Or perhaps it describes the structure: I really can write straight linear prose, whether essay or short story, but there is always subtext and caveats that need to be expressed. Then, too, there are ideas that I've explored more deeply in some other essay, and I just want to point that direction in case you are interested in reading more.

My wife and friends occasionally despair of my ever reaching the point, because I need to explain all the scaffolding that lies underneath any given idea, mine or others. I want you to understand as I do, and to know that I'm not just saying things, that there is logic, research and experiment behind every word.

Explaining the Higgs Boson is an example of this. Her eyes didn't even glaze over as I talked about the particles we can directly measure (ie 'see'), the particles we can only infer from changes in the tracks in cloud chambers and the particles that we infer from the presence and energy of those inferred particles. I wandered off into filling in the last gap in the Standard Model (or perhaps finding out that the Standard Model needed more work), and even got into CERN and the LHC.

With my friends, at dinner later that day, I just said the name and let it drop. They've kidded me too often about being Sheldon on "The Big Bang Theory".

Occasionally, after I've given a talk or something, someone will come up to me and say, "I think the way you do."

My response, "Boy are you in trouble."