Short Scientist

First, O is not really 80 - whew. He was kidding, apparently, which isn't always easy to detect by email. I'm meeting him next week, and sort of looking forward to it for once, even though on paper he is wrong, wrong, wrong: retired parole officer (class and educational difference), his location in Brooklyn (too close to my childhood home, an area I despise). But he seems to appreciate me so much, proving I'm basically a compliment whore. I mentioned that I have a three week old grandchild, and his reply was, "Oh, a three week old? You are so hot!" (He meant because he loves children). I mentioned that I probably don't look like my picture; he responded: "If you're half as pretty as you are in the picture, you're out of my league." How can you not like a guy like this? But before I get carried away, my guess is that he tends by nature to gush and idealize. We'll see if there's Meeting Shock.

Today had coffee with N, the Short Scientist who has large blue eyes but an extremely pointy face and a set of the juggiest ears I've ever seen. It was one of those "dates" that make me want to slap myself for arranging it. An hour and ten minutes out of my life! Think what I could do in that time: exercise, write to my brother, cook a meal. And because it interrupted the day, I basically lost the afternoon block of work time.

However, there was an interesting side to the meeting. It wasn't a conversation, because it was almost entirely one-sided (his), but what a character this fellow is! He is no longer interested in his past profession of physics because he has an avocation that absorbs all his time (and conversation): he has discovered the key to reading the Torah, which he has been studying for the last 13 years (in ancient Hebrew, which he reads fluently). Has he published his results? No, because "only two or three people in the entire world could possibly understand" and he is, again in his words, "the only one in the history of the world who has ever approached the Bible this way." Yes, he explained what he does with numerous abstruse examples, but it mostly seemed to be tracking every single reference to a name or word or incident and then "connecting" them, by twisting himself into knots, with his own interpretation of their similar meaning. When I asked how this helped to understand these stories, he dismissed my question with a wave before I finished asking: this is the work of a lifetime; already he has five thousand pages of exegesis and will have to get to the ultimate meaning at a future point -- though he assured me that ultimately, he will have uncovered that the meaning of the Torah is exactly the opposite of what everyone thinks it is.

For example, everyone thinks that God is against homosexuality --- because it says so. But the ancient Hebrew uses an emphatic form in the sentence, translated as "surely homosexual behavior is disgusting to God." The surely is an exaggeration meant to imply a minimization, according to him: "It's like in Shakespeare, where the lady protests too much. No one understands this but me," he said proudly. So it turns out that God is fine with gayness. I would be proud of God if I found this at all convincing: what an ironist!

I could go on, but then you'd basically be sitting through this date, as I had to, and I'm too kind to make you do that. When I called for the check -- as soon as I thought it was not too rude to get away -- and we stood to go, there was the full eye-sweep of my body. He apparently liked what he saw, because he grinned for the first time (until then he was far too absorbed in explaining his theory to smile or even notice me) and said expectantly, "Well?"

Well? Well...no. Lovely man, though: I really wish I could find a suitable partner for him. Has he tried J-Date?

Monday is M, the Tall Brooklynite who used to be a producer of cable news but is now writing his memoir. Stay tuned. All is not lost: he lives in Brooklyn Heights, where I've always wanted an excuse to hang out.

I feel my scope is narrowing rapidly, though. I don't think I can bear many more meetings like the one today, though I now know a few more stories from the Bible than I did before (did you know that God specifically forbids contact with both male and female prostitutes? Who knew? Or that it's displeasing to God if you exchange your dog for a kosher cow to sacrifice to Him? That's not because He wants you to keep your dog but because dogs are not sacred like the kosher cow, so it's an insult to buy the cow with the dog, if you followed this). Also, I had a lovely rum punch, which I don't often get to do. So all was not in vain after all.