crimmles.com

Is not my thing. Since I was a kid, I have had either a problem or just a fascination with not doing things in exactly the manner they were “supposed” to be done. Once in kindergarten,  we were all given a leaf to color. The teacher (supposedly, I was in the bathroom at this point), told everyone to color them green. I return to my seat, see everyone around me filling theirs in with green crayon, and decide mine will be red. I have nothing against the color green. It’s a lovely color and an admirable way to live. I just thought that that sea of green could use a bit of livening up. So, after I’d chosen the perfect red (not red-violet, that shouldn’t even be a crayon, yuck), my nearest classmate goes “Ooooh, we’re s’posed to make them green!” She tells the teacher. The teacher informs me that there are only enough for everyone to have one, and next time, I’d better FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS. Granted, I can’t follow directions I haven’t heard, but 23 kids with green leaves should have tipped me off. And as for tattletale, she wound up with Play-doh in her hair a few weeks later. I was caught and served one of the dreaded “frowny-face” papers to take to my parents, I guess to shame me into better behavior next time. It wound up in the trash the minute I got off the bus (so, directions be damned). And tattletale didn’t find out about the “Play-doh Incident of ‘86″ until about ‘93.

I credit my mother with my unwillingness to go with the flow. She would say “different is good, different is best, different doesn’t wind up pregnant at sixteen!” And so, I was different. Taller and chubbier than all the other kids (not that I could help most of that), wearing clothes unlike everyone elses’ (much to my “be different!” mother’s chagrin), and quieter than everyone in my family. I am different, whatever that may mean. To me it’s being myself, the self that both loves and hates getting up really early in the morning, the me that tweaks recipes until maybe they are truly “mine,” and the me that is constantly accused of grandmotherly-slow driving by anyone lucky enough to ride with my slow ass. Which is all fine and good, but not really why I’m here. I do think it is a good bit of info about myself to share with others, because it is a key part of my personality and why I do the things I do, and why I do them the way(s) I do. So now I’m off to the kitchen, to decide whether I should clean it up before I make some brown sugar cupcakes, or just add to the mess. Knowing me, I’ll opt to clean the larger mess later. Just don’t tell my mom I swept before I wiped off the counters and table. That always bugged her.