I enjoyed your newest theory on the Pacific Wormhole (yes, I read it, even after professing that I hated your guts and would never speak to you again--congrats on the publication. Well-deserved) and would like to discuss it with you sometime. By letter, if you prefer, or in person. As I told you back in 2014, I binge-read and continue to read everything you've written that I can find, even going back to your 2007 co-publication on the Kepler Conjecture...which was inspired...by which I mean I am arrogantly trying to cover for the fact that I understood nothing and spent the better part of that night rereading my old math textbooks. At the risk of being too revealing, I am going to admit I read that publication again a week ago for no reason other than because I wanted to.
That's why, despite the advice that I tell you I'm sorry and reassure you that it had nothing to do with the cane, I'm only going to do the former. I think the latter is a given. After all, consider this, Hermann: Why would a cane have any bearing on my interest in talking to a man whose work inspires me, a biologist, to read (multiple times!!!) about sphere packing in three-dimensional Euclidean space?
Easy answer: it has no bearing on it at all. You lose no respect/interest points for walking with a cane.
So here we are.
I'm sorry, Hermann.
I am sorry that our first meeting went badly. I don't make good first impressions--or second, or third--but I refuse to shoulder full responsibility for that meeting. The blame falls evenly distributed. We are both at fault.
What you ordered from overseas was not what you thought advertised, I get that--but I don't think I ever falsely sold myself, so do not accuse me of it as you have. I don't know what you expected. I have been college educated since 14, so if I know nothing else, I know how to read and write well. And I know you get more Academics to write back with a well-written letter on school letterhead than a "hey bro, wanna grab a bite and talk kaiju?"
But I am sorry. I really wanted it to work out. I wanted you to immediately like me and I got mad when you didn't. When you were closed up, instead of being patient and waiting for you to come around, I got mad. I liked that you could go on pages and pages about the night sky, but I couldn't see that in person. I hated when you insisted on titles I thought we had both earned the right to be free of together. I don't want to be Doctor to you; I want to be Newton. I want to call you Hermann, not out of disrespect, but because I want to see you as my equal, be seen as your equal by you and others.
We apparently save the world together, Hermann. We could at least get to be on a first-name basis with each other. I didn't want titles. Did you, really? I just wanted to share thoughts with someone I admired and respected. Ok. There. I said it. Admired and respected you. Or, rather, not past-tense.
I'm sorry, Hermann. Neither of us got a chance to know each other. I had my head too far up my ass to look.
So...let's try again.
My name is Newton Geiszler. I prefer to be called "Newt." I despise being called Doctor even though I have more PhDs than I realize are necessary (I needed to do something with my time; they don't actually let Doogie Howsers hold real jobs, you know). I'm a 5'7" bespectacled man with a loud, shrill voice and a tendency to speak and act before I think. I rile easily. I tease often. I have been called insane before--I don't appreciate it. I am generally considered cute, not handsome, if I am considered at all, and I have Kaiju tattoos I am quite proud of. I intend to get more, until we win this war. And we will win it. I don't have faith in much, but I do believe in science and I believe that once we understand more about the Kaiju, we'll better understand how to handle them.
Anyway, I tell you all that about myself not because I'm setting up some sort of Tinder account here--but because I don't want any false assumptions. If neither of us got to know each other before, we can now. This is who I am. This is what you get if you'd like to talk to me in person.
Or if you prefer, we can keep going on paper.
Or neither, if you prefer.
I started writing you years ago because I wanted to hear your thoughts on the Kaiju; I kept writing you because I enjoyed your letters and wanted to talk to you. At worst, saying this gives you more ammunition against me. At best...we get back what we had? Some of it? The ball is in your proverbial court, Hermann.
You owe me nothing. I owe you for saving my life with a Drift. To be honest, I didn't really believe it. But I found a letter--a series of letters--in my room, that are clearly your half of an exchange with me--I assume you have mine or disposed of mine. I finally got around to reading them. It never gives the details of our Drift, but in one you say: "All in all, I can't really say that I regret any of it, even if that single impulsive action does seem to have bound us more closely than we could have imagined."
I don't know, and may never know, why you did that with me or for me, or how it is that you didn't regret it, even when it ended up permanently saddling you with Newton Geiszler on the brain. But thank you for being that person I refused to see a month ago, even if you'll never let me see that myself.
March 31, late evening, after dinner - pull point plot
How is life across the hall?
I enjoyed your newest theory on the Pacific Wormhole (yes, I read it, even after professing that I hated your guts and would never speak to you again--congrats on the publication. Well-deserved) and would like to discuss it with you sometime. By letter, if you prefer, or in person. As I told you back in 2014, I binge-read and continue to read everything you've written that I can find, even going back to your 2007 co-publication on the Kepler Conjecture...which was inspired...by which I mean I am arrogantly trying to cover for the fact that I understood nothing and spent the better part of that night rereading my old math textbooks. At the risk of being too revealing, I am going to admit I read that publication again a week ago for no reason other than because I wanted to.
That's why, despite the advice that I tell you I'm sorry and reassure you that it had nothing to do with the cane, I'm only going to do the former. I think the latter is a given. After all, consider this, Hermann: Why would a cane have any bearing on my interest in talking to a man whose work inspires me, a biologist, to read (multiple times!!!) about sphere packing in three-dimensional Euclidean space?
Easy answer: it has no bearing on it at all.
You lose no respect/interest points for walking with a cane.
So here we are.
I'm sorry, Hermann.
I am sorry that our first meeting went badly. I don't make good first impressions--or second, or third--but I refuse to shoulder full responsibility for that meeting. The blame falls evenly distributed. We are both at fault.
What you ordered from overseas was not what you thought advertised, I get that--but I don't think I ever falsely sold myself, so do not accuse me of it as you have. I don't know what you expected. I have been college educated since 14, so if I know nothing else, I know how to read and write well. And I know you get more Academics to write back with a well-written letter on school letterhead than a "hey bro, wanna grab a bite and talk kaiju?"
But I am sorry. I really wanted it to work out. I wanted you to immediately like me and I got mad when you didn't. When you were closed up, instead of being patient and waiting for you to come around, I got mad. I liked that you could go on pages and pages about the night sky, but I couldn't see that in person. I hated when you insisted on titles I thought we had both earned the right to be free of together. I don't want to be Doctor to you; I want to be Newton. I want to call you Hermann, not out of disrespect, but because I want to see you as my equal, be seen as your equal by you and others.
We apparently save the world together, Hermann. We could at least get to be on a first-name basis with each other. I didn't want titles. Did you, really? I just wanted to share thoughts with someone I admired and respected. Ok. There. I said it. Admired and respected you. Or, rather, not past-tense.
I'm sorry, Hermann. Neither of us got a chance to know each other. I had my head too far up my ass to look.
So...let's try again.
My name is Newton Geiszler. I prefer to be called "Newt." I despise being called Doctor even though I have more PhDs than I realize are necessary (I needed to do something with my time; they don't actually let Doogie Howsers hold real jobs, you know). I'm a 5'7" bespectacled man with a loud, shrill voice and a tendency to speak and act before I think. I rile easily. I tease often. I have been called insane before--I don't appreciate it. I am generally considered cute, not handsome, if I am considered at all, and I have Kaiju tattoos I am quite proud of. I intend to get more, until we win this war. And we will win it. I don't have faith in much, but I do believe in science and I believe that once we understand more about the Kaiju, we'll better understand how to handle them.
Anyway, I tell you all that about myself not because I'm setting up some sort of Tinder account here--but because I don't want any false assumptions. If neither of us got to know each other before, we can now. This is who I am. This is what you get if you'd like to talk to me in person.
Or if you prefer, we can keep going on paper.
Or neither, if you prefer.
I started writing you years ago because I wanted to hear your thoughts on the Kaiju; I kept writing you because I enjoyed your letters and wanted to talk to you. At worst, saying this gives you more ammunition against me. At best...we get back what we had? Some of it? The ball is in your proverbial court, Hermann.
You owe me nothing. I owe you for saving my life with a Drift. To be honest, I didn't really believe it. But I found a letter--a series of letters--in my room, that are clearly your half of an exchange with me--I assume you have mine or disposed of mine. I finally got around to reading them. It never gives the details of our Drift, but in one you say: "All in all, I can't really say that I regret any of it, even if that single impulsive action does seem to have bound us more closely than we could have imagined."
I don't know, and may never know, why you did that with me or for me, or how it is that you didn't regret it, even when it ended up permanently saddling you with Newton Geiszler on the brain. But thank you for being that person I refused to see a month ago, even if you'll never let me see that myself.
--Newton Geiszler
PS. hey bro, wanna grab a coffee and talk kaiju?