Non-normative

It is always interesting to examine ones own behavior and come to the conclusion that it's non-normative. Understandably, as we live with ourselves, we have sufficiently normalized ourselves to ourselves (stay with me here) so really, until we come in contact with others who behave differently (or/and a group who behaves as a relatively collective whole) we could be living in ignorance about our own behavior (this is of course assuming that there is such a thing as "normative" behavior, which is a different topic for a different day)

For example, if every day we woke up brushed our teeth and got toothpaste all over our face, potentially we would have no idea this was non-normative. 

(Until of course Freshman year of college rolls around and you are thrust into a 15 person bathroom and your hall mates stare at you and your Colgate covered face)

It was brought to my attention today, for the 42nd time (hint #1), that I keep a lot of windows open on my computer. The discovery of the "tab" was a revolutionary day for me (before it was just about 31 minimized windows at the bottom of my screen) and after that, I've consistently kept my thoughts like the computer windows, piled on top of one another to revisit later when I have a spare moment. 

This always allows for an interesting review when it finally comes time to turn off the computer (usually weeks later, I know so bad for the battery but I'm entirely too fearful of loosing my own thoughts and as thoughts are connected to the windows that I have kept open, well, lets just say that I can't just "X" them out). During this review, I get the rare privilege of tangibly watching my own thought processes. Tonight I discovered that Target (what I'm currently writing about for our school newspaper) makes me think of Republicans (as I'm sure you heard about the donation scandal) which I needed to fact check (so I googled it multiple times) and realized that my very own KPCC probably had the AP version of the story and while on KPCC I remembered that Patt Morrison (ohmygoshloveher) did a special on Food Deserts (so I googled that for a while, 'what is the definition of,' 'when was the word first used' etc. -- here I also googled "too much googling" because I was sure that someone somewhere had the disease as well but the best I found was my own self-titled hypergooglemania) and while on the KPCC website I remembered that I desperately wanted a job there so I dutifully checked the job postings (nothing, of course) then got really worried about jobs (so I googled that for a while checking the usual sites) and then I took a break to update my resume which took me back to the word document that had my unfinished story about Target.

...and then I realized that the person who wrote If You Give A Mouse a Cookie must have been easily distractible as well. 

above photo: this is my lovely friend christine partaking in the non-normative behavior of having tea while holding flowers above her head