Can you stand on your head?

Quite recently I was staying up late doing some useful work aiding one of my friends with a mathematical problem. Instead of going to her apartment, I stayed at home in my PJs and helped using MSN. I like doing things this way. In the distant past, I got quite good at reading equations over the phone. “Open bracket open bracket integral from zero to t of …” But, it’s much easier to type such things. Too many times, I’ve had a friend say, “What was that again? My brackets don’t match.” Another of the wonderful things about co-operating in this way is that one can work with several people at once. Also, taking breaks and chatting makes more sense in the world of internet chat than it did in phoneworld. So, while one person is waiting while another types an equation, that person can talk about something else. Thus, immediately after typing, “It’s just easier if you bound the Lyapunov surface with a circle - on the outside.” I received the following message:

X: can u stand on ur head?

It was an out of the out of the blue inquiry. I liked it. It made me smile. That in and of itself isn’t surprising. That friend makes me smile more often than not. So, wanting to encourage more of these kinds of questions and being a bit curious about why I was asked, I replied with an affirmative.

The rest of the conversation (slightly edited for the purposes of posting on the open net - isn’t search and replace a wonderful thing?) went as follows:

Me: Can you?

Me: Hmm. I need a wall to balance against or I might fall over. So, I won’t without a wall.

X: i did yesterday with a little support from the yoga instructor..i am trying very hard to do it on my own

Me: Why? It hurts my head to do it.

Me: Every once in a while I have to though.

X: thats probably because you are not doing it ok

X: it never hurts and its excellent for ur system

Me: No. I just do it to be upside down for demonstration purposes.

X: ah

Me: Sometimes I draw tress with the root at the top and the leaves at the bottom.

X: don’t do it the wrong way plz..it can be very dangerous

Me: So, I go to the back of the class and stand on my head and say “Ooh. I see now. That makes sense.”

Me: You’re saying I shouldn’t do that?

X: yes, if ur head hurts

Me: It doesn’t if I do it on a pillow. It does on a hard floor though.

X: i wish i could show u the proper way to do it

Me: OK. Next time we see each other you can.

The next day, I bumped into my friend in a hallway. She grabbed me and said, “I have to show you” (her voice includes capitalization and words spelled out completely - I’m not quite sure why her text isn’t that way though it could have something to do with not paying to heat her apartment and wearing gloves while she types) and pulled me into a private room. I’d forgotten about the conversation so I was a bit confused. She walked into the middle of the room and turned upside down. I wasn’t watching for technique. I was feeling a little stunned. I had been walking along in my happy bubble. My friend is a bit of a whirlwind so my happy bubble had to reshape itself. While such reshaping is pleasurable, it leaves me feeling a bit stunned.

To be sure, her turning upside down started out quite gracefully. She generally moves in a fluid manner. I haven’t yet managed to quickly control what my new progressive lenses will allow me to view in focus. I’m getting quite used to that. I’m finding it helps me to keep the shape of my happy bubble even in chaotic surroundings. In this particular case, my lenses enabled me to focus on her long brown elegantly curved legs. I find muscular legs to be interesting so she had my full attention. I’m don’t think that the brownness or the longness are important. I think it’s the shape and texture. I bet if she was proportionately shorter or taller or wider or thinner or some other colour such as blue - I do have colour deficient vision so I’m not really inclined to care if things are an implausible colour), I’d have paid exactly as much attention.

Unfortunately for what happened next, she was wearing impractical clothes. It did seem like summer on Tuesday morning. That ended. It’s winter again. Wearing a sundress in winter is foolish. I can understand it though. It is cheerful attire. Wearing a dress of any kind — let alone a floppy one — while doing headstands is foolish for a different reason. That reason became quite apparent. “That’s what you wanted to show me?”

We both collapsed in laughter. Then we did some mathematical stuff.