Tell Us About 06.2023: Ways I’m a Curiosity

 

Hello dollies!  This month my “Tell Us About” co-hosts are getting together to write to Michelle’s theme – curiosity.  If you are new to this series it is a creative writing challenge that invites bloggers to respond to a different prompt on the third Thursday of the month.  The gals are taking turns coming up with the prompts.  It’s going to my turn early in the fall.  I need to put on my thinking cap and pick my prompt.

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Tell Us About 06.2023:  Curiosity

 

 

When I read this month’s prompt, I immediately thought of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  I thought of all the trouble Alice got into – and the crazy, wonderful things she experienced – all because she was curious.  Curious about a white rabbit dashing past her wearing a waistcoat, and muttering “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”  Alice followed him.  Would I have followed him, too, if I were Alice?

Hard telling because I am not a very curious gal.  Yet on the other hand, I can be a risk tasker.  So, I would probably have weighed the effort and potential danger of following a talking rabbit against the potential for enjoying a thrilling adventure.  And chances are, I’d have chased right behind that bunny, too.

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However, in general, day-to-day, I am not very curious.  From my perspective, it can take a lot of work to satisfy one’s curiosity.  I realize that being curious about the world and extending that into lifelong learning is beneficial.  But it is hard for me to focus…UNDERSTATEMENT.  I can read and study and try to learn all day long.  Wake up the next day, and POOF!!  all that reading and studying and learning is gone.  Actually, I guess if it disappears that fast there isn’t any learning taking place.  Or no retention, for sure.  So, I tend to not explore ideas.  Or ask many questions.  I am just going to forget the answers as soon as I hear them.  Or read them.  Crying shame getting old.

Ways I’m a Curiosity

 

I decided to explore an alternate definition for curiosity.  Not the one that says something about a desire to know.  Yeah, not a lot of desire to know over here.  Today I am looking at Merriam-Webster’s third definition.  You know the one.  The one that defines curiosity as an unusual trait or characteristic.  Think circus act.  Bearded woman.  The Lobster Boy.

Enlisted the help of my family in identifying some of the quirkier ways in which I might be considered curious.  Here’s what they came up with:

• Brennyn reminded that I have a kitchen utensil problem.  That is, “you end up choosing what can only be loosely termed a “utensil” to cook with” or to tackle other kitchen-related chores.  Her husband-then boyfriend Mustafa was appalled by the shape of my favorite pancake turner.  The handle had melted in two so what remained connected to the spatula end was just a stump.  He bought me new kitchen utensils for Christmas that year.  At the kids urging, I finally threw all the raggedy stuff away.
• Lauren remembered that I rarely take tags off things.  And she’s right.  But it’s not what you think.  I don’t buy things, leave the tags on, use them and then return them.  Would NEVER do that.  Truth.  Can’t really explain why I do leave tags on things, though.  Seems like bad luck somehow to take them off.  And when clothing tags come with extra buttons, it just makes sense to leave them connected to the clothes.  This habit can be annoying when I forget to remove the security tags and set off alarms everywhere we go.

From PC

 

My sweet PC could come up with several ways I border on the eccentric.

• The most infuriating characteristic – for me and for him – is what he calls my anti-technology aura.  It’s like I emit a magnetic force field that disables anything electronic.  Phone, laptop, activity tracker, any and all remote controls.  Oh, the trouble I have.  But you guys already know all about it.  About 50% of the time, when I have a blog post ready to save and publish, things go wrong.  The message below is one I see far too often.

• PC also claims I smile even when I am really sad.  Especially when someone pulls out a camera to snap a picture.  I would argue that he never smiles, even for pictures, even when he’s happy.  So, I am not sure which of us is most curious in this department.  Maybe he is onto something, though, because the photo below was taken from my mom’s hospital room 2 days before she died.  At the time, however, we were still hopeful she might come back from the falls she had taken.

