Teddy Wayne - Kapitoil

Because I didn’t know what to do in this situation, and because possibly Rebecca did, I waited for her to initiate a dialogue with me that weekend. But she didn’t call.

I tried to reroute my brain by spending more time on my idea about Kapitoil and epidemiology. Typically I can force myself to concentrate, but whenever I looked at the text on the monitor, I thought of looking at Rebecca’s closed eyes when we kissed, and whenever I moved my mouse I thought instead of touching her hand, and in my brain I smelled her watermelon shampoo and remembered the feel of her lips like two small pillows.

Then on Sunday I did something I have never previously done. I was using my computer’s painting program to diagram an object-oriented classes of viruses, but instead I tried to draw Rebecca’s face. However, I’m not a skilled artist on paper, and I’m even inferior on the computer, so it didn’t look like her. And then I was struck by lightning, although it was different from my typical class of lightning.

I employed one of the algorithms in Kapitoil and programmed a macro for it to utilize the painting program. Of course it didn’t draw a face, but a random piece of art like abstract expressionism that derived from a picture of a watermelon on the Internet. Except I knew it wasn’t random, because it was based on an algorithm, and when I analyzed it closely I could see the causes behind its decisions. I thought Jackson Pollock would green-light my design, and I titled it R #1 .

And then the design did seem Rebecca-esque, as sometimes one object can mirror another one not because they look precisely equal, but because something more tangential feels similar, e.g., much of the painting utilized the visible spectrum near indigo, and if I think of a color to represent Rebecca, it would be indigo, because (1)of her personality; (2)most people cannot identify indigo between blue and violet, parallel to how some people might not notice Rebecca; and (3)I once saw a CD of hers by a female band with the word “Indigo” in its name.

On Monday morning I still had not heard from Rebecca, and I was afraid we were both acting like negotiating holdouts and not making an offer to increase our value. Although I knew I should wait longer, later that morning I emailed her:

Rebecca,

May I request a meeting at your earliest convenience in the coffee room to discuss certain subjects?

Sincerely,

Karim

She replied:

Mr. Issar:

Yes, but only if we can talk like that the whole time. See you in five minutes.

Formally yours,

Ms. Goldman

I didn’t know if she was teasing me or not, but when I reached the coffee room she was already sitting at the small table and tapping her right foot on the ground repeatedly as if she were timing a song.

“Would you like to begin?” I asked.

“I’m not dying to,” she said.

This was problematic, because I had hoped she would start and I could respond. I began talking without a clear plan, which is a tactic I would never use in business.

“I enjoyed spending Thanksgiving with you,” I said. “And the subway ride.”

“But?” she interrupted.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“You enjoyed it, but…” she said again.

I didn’t know if she meant she had an objection to my enjoyment, or if she was predicting I had an objection planned. So I said, “This is not a ‘but’ statement. I merely enjoyed it.”

She looked like she didn’t know what else to say. The periodicity of her foot’s taps was decreasing.

Another employee who always looks like he is asleep even when he is walking entered for coffee. Rebecca and I didn’t say anything the entire time he was there. When he spent approximately 30 seconds deciding between real sugar and false sugar, I had to restrict myself from commanding him to take both packets and decide at his desk.

He finally left. “In my experience, it is beneficial to repeat events that are enjoyable. Do you agree?” I asked.

She said, “In my experience, that’s also true.”

“I am available to repeat events on Saturday.”

“So am I,” she said. “Wait, am I supposed to say I’m not, to play hard to get?”

“I do not understand.” At times like this I wish I had more mastery of English, but possibly these kinds of exchanges are challenging even for fluent speakers. “Are you available or unavailable?”

She said she was available. I said, “I will shoot you an email with further details,” and she consented, and when she left I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, and in my office I even slightly punched the air with stimulation, although I contacted my fist on my desk and it hurt because I’m not used to punching, but the pain didn’t bother me, and in fact it felt good to be feeling sensations, even unpleasant sensations.

I spent Monday brainstorming for our date. Now that I had more money I could afford to take Rebecca someplace classy. Jefferson probably knew of good places, but I couldn’t ask him. So I researched places on the Internet that might impress Rebecca and made a list with pros and cons about different restaurants, e.g.:

Bavarian Haus

PRO: CON

Received 3 stars: Most non-Germans evaluate German food as low quality

It was more difficult than programming in many ways, because in programming if you can’t predict results, you can still test out new variables and use trial and error to arrive at a solution, but with people you typically have one opportunity and their motivations and reactions are more difficult to understand, especially with females.

By Tuesday afternoon I still didn’t know what to do. So I forced myself to work on my new Kapitoil-esque project instead. I made some progress, and soon I forgot about my nervousness with Rebecca and reentered the world of programming where I have ultimate control, and I worked through the night in my office, and I remembered how enjoyable it is to concentrate on a project that stimulates me, and by the end of the night I had hurdled some obstacles and received encouraging results, and once I finalize my program and presentation I will propose the concept to Mr. Schrub. If he was impressed with me initially, then this will bowl him over.

not dying to = not stimulated to proceed with an action

play hard to get = create the impression of limited supply to raise external demand

I worked on the epidemiology project, but by Friday I still had no ideas for what to do with Rebecca. And then I decided to yield to my difficulties: I would simply not plan anything. It had the potential to be a growth experience. So I emailed Rebecca and told her to meet me in Central Park on Saturday at noon.

We met in Sheep Meadow. Rebecca blocked her eyes from the sun with her hand and asked, “What’s the plan, Stan?”

“I do not have a plan, Dan,” I said, because I thought she was doing a play on words with me and the only other American name I could think of that rhymed with “plan” was Dan. To boot, I now had a response for Dan when he called me “Karim the Dream.” “I thought we could walk around Central Park.” I had walked through parts of it before, but not much of it, and always by myself.

At first I wondered if we would discuss the events of Thanksgiving with each other, and because I was distracted our conversation was rigid, and I asked her several questions such as, “What did you do to entertain yourself last night?”

Rebecca said, “I know I always say this, but, really, you can let yourself go some. We’re not in the office. You can curse or whatever.”