This is the story of missed connections.
On Craigslist, there is a board called "Missed Connections." The posts on that board read like this: "You were wearing thigh-high boots. I was wearing a flannel. I couldn't keep my eyes off you. I wish I knew how to tell you in person, but this will have to do."
I have been in the right place at the right time a few times in my life. That's just the law of averages at work. More often, I am not in the right place at the right time. That's why I often hear, "Oh, dude, you should have been there. It was insane."
I missed my last Homecoming bonfire. I am still mad about it. I wanted to go, but I had to set up for tails or something. I hadn't had enough caffeine that day, and I took a nap. When I woke up, the bonfire was over. Fires go out. But you already know that if you've ever lit things on fire in the alley or been in love.
"You were running around a fire. I was asleep on a couch. But I can't shake the feeling that we were meant to be together."
I got into science when I was very little. We had a book about the heart and a copy of "Cosmos" on tape, so it was inevitable.
You've heard of Einstein. Like me, you may have told people in grade school that E = mc^2 because you thought it made you sound smart. Einstein had some really cool ideas about time.
If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time or you miss a connection, it is actually a geometric problem. Not the sort of geometric problem that going to the gym fixes it's a problem that's a bit more complex.
I liked geometry in high school because you got to draw in class. I spent every class doodling anyway, so it was nice that it was sanctioned.
Take a sheet of paper. Make two dots. Now drag your pen in between them. If you have a steady hand, you have made a line, a connection. If you do not, you missed a connection. I do not have a steady hand.
I tend to think too much about drawing the line perfectly straight. No error. More efficiency. But that makes me nervous. Your hand will naturally shake a little. What if the line looks ugly? What if you run out of ink? What if you say the wrong thing? Making connections is nerve-wracking.
I'm a digital arts minor. That means I ask computers to make pretty things and they do. I just kind of give them the guidelines. I like doing art on the computer because all the lines are perfectly straight. It is harder to miss a connection on the computer than it is on paper. That's probably because you have more time to think about what you're going to say.
I have regrets. People who don't have them annoy me because they've clearly done better at life than me, and I'm pretty competitive. I've missed out on things I wish I hadn't.
I wonder what things would have been like if I'd gone to that one party. I wonder what things would have been like if I'd talked to that one girl. I wonder what things would have been like if I could have drawn that line straight.
One of my friends from school has the coolest mom in the world. She makes toys. That is awesome. Her house used to be like some sort of museum. They have every McDonalds toy ever made. They had widgets and MacGuffins that were never released. You could spend days messing with all the things in their living room. I loved spending time there.
A big part of designing toys is drawing. She drew by hand. One day I asked her how she drew straight lines. Did she just get used to it over time? Was it muscle memory? Was she just naturally good at it? She told me that there is a surefire way to draw straight lines. Take a sheet of paper. Draw two dots. Place your pen on one of them. Look at the other. Don't think. Just tell the pen to move to the other dot.
The line isn't always perfect. Sometimes there's a bit of a curve or a little inconsistency. But the connection is always made.
There are only a few perfect things. Lines need not be among them. Most dots are pretty damn near perfect. I know one or two that are perfect. It doesn't really matter how you put them together.
