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The Texture of 41

Ok, it's my birthday again. Not such a dramatic figure this time. This morning I was wondering about that, and it got me thinking about how I think about the more familiar natural numbers. 41 is quite dry and a bit crumbly, like a fairly stale scone. It's moderately low-temperature, being in the 40s: even tens are cool, odd tens are warm, although this is significantly modulated by the units, with the temperature of 1-9 and 10-19 being more determined by other factors. 4 is crispy, icy. 11 is warm quite hard, but brittle, a softwood like pine, similar fragrance. But 5 and 15 do both smell a bit sulphurous, with 19 as the only really eggy number. I'm not sure what to make of 7, enigmatic. 26 and 28 both have something of the road about them: 28, loose gravel, 26 a more solid surface, baked even. Nearby 36 is like tar or pitch. 27 is dark and oily, 29 somewhat lighter more like peanut oil. Actually, many of the numbers are soft-textured, but 35 is just like an old teddy bear, furry, soft, a little grubby perhaps. It's also one of the few brown numbers below 50, 31 is another except a little lighter,  17 a little darker. 40s are generally bluish, 50s beige, I anticipate cardigans to match. I suspect 6 is the only yellow number, 16 is pink. Where 23 appears like lots of dots, 34 is what you'd see if you jioned them with straight lines. Most of the numbers are stationary, in fact 10 and 20 are absolutely immovable, like very large blocks of granite and limestone respectively. But 1 and 2 are both hyperactive. The small numbers (in dimension, not value) include 8, 30 and 14. On the medium-large size can be found 20, 33 and 24 (which is also dangerously sharp). 18 is grossly overweight. 3 is sweet, but 12 is sour. 32 is up, 25 is down. 17 is chunky, 9 is (very) smooth. For imitation leather upholstery you could use 38, but 37 is the real thing. If you tread in 39 you'll regret it. Not surprisingly 21 would be suitable for use a footstool, if you tried 17 it'd look and feel the same but wobble. Same relationship between 40 and 31, except there you're looking at large square pieces of dark green wrought iron garden furniture (you could slip 22 underneath a corner of 31 to stop it wobbling). 12 is a foot in inches, 13 is unlucky for some. One other thing about 41: when you get to this age, you're plenty mature enough to write pure drivel and not give a damn.

January 14, 2005 |

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