad of paper, before cracking a yawn.

"Sorry, late night." He took her papers and started looking through them while chugging down his coffee. "Yeah, ok, so you're missing some steps here for sure. Looks like you get on the right path and then panic or something."

He rifled through the sea of red ink with a wrinkled nose. "Fuckers. I hate when professors spray ink all over everything it's so goddamn confusing. Ok, so looks like you and I gotta talk about Y. You seem to get one variable and then Y is throwing you for a loop."

[libby_weaver]

"I really thought I was getting it," she said, frowning at all the red on her tests. "A friend told me that I could change things to 'X' because everything else confused me. But when there's two things, and you change them both, it doesn't work." She hated feeling so stupid about numbers, so anxious about things she knew she could do.

"I work in a diner, and I can add checks in my head and figure tax and add in an extra slice of pie without needing a pen. Why can't I do this?"

[isaacgreenberg]

"Because practical math is like five hundred times easier than theoretical stuff. It's why professors like to give you word problems, but they don't really mimic real life situations so they're fucking stupid."

He started to write on his pad trying to work something out.

"Ok, so here's the thing, numbers are computers, they do things that are predictable. No matter how many times you divide 9 by 3, it's always 3 right? Variables fuck with that. They make you think the rules aren't true, but they are. If it helps, think of them like people. Not so much X, but like Xavier and Y is Yolanda. You just got to sort them out."

[libby_weaver]

"My therapist in Daytona was pretty bad," Libby offered. "She kept calling me a different name every time and wondering why I kept correcting her." The hateful woman had insisted on Beth, too, and it had nearly driven Libby nuts. Well, more nuts. "She had it in her head that telling me how 'fine' I was, was going to convince me that I was fine, when I was anything but. I had three weeks inpatient before they figured out that she wasn't a good fit for me."

She reached for her cup and sipped lukewarm lemonade. "I asked for a change, but he's not ready to try yet. I kind of had a freakout a couple weeks ago." She shrugged, sure he could relate if his history included sexual anxiety and lack of coherent thinking.

The thought of murals made her smile, though. "I like murals, but I think if you paint them on walls here, they call it graffiti. I had a friend that used to paint her friends on her bedroom walls, though. If she decided later she didn't like you anymore, she'd paint right over you."

[isaacgreenberg]

"It's amazing that people get degrees in this shit than talk like that isn't it? Makes you wonder how they got 'em." He clicked his tongue. "Medication changes freak me out. I like knowing what it's going to do to me."

"Heh. I like the sound of that. Paint someone right out. Probably a hell of a lot easier than not talking to them anymore."

[libby_weaver]

"Having the doctors not listen when I try to tell them what it's doing is more irritating. I know what I'm on isn't working right, but I don't know what to try next. I've been on a thousand combinations of everything..." She probably had some of everything leftover in the box under her bed, to be honest, but she wasn't sure what to choose.

"And by now, I know what most of them do. Just not what they'll do together. But he said he'll try when things have settled down, so I'm hopeful." She turned to the pad again and worked another step of the problem.

"It probably is. Too bad you can't paint out real people..." Wouldn't she love to slop a gallon of paint over Michael?

[isaacgreenberg]

"I almost had a heart attack when they first started putting me on stuff." He sighed. "Long time ago now, it was ugly though. Probably what still freaks me out when they change it on me, you know? But yeah, I get wanting people to listen. Seems like once you've got a diagnosis, ears just close right up."

"Mhm. I can think of a few that I wouldn't mind getting rid of, but fortunately they're all past people, not now people. One way or another, they're out of my life, so that's all to the good."