Onward, through the blog.

Cold overnight. Very cold. So cold the temperatures dipped into imaginary numbers. “Bundle up, folks. Overnight temperatures are expected to drop to around 5i, colder in outlying areas.”

I never did get my mind around imaginary numbers. Sure, the square root of –4 is 2i. I remember that. But it always seemed like something dreamed up because the rules of engagement for multiplication demanded that two negatives must mate to produce a positive. But what is an imaginary number, exactly? You can’t use them to count anything. (Unless they have a role in the federal budget — a possibility.) My high school calculus teacher assured us that “imaginary numbers aren’t real — real numbers are — but they exist.” Now, 25 years later, I have to ask, exist in what way? The same way that Thurston Howell III exists?

That only shows that I was never meant for higher mathematics, beyond that glass ceiling known as calculus, all of which I’ve forgotten anyway. I’ll never be John Nash, even if I start having paranoid delusions.

Today was an ordinary, and productive, Tuesday; got work done, etc. I got enough sleep last night, but Yuriko did not, which isn’t good for the balance of humors in our house, so I’m expecting a tough night tonight, if only to even things out.

Lilly has discovered an alarmingly girly Web site lately, Polly Pocket. I smell the influence of Mattel in it, and there must a toy — a doll — a doll-industrial complex, complete with outfits sold separately — out there that inspired it.

I’m not overly worried about gender issues here. Or even commercialism. The site just seems so… stupid. Oh! Let’s go shopping at the Polly Pocket Mall! A girl’s gotta have a new ’do! Help Polly pick it! Am I merely reacting as a former boy? Am I attacking girl culture? Am I wrong to call it stupid?

Naah.

However, if I let her play it (and I do), she will burn out on it soon enough. I hope. We all played with stupid toys once upon a time, and only some of us grow up stoopid.