Things fascinate me that probably shouldn't.  My head is full of questions like, “Hey! What’s in that poop?”  or “I wonder why that guy  isn’t wearing any pants?” 

If someone finds a cockroach in the office, I’m the one trying to figure out its gender.  If I go to the art museum, I start chatting with the security guard.  (“What do you think of that one? A painting of just the color pink. Just one color. We could have done that, eh?”)

I figure no one else is interested in these things because whenever I stop on the street to see exactly what it is that the bum is digging out of the trash --  food? smokes? a hat? -- no one ever stops and stares with me.  Or if I decide to spend my lunch hour crashing the Petroleum Engineers Conference, it’s really hard to find any one to go with. (“Come on, it’ll be fun! They’ll be charts and PowerPoints and I heard they’re  giving away oil shale samples!”)

            This morning I was out for a walk and as usual there was about 14,000 earthworms on the sidewalk. What exactly is the transportation agenda of these earthworms? Every time it rains or the sprinklers come on, those suckers are on the move.  Where are they all going -- some sort of huge earthworm rave? Can you rave without feet? What is so important about the other side of the sidewalk anyway? Did the wrong sort of earthworms recently move into their neighborhood? Is the dead plant material on the north side of the sidewalk just not that tasty anymore? Is it peer pressure? The pursuit of fame and glory? Are there Neil Armstrong earