Inquiring Minds

Most people have a natural curiosity about them. Mine has gone straight past nosey and ended up in the "absurdly quizzical" section. Once I see something or hear something, I want to know everything about it. Well, not see or hear ANYTHING. It's mostly just bizarre stuff that no one should care about.

For instance, I just walked by a sign on the third floor which said something like, "Please do not remove our furniture unless you have cleared it with us and it has been decided we no longer need it. Thanks, Fiscal Services Division." My brain went straight to, "Who would steal furniture at work?" I then want to know who did it. I want to know their reasoning for doing it. I want to question them and ask, "Why did you think it was okay to just go in and take office furniture from another division?" I want, no NEED, to know these things. Then, I make up whole stories about furniture fairies coming to free the chairs. They lead them off to a field or a meadow filled with butterflies, where the chairs are no longer constantly questioning how they look under the fluorescent harsh lighting of an office environment. I then reassure the chair that had to stay here by telling it softly, "No, chair, your stuffing does not look fat in that upholstery." I may or may not be lying to the chair, 'cause he's always stealing M&M's and random socks you think the dryer ate. (I just realized after reading, and re-reading this paragraph, that I could write a whole book like this. A book of my nonsensical ramblings. The one person who buys it out of pure sympathy for me, will then go mad from trying to make sense of said book).

The other day in the elevator a co-worker asked, "What is that print called?" I said, "Houndstooth." He then asked, "Where did they come up with the name houndstooth? It doesn't really look like a hound's tooth." I replied, "And now you are my new person to hate, as I will need to go home and find out where in fact, they came up with the term houndstooth." I not only learned that it did get the name by looking like a snarly hound's tooth, but that some people claim houndstooth has gone in and out of style. Umm, some things don't go out of style. In my book, houndstooth is one of them. I like this article on the history of houndstooth: History of Houndstooth. Probably because it is short and I didn't get distracted by something shiny before I could finish reading it.

I will see random people on the street and from the way they dress, or walk, or one sentence they've uttered, I will make up a whole back story for them. Once, in my corner grocery store I had an obviously well to do white fella in his 40s lean over and say to me, "Isn't this great? It's like an adventure!" He was alluding to the fact that we were in a Mexican grocery store. I can only imagine the "brown people" were the adventure part. I get really annoyed with people like this and wish they'd just stay out of my neighborhood so I sarcastically replied, "Adventure, or for some of us a two minute walk from our homes. I don't see snakes or falling boulders, so I'm gonna go with short walk from my home." Then I imagined him climbing in to his super showy BMW, and driving home quickly to his house in Land Park, his toned pilates wife, and 2.5 Stepford kids to talk of the lady who was so rude to him in the "brown people store." He rarely gets to share the bed as she doesn't like the way he smells when he sleeps. He dies soon after from choking on his own pride and sense of adventure.

I also will watch people out in public and wonder what they are talking about. Often times I'll talk out loud as if I'm them, making up whole stories about how things are going. This is especially fun if it's an obviously awkward date: "But Charlie, I said I'd only been married three ti..." "Sue, I'm okay with that. I'm just having a hard time with how you drink beer. It's weird." "Umm, okay." "Yeah, I just really don't like the way you put your head down like one of those water sipping fake birds." "This is definitely not going to work." Then one gets up and leaves.

This is how my brain works pretty continuously, and is probably the reason why I have trouble sleeping. Who can sleep when you have to figure out where all the office furniture has run off to? And wondering if Jeff really thought that Lola's opaque tights looked so gnarly with her different colored peep toe shoes, he couldn't bear to go on a second date with her? So many things to figure out, so little time!

I think this may be my new favorite blog post of all time. Well, that I wrote at least. Happy picture of the day: flowers! I know I've posted a picture of flowers on my table before, but these are different flowers, so shush up your mouth!