Introductions

This work, written for my Trigonometry class (the same class I re-wrote Paul McCartney songs into math songs), is an exercise in fiction journal writing.  It probably makes no sense to anyone else but me, but I think it's pretty amusing.  I had to write a fictional account of me noticing all the conic sections in my life (for your sake, they are bolded and underlined).

Conic Sections: A Life

6:30         *Yawn!* It’s too early for me to get up on a weekend, I had this freak-o dream last night…everything I saw was some sort of conic section.  Must…find…lamp…hey, that’s a parabola!  Heck, the stand holding the earth is one too!  Hey, the hockey puck is a circle, Ohmygosh, maybe my dream has come true! 

6:35         Mmm…Lucky Charms…the breakfast of champions if I may say so myself…but as soon as I looked at the bowl, I realized that the bowl itself was one gigantic circle!  I was scared, sure, who wouldn’t be?

6:45         I’ve always imagined that I was British, British only long enough to play darts in some dark, smoky pub.  I’ve been practicing since that day on my…hey that dartboard is another circle!  And when I throw the dart, the path it takes is a parabola!

7:37         After checking my e-mail, I’m ready to once again face the world.  I’m in the mood for music, so I go straight to turntable, with two fantastic LP’s in tow.  Band on the Run and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  I enjoy just watching the LP circle around and around like that on that turntable, which is a circle in and of itself!  After an hour of that, I sit down and look at the covers.  The big bass drum in Sgt. Pepper’s is another circle, and the searchlight looking for Wings in Band on the Run is an ellipse, granted, an irregular ellipse, but I had to fill the quota somehow, didn’t I?

9:04         Something is calling me outside…something like, The Tennessean, which I had neglected to bring in for the morning.  In the foyer I noticed for the first time that the barrel, which serves no purpose other than to amaze guests, has a circular top.  Man, this is like a Twilight Zone dream.

9:05         On the little patio outside is a nifty little sundial I purchased a long time ago.  You know how it works, right?  You don’t?  Then let me tell you.  Turn the circle part…hey, I did it again!  This day ceases to amaze me.

9:05         Darn Tennessean didn’t give me a paper this morning.  I decided to go inside and ponder my next move when I open the door handle.  Jeepers, it’s another circle, that door handle.  I reflect on my discovery, and notice that the metal lattice work is full of hyperbolas.

What a day, youknowwhatimean?

9:09         Angrily, I decide to take a visit to the Tennessean’s delivery point in my area.  But before I could hop in the van (which isn’t mine, don’t ask) I notice that the Ford® logo is simply an ellipse.  And in between the prongs in the crown on the plate, are parabolas.  I make the decision to stop thinking about conic sections…it’s affecting my life too much.

9:13         I need something to help wake me up…I need Little Richard.  I’m at a stoplight, listening to “Lucille,” when I decide to read the liner notes from the CD.  I start flipping around the book when I notice Little Richard’s mouth.  It’s a circle.  Granted, it isn’t every day that one sees a picture of Little Richard that looks like he’s possessed by Satan, so I decide to break my earlier vow.

9:25         I’m back at home, paper in hand, when I noticed some kids playing basketball in my backyard.  After firing a few shots into the air, I decide to shoot some hoops with the ones who weren’t scared, and didn’t run away.  Then, after I slammed on this kid, he wasn’t even 10, I got to thinking.  “What is a hoop,” I thought.  “It’s one big circle,” the kid I just dunked on answered.  Perhaps I need to think a little less loudly next time.

11:45       Back to the living room I go.  I decide that I’m in a swingish-jazzish mood, so spin a record close to my heart.  The Squirrel Nut Zippers’ sophomore effort Hot.  I’m flipping thru the liner notes and I come across this picture.  What doesn’t it have?  The eye holes on the mask are ellipses, heck the mask itself is an ellipse.  The taillights are circles, the antenna is a parabola, heck, the only thing missing is a hyperbola, which as we all know are hard to come by…

2:40         I’m getting pretty hungry.  I grab a Coke®, a small bag of chips, a couple of Hershey’s Kisses®, and nuke a Linda McCartney’s Vegetarian Dinner (this time it’s Fettuccini Alfredo.)  But my hands are pretty full.  So I grab a serving tray.  I put all my food on it and carry it out to the living room.  I set it down on the coffee table, scooting over my lone coffee table book, “Linda McCartney’s Sixties.”  I move the food to the table, and take the tray back to the kitchen.  I begin to put it up in the cabinet, when I realize that the darn thing is just another ellipse...this day has been something else.

2:46         Now, a little time for me.  A week’s worth of Days of Our Lives on one tape…. Three shows in, I flip my official DoOL hourglass (commemorating Sami and Austin’s marriage) and watch the intro…”Like sand through the hourglass….”  I look at my hourglass.  I look back at the television.  I pause the VCR.  I look back at my hourglass, and realize that my hourglass is really just two parabolas, one normal, the other upside down.  Hey, that makes for a hyperbola, doesn’t it?  Man, what a freaky day.  I push play on the remote, and re-enter my vegetative state watching DoOL.