linda likes to say that Daisy is president of the math club and i'm the secretary. same for the geography club by which she means to say that i'm no good at math and finding places.

i'm not sure i entirely agree but what do i know? not a lot.

the other day on our ride with lilly the clouds were starting to turn dark, we felt a drop of rain and so linda started calculating: speed over distance divided by velocity multiplied by circumference.

i was thinking pastry divided by butter multiplied by two, let's keep going. and besides, i thought the clouds looked pretty the way they were swirling, streaked silver and gray.

linda said, let's calculate how long it'll take to get back.
lilly rode up along side me.
she said,what's she asking?
i said, she wants help calculating
we looked at each other. we don't do calculations we said.

we could hear her up ahead "that's half an hour plus twenty, if we go at..."

Daisy can be president of the math, geography and whatever else club she wants. i'm declaring myself officially dense. there you have it, no more working on the bright look, no more hiding.

i don't get what you're getting at and i'm gonna let you know.

like the meeting i was in yesterday. put me in a terrible funk. it was a small group of three people, myself included, meaning i was part of the three people, so there weren't four, just three.

oh sorry, i'm dense not you.
i forgot.

i told linda how i got lost in the conversation. couldn't follow what they were discussing.

"well what were they discussing?" she asked.
this stumped me. should i know this?
"right," linda said, quickly, "sorry."

is this contagious?

anyhow, during the meeting, which i vaguely recall was about copyright infringements and student downloads of music, i sensed a general turning away from me, a kind of who invited stupido sensation as they were talking directly to one another, avoiding me.

sensing this, i would awake from my stupor and interject what i thought were meaningful interjections.

"Excuse me, is that Catherine with a 'c' or a 'k'?"

i had my laptop open which i hoped would make up for my dissociative state, the drool pooling in the corner of my mouth.

i tried to stay focused. DMCA someone said. i typed the letters into the laptop. I should know what DMCA is, i thought to myself.

was it a rap group? my head began to bob in my white-girl imitation of dancing. don't do that a voice said. perhaps linda's.

then, one of the three of us, certainly not me, stated, "a non-resident, non-student, using a non-wireless connection, in the resident halls..." which just completely threw me.

too many nons for this brain. nons make my brain do yoga. i have to take out the nons, make them non-nons and, well, fuck it. it was time to cover my tracks, announce my presence.

think. think.

"DMCA -- Digital Millenium Copyright Act!" i said.

now that got their non-non-attention.