 

My Perspective

 

From my perspective, I have always been a bit different.  See what you think.

Elementary

• In 4th grade, when I learned about the Civil War, I would pretend to be a runaway slave at recess.
• That same year, I sat in dog poop somehow.  Was wearing corduroy and got the poop down into the wales of the fabric.  No matter how many times my mom washed the pants, I could still smell the poop.  Refused to wear corduroy again until I started doing Get Your Pretty On capsule wardrobes…not that there’s a whole lotta corduroy in them.
• The next year in 5th, when I learned about the Holocaust, I pretended to be Anne Frank.  And most of the female characters in “The Sound of Music.”  Going as far as wearing long dresses, costumes, to school.  Not sure what the other kids thought.  Or the teachers.

Middle School

• Sixth grade was the year of the bra.  When my mom tried to talk to me about needing/wearing a bra, I would get so embarrassed that I would beg her to stop.  She finally bought some training bras for me.  In little boxes.  Mom would put them in my room, and I would put them back in her room.  We played that game until she forced the issue.  My first bras were just about as pretty as this one below.  No wonder I didn’t want to wear them.

• In 7th grade, I was a cheerleader.  The most uncool cheerleader ever.  When everyone read my name on the list of girls who made the squad, there were audible gasps.  During the school day, I pretended to be a spy complete with an alias that I used to sign my name on my assignments.  I let the teacher, Mr. Carruthers, in on my secret identity, so he could give me credit for my work.
• The winter of my 7th grade year, I got a blue faux fur winter coat.  I wore it night and day.  Truly.  Wore it until my parents finally made me take it off.  My mom determined the reason I was so infatuated with the coat had nothing to do with the coat itself but the way it hid my developing pre-teen body.

• Eighth grade was the year I was too scared to ask the teacher to go to the bathroom when I began feeling sick to my stomach.  I sat there, unable to concentrate, until I was about to explode.  Of course, Ms. Jeans let me go but I did explode as soon as I got out into the hall.  From then on I was terrified about throwing up.  And to this day I sleep with my hand curled under mouth just in case I get sick in the night.  Told you I was weird.

High School

• I was always too scared, too shy to ask to sharpen my pencil.  When my point would break, I would try to get the attention of a friend to borrow a pencil rather than walking in front of the class for fear of a) asking to use the sharpener b) walking in front of all my classmates.  Same thing with coughing.  Sneezing.  Hiccups just slayed me.
• My nose has been of substantial size most of my life.  When I was in high school, I would sit with my hands resting against the sides of my nose (made it hard to do anything else…like writing, turning the page in my textbooks) so no one could see how big my nose was in my profile.

I could go on and on but I am pretty sure you are convinced that I am rather curious.  If you haven’t given up on me all together already and headed for the hills.

Back to Where We Began

 

It’s no wonder Alice has always been one of my favorite characters, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland one of my favorite books.  I could relate to the strange way her body began to change right before her eyes.  Like it or not.  To always feeling different.  When we moved from Boston to Memphis the summer before I started 6th grade, I had just turned 10 years old.  The principal at my new school said I was too young to be in 6th grade and wanted to hold me back.  I was mortified.  Even though my grades were good, Mr. Kessler’s chief concern was I hadn’t learned to write cursive in Boston in 3rd grade.  That was the year it was taught in Memphis and I was going to be way behind with my penmanship.

My parents fought for my sister (who was equally young for the 4th grade) and me to be promoted to our appropriate grade level.  The principal finally conceded if I would learn cursive on my own over the summer.  He felt like Valerie would pick it up okay in 4th grade.  So, I practiced writing in a little workbook all summer long.

 

My Friend Alice

 

Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); `now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). `Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can; –but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, `or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.

 

 Alice stretched tall

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Poor dear.

 

The Gals

 

Here are the other Tell Us About bloggers:

 

Please join us by linking up your curiosity-related blog post below.  And stop by to visit a few of the others joining the fun.