TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: I think I'll have one at least in a couple of weeks.

CLIENT: That's good. In fact, next week or the following Friday I probably wouldn't be able to meet because we're closing on the 26th of April so we're in packing/dissembling mode.

THERAPIST: Okay. So next Friday doesn't work as well?

CLIENT: Yeah, there's no reason I can't make next Friday, but the following Friday for sure.

THERAPIST: It actually turns out that I have to be at a conference that day on the 26th. So that's the closing date, the 26th?

CLIENT: That's the date the papers get signed for the mortgage and we have to be out at 9:00 AM on the 26th. [00:00:59]

THERAPIST: On the 26th. So you'll be unpacking at that point?

CLIENT: This is the thing, I know it's inconvenient for most people, but my midterm is the 25th.

THERAPIST: What time?

CLIENT: 7:00 to 10 at night. And here's the thing – as I'm preparing for this I'm thinking it could be worse, right? It could always be worse. It could be the day of or the day before.

THERAPIST: But that pretty much is the day of, right?

CLIENT: Well, yeah. You get home in the dead of night and then it's the next morning so basically everything has to be completely ready to go by the time I head off to take my test. I was thinking about it and it's interesting because it's entirely opposite energies, meaning to take a test, especially in mathematics like this, which is entirely abstract, you're building up. You're constructing this abstract structure and you have a lot to hold on to. [00:02:11] There is a limit to what you can write down. You really do have to conceptualize it just as when you're playing chess. You have to be able to – at least good players – think three moves down the road and be entertaining all possibilities and keep that image in one's head. That's going on here, so there's a limit to what you can write. You have to be thinking about lots of things following an order, perpendicular in whatever dimension space you want to think about, visualizing that – well actually doing the algebra – but thinking about the geometry. So you're constructing that. Simultaneously, quite literally, deconstructing the physical structure so in your head stuff goes in the boxes and thinking about what can go into the box. Pictures come off the walls, patch up the holes, take down the curtains, patch up the holes and paint and coming down, coming down, coming down. At the same time, learning more and thinking about complex space and thinking about Shoeringer's equation and light and spectral theorem, rotations in complex space – thinking about this extraordinarily abstract stuff while Barbara is packing. [00:03:41]

THERAPIST: What is that like? What are you doing? (pause) It's not seamless.

CLIENT: No, the thing is the exact sort of [pack sing] (ph?), (chuckles) the completion of the deconstruction and the completion of the construction will happen at this crucial moment. So what is it like? I'm trying to stay calm and feel like (pause)...

THERAPIST: There's something really important about it.

CLIENT: Yeah, well (pause) (chuckles) to use real analysis jargon, both aren't real spaces, right? There is no real space of contemplating abstract ideas and there is no real space of going through books and putting them into boxes and going through clothing and putting it into boxes. Last night I was staying late after class because I was going to [...] (inaudible at 00:05:02) from midnight to 2:00 in the morning and I very rarely talk to the teacher. His name is Elliott. I was asking about this thing that was confusing to me and certainly everybody else because I'd already done the homework. I was a step ahead and it still was confusing. God help the people who are actually hearing it for the first time, which is most people. [00:05:28] So I knew what to ask in the class. No one ever asks anything, but I knew specifically what to ask and he was like, "Excellent. That's the issue exactly." So he tried to be clear how to solve this problem. Anyway, it still wasn't entirely clear so I stayed afterwards. He was telling funny stories. We were going back and forth sort of telling these stories about teaching. He was talking about how he was at this party down 20 years ago, and it was one of these various mathematicians, including two luminary mathematicians, one of whom had already won a Fields Medal, which is the nova prize in mathematics; another who would eventually win a Fields Medal – so major guys. [00:06:26]

The two major guys, Fields Medalist winner and soon-to-be Fields Medal winner, are going back and forth just drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking. Elliott (sp?) who was sharing with these two at the time, one who's now a professor at MIT, was going to go get his car after having had so much to drink. So Elliott, the junior mathematician, had to take this luminary guy and take the keys away and say, "You're not getting into the car." How pointed is that, right? In one realm, the best; and in another realm... you know? No matter who you are you can't get in the car if you're drinking. He said he was going to assume had he not done that, how could he live with the fact of this guy dying in a ditch on Long Island? You'd never live with yourself. So, again, it's sort of a cross-segment how... Well, the story tells itself. [00:07:57]

THERAPIST: Yeah. The abstract and the real.

CLIENT: It's down to the nitty gritty and smart people can make bad decisions. That's one interpretation.

THERAPIST: I was thinking, too, that you can be brilliant in the one sphere – like you were saying – but there's a lot of meaning here. You can be really good at one sphere while you could say you're not as good in that sphere, but you could also say it goes unrecognized. I'm thinking about the nutty professor archetype where you live very much in one realm while the other one goes to pot or something like that. [00:09:08]

CLIENT: Barbara had called me today. I hurt my back and this morning as I'm sitting upright like this. It's always the flukiest things. I was pouring tea this morning and I went to put my milk in the tea holding a quart of milk, not heavy, and this twinge in the middle of my back. All of a sudden it was like – ugh. Hard to breathe. What? It's a quart of milk. Am I at the wrong angle as I'm pouring the milk? Anyway, I iced it. Barbara called and I told her the news that I'd hurt my back and we both agreed this is a really bad time to not have a good back because there is a hell of a lot of stuff that needs to be lifted. She called back to see how I was doing and she said, "I can win $50 if I come up with a phrase that captures delirium." There's a contest. Delirium is an issue so they want a catch phrase that they can use. [00:10:18]

THERAPIST: Like have people more aware of the problem?

CLIENT: Right. So she says, "If you come up with something, tell me." So as soon as she said "delirium", I said, "This is the phrase: ‘I didn't used to be nuts.'" (both laugh) It captures the idea. It's like it's temporary, right? That's the point. Normal people become delirious. It's the medication, it's being in a hospital room for seven days, it's – whatever. She thought that was excellent. (both laugh)

THERAPIST: I could see the campaign. (both laugh)

CLIENT: Anyway, she's going to sniff that. It was good to hear her laugh genuinely because usually she's a little stressed [...] (inaudible at 00:11:14). (pause) So when I mentioned that Barbara and the professor...

THERAPIST: Being out of...?

CLIENT: Yeah, being out of the house. It's this issue of – it's high stakes, right? It's a 30-year [...] (inaudible at 00:11:52) Inherently, even if all things were perfect, I'd be stressed. So I'm wondering does it take away some of the stress because I go into it thinking... whatever. There's that level. There's the thought that okay, this is the time that we need to compartmentalize this. This is the time where you study, you stop studying, you pack and you do all of that, and day of, hopefully those things are done. And you just leave the house and you spend the day away from it and you compartmentalize and when it's "go" time you take the test and you just are in that mode. As soon as it's over you drive home and you're like that's done and now we are in "move" mode. [00:12:44]

THERAPIST: You've been talking about this. It's not an easy transition back and forth. They're orthogonal in a way.

CLIENT: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. (chuckles) Complementary spaces. Complementary in the technical sense, not in a real sense, or a normal sense – although normal means perpendicular so... In Greek, "norm" means to stand up straight, so in reference...

THERAPIST: What's that?

CLIENT: In Greek, "norm", reverse perpendicular, this thing called "norma" is a stick that they put in the ground. It's a reference for verticality versus horizontal and then use in sundials or it's also used as this measure for building. So the normal was always the perpendicular vector in vector algebra. But it actually was this truly physical thing, a stick in the ground. So to be normal was to be upright as opposed to incapacitated in some way. [00:14:18]

THERAPIST: What do you find as you're going back and forth between the two realms – studying and then packing? What is it? What are you feeling?

CLIENT: I don't know. I think fortunately what's not going on is tons and tons of processing of stuff, thinking and sifting. It's not like a hording situation where this paralyzing event where you're trying to sort through tons and tons of memories and you can't part with anything because essentially things are already organized. Barbara was [...] (inaudible at 00:15:09) as well. But, in fact, I've already packed up most of my books and everything is clean and we're set. It's not me going through and thinking should I keep it or should I not? No. It's very clear. If it exists, it goes into a box. Take a picture of the box so you know the contents. [00:15:34] I packed away a library book. I was rifling through my photos thinking, "God damn it. The book is due." (laughs) I was looking through my photos thinking, "I don't see it." So it was packed. I don't want to go back through my boxes to find this library book. [00:15:52]

THERAPIST: You didn't see it in your pictures or you did?

CLIENT: I did not. It's a CD, actually. It's a CD-ROM that accompanies a book, so I can't imagine I would have packed it. But I was looking through the room and I can't find it anywhere. So starting on the 27th if I don't return it, it's $1 a day. There's impetus to find it, but it's not the end of the world if I don't immediately. (pause) In terms of juxtaposition of either world, whatever is going on there, and in dealing with life, the car for the past couple of weeks feels like it doesn't shift as well. Going up a hill it seems to not shift and so it seems like it's over-revving. This was Tuesday, I guess, or Monday. Coming back – we live on a hill – I had to back into this space to parallel park. I put it in reverse and it just wouldn't engage. I was rolling down the hill because it wouldn't engage. I thought, "Okay. It's probably just in need of transmission fluid," right? That's all that needs to be done. Also I wanted to get an oil change, which is not cheap. I had a coupon for $19, but not for my car. I need synthetic oil. An oil change is not a trivial thing. So I thought I should check if it's the engine first because there's no sense putting in brand new oil if the car is shot to hell, right? [00:18:01] I went to this place that I've been before. They're good guys. I'd already researched the possibilities of how much this was going to cost. If it's just transmission fluid which, hopefully, it is that's what the Volvo did and you just put transmission fluid in and – problem solved. If it's just transmission fluid, $23 a quart, it needs a couple of quarts. Boom. Easy. There you go. They said, "Has it smelled a little bit?" I said, "Well, it does smell like it's... It's been like a year. Sometimes you smell smoke." They said, "All right. Does it rattle a bit?" I said, "A little bit." They said, "Okay. This is what it is. This is the part. We keep it in stock because it's the way the cars are. There is a thing that fails and that's why the transmission fluid leaks. It drips on the computer and that's what you smell; so we've got to plug the leak." He said the part is $29. No big deal. But they've got to get in there. That's the labor. And you've got to fill it with transmission fluid, which is $23 a quart. Anyway. $380 later for just the transmission and then $175 for the oil change. That's that. It could have been the transmission, right? Which could have been catastrophic because if it was the transmission – that's it. So while I'm there – this relates to the story – picking up the car, someone walks in tanned, in tights and these white canvas shoes, that quintessential, gum-chewing, New Jersey look. [00:20:10]

THERAPIST: This was a woman?

CLIENT: Oh, yes. It's exactly a woman.

THERAPIST: The tights, I think? You never know.

CLIENT: You never know. Whatever that Soprano's sort of thing is. It's not the nice part of Jersey where you go.

THERAPIST: As far as you know. (both laugh)

CLIENT: There's nothing wrong with that. So she's standing there and she's got the sidekick who's younger and a similar sort of look, and I just sort of thought, "You know,

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