I have been tagged. I am supposed to list six weird habits, or six weird things about me.

I am finding this difficult. This is because I am convinced that I am extremely normal. (For some reason, other people do not agree with me on this, but I am at a loss to explain that.) I went to college, got married, had a couple of children in the eighties and was successful with my career. In the nineties, I had a couple more, downsized, moved to the country, stayed home with my kids, homeschooled.

Then I went back to work at something more low-key, we moved back into town, the kids went back to public school, and we had a million activities to drive to. We did a lot of camping, family game nights, all that. We had prom, college applications, a wedding. Then I had more time for my own interests and took up some really ordinary hobbies — singing in choirs, gardening, needlework, Book Club, blogging.

I go to the gym, do a little volunteer work, shop at the farmer’s market, visit with friends.

It seems to me that I am an absolutely iconic normal woman of the turn of the century. I could be used in history lessons in future centuries as an exmaple of my times.

However, I admit that there are some statistically uncommon things about me.

1. I started college at 14.

2. I have agoraphobia. I discovered this last year when I found a list of weird things, all of which were true of me. I think it would be cheating for me to list these things as my weird characteristics, so I will avoid that.

3. I am subject to bursts of enthusiasm. That is, I find myself fascinated by something or other and must pursue it, often beyond the point at which sensible people would give up.

4. I read more than most people. I don’t think I spend more time reading than most people — 30 minutes before I sleep, and some weekend afternoons, which is what everyone I know claims to do. But I do get through a lot more books than most people I know.

5. In every generation of my family, from 1500s onward, there has been at least one of us who has emigrated or married an immigrant. My mother married an immigrant, I married an immigrant, my daughter married an immigrant. My grandfather emigrated, as did his father, and his father also married an immigrant. I think this is a statistical abnormality.

Hmm. I need one more. Excuse me while I go ask my kid.

6. I get up really early in the morning. Every morning. And I do not talk to my dogs. I’m surprised that that is a weird habit. I say things to them. Sit. Stay. Good dog. Do that again and I will hack you into collops. But I don’t discuss world events with them or anything.

With regard to #3, I have an example. I made a couple of skirts last month for the knitter’s sewalong. This month we are to make a bag. I have lots of bags. So, if I am to make one, it has to be an amazing one. I decided, having mused on this for a while, that it should be an origami bag.

Did I think this because I have skills in origami? Because I had a pattern for an origami bag? Because I had always wanted an origami bag? No. It was a mad whim. So I found this origami wallet pattern. I printed it out. I gazed at it. I attempted to fold it. It persisted in having only two dimensions. I turned it around and around.

I went to work. I came home. I tried again. I commented the designer a couple of times. Would not a sensible person have given up at this point?

I asked Pokey for help. She is more adept with physical objects than I. I am essentially an abstract person, living in the world of ideas. I must rely on others who are more in touch with visual-spatial things.

She is working on it. I have an excitingly creased piece of paper.

Here is part of our conversation:

Bouthdi:  I feel close
CHOMPHOSY:  woo hoo!
Bouthdi:  ok…
Bouthdi:  right shape
Bouthdi:  wrong order
CHOMPHOSY:  aha
Bouthdi:  there are two valleys next to each other
Bouthdi:  with no room for a mountain…
Bouthdi:  that’s not possible
CHOMPHOSY:  yeah, i noticed that
CHOMPHOSY:  maybe it is the bottom of it?
CHOMPHOSY:  or that is where it twists excitingly inward upon itself?
Bouthdi:  No
Bouthdi:  those are the edges
CHOMPHOSY:  you’re kidding
Bouthdi:  no
Bouthdi:  those are the sides
CHOMPHOSY:  i see the two cards
CHOMPHOSY:  and it seems as though the whole thing will be sort of like a star
Bouthdi:  well
Bouthdi:  sort of
Bouthdi:  I’ve gotten the shape
Bouthdi:  and its basic-ness
CHOMPHOSY:  hurrah!
Bouthdi:  but not the connecting bit
CHOMPHOSY:  mine is still flat
CHOMPHOSY:  crumpled by now, but flat

I am imagining how cool this will look once I figure it out and transfer it into fabric. And sew it. I think it will be sort of star-shaped. I am thinking that, once I have mastered this, I will be able to make larger variants for different purposes.

Mind you, I have put the paper down completely. There have been a couple of moments when I have, for a split-second, felt as though I dimly glimpsed a third-dimensionality lurking somewhere among those red and blue lines. That is about as close as I have gotten to success. I am hoping that, when Pokey gets it, she will have the perfect explanatory words to clarify to me how to make it, even though we are in two different states. I realize how unlikely that is.

And yet I find myself determined to make an origami bag.

On my schedule for the day I have celebrating #1 son’s birthday, taking him to his ACT exam, taking #2 son to the GT scholars convocation, meeting both boys for birthday luncheon with presents, shopping for said presents, grocery shopping, the post office, hemming the curtains I began last week, practicing the music for Holy Week, finishing a ball of Regal Orchid Luna, cleaning house, and figuring out how to make an origami bag.

Oh, and I tag Chanthaboune, Silfert, Jamie, Sighkey, Dingus6, and Andrew.