Dinner with Einstein

My best friend from home sent me a text yesterday afternoon that read, “If you could have dinner with anyone (dead or alive), who would it be?” While it is an impossible question to answer, it is still quite fun to think about. But before I let the cat out of the bag about who would make my list, I need to provide a little more background for the reasoning regarding my choice.

In high school, math courses terrified me. While I took higher level maths, such as calculus and trigonometry, I could never get over my fear of numbers. I’d hunch over my I-heart-so-and-so covered notebook, clutching my calculator like a magic eight ball in hopes that the answer I wanted would appear.

I left math behind when I came to journalism school. Aside from an easy statistics class, and a few econ courses, I haven’t been back to my magic calculator since. Instead, I became a word nerd with a slight obsession for extended metaphors.

But the practice of math and science is like a luminous star that enchants me from a distance, shining complexities of theories and logic that make me wonder what else is out there besides words?

So I took this question into consideration when making my dinner date decision, giving physicist Albert Einstein one of the top three spots on my list.

Because I would be dining with Einstein, I would want to choose a dinner that would encourage a great discussion. My experiences at college have shown me that the best and most honest conversations happen over simple, good meals. It’s the midnight box of mac and cheese my roommate and I share that sparks our giggly talks before bed. And it’s the afternoon cups of coffee I pour with my brother that keep us recapping our weekend all Sunday afternoon long. Foods like these are the easy pleasures that make up the unique flavors of my memory. So it is no surprise that I would take Professor Einstein to Courtside for a hot chicken fiesta pizza and a pitcher of cold beer.

I’d pick his brain about the curiosities that spurred his studies into subjects like the theory of relativity and other topics that are way over my head. These kinds of topics I am only familiar with through the come-and-go awe moments I have between blinks. These are the list of studies that I may have left behind on my way to becoming a writer.

Sometimes I wish I could rearrange my choices and have pursued something a little more exact, a little more scientific. I question the good of, and even the point of, my future profession. With graduation soon in my future, I’m running out of time to find the right answer. So maybe listening to logical conversation about the laws of the universe over a slice of pizza and a Bud Light might put some certainty back into the equation.

So I know this was a long answer to a very short question. And since Professor Einstein won’t really be able to make it to dinner, I’ll have to rely on the little-of-this, little-of-that recipe that is my life now anyway.

But if that doesn’t come out right, I’m getting myself a real magic 8-ball.