Too Curious by Edward J. Goodman, 1887.
“I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald; The Great Gatsby
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
“I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald; The Great Gatsby
I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.
Yeah I miss us. I miss us. I miss holding your hand and sleeping in your arms. I miss laughing with you. But I know I have to move on because this is pointless.
cutie cliché dates are so appealing to me. like going ice skating, hot chocolate in one hand and yours in the other. or going to a furniture store and testing the beds together and pretending to be decorating our own place. or dancing in the kitchen while making pancakes and being messy and silly. sometimes doing corny things is a lot of fun, especially with you there.
I just want a relationship where we are both equally obsessed with each other, but in a healthy way. Save my selfies when I send them to you. Text me “I know you’re sleeping right now, but…”. Take the time to listen to the songs that are important to me. Joke around with me and make fun of me and then kiss me right after. Tell your friends how happy I make you and how excited you’ll be when we are finally married. Double text me because you miss me. Reassure me when I’m feeling insecure. Grab my hand, hold me, show everyone I’m yours. Don’t hold back on me, tell me how much you want me and how much you love me. Make me happy and I will do my best to make you happier.
I was a professional juggler for like five years and all of my friends politely pretend it never happened.
Sometimes I will be holding three or more similarly sized objects and they will all shoot me the kind of warning glances typically reserved for cats who are about to swipe a fresh and crispy fish stick from a small child’s hand.
I gaze wistfully at a basket of apples and they all think, “Don’t you FUCKING dare,” so hard that I take psychic damage.
STORY TIME:
I work in a decent sized, local, indie bookstore. It’s a great job 99% of the time and a lot of our customers are pretty neat people. Any who, middle of the day this little old lady comes up. She’s lovably kooky. She effuses how much she loves the store and how she wishes she could spend more time in it but her husband is waiting in the car (OH! I BETTER BUY HIM SOME CHOCOLATE!), she piles a bunch of art supplies on the counter and then stops and tells me how my bangs are beautiful and remind her of the ocean (“Wooooosh” she says, making a wave gesture with her hand)
Ok. I think to myself. Awesomely happy, weird little old ladies are my favorite kind of customer. They’re thrilled about everything and they’re comfortably bananas. I can have a good time with this one. So we chat and it’s nice.
Then this kid, who’s been up my counter a few times to gather his school textbooks, comes up in line behind her (we’re connected to a major university in the city so we have a lot of harried students pass through). She turns around to him and, out of nowhere, demands that he put his textbooks on the counter. He’s confused but she explains that she’s going to buy his textbooks.
He goes sheetrock white. He refuses and adamantly insists that she can’t do that. It’s like, $400 worth of textbooks. She, this tiny old woman, bodily takes them out of her hands, throws them on the counter and turns to me with a intense stare and tells me to put them on her bill. The kid at this point is practically in tears. He’s confused and shocked and grateful. Then she turns to him and says “you need chocolate.” She starts grabbing handfuls of chocolates and putting them in her pile.
He keeps asking her “why are you doing this?” She responds “Do you like Harry Potter?“ and throws a copy of the new Cursed Child on the pile too.
Finally she’s done and I ring her up for a crazy amount of money. She pays and asks me to please give the kid a few bags for his stuff. While I’m bagging up her merchandise the kid hugs her. We’re both telling her how amazing she is and what an awesome thing she’s done. She turns to both of us and says probably one of the most profound, unscripted things I’ve ever had someone say:
“It’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind. Be kind.”
The kid thanks her again and leaves. I tell her again how awesome she is. She’s staring out the door after him and says to me: “My son is a homeless meth addict. I don’t know what I did. I see that boy and I see the man my son could have been if someone had chosen to be kind to him at just the right time.”
I’ve bagged up all her stuff and at this point am super awkward and feel like I should say something but I don’t know what. Then she turns to me and says: I wish I could have bangs like that but my darn hair is just too curly.“ And leaves.
And that is the story of the best customer I’ve ever had. Be kind to somebody today.
I didn’t reblog earlier.
So I am now.
Be kind. It’s worth the effort.
Sometimes kindness is all we can give.
if you tip your pizza delivery driver $10 or more they’ll remember your house and offer you protection from mirror world delivery drivers (shadow pizza hut, evil dominos, little caesers)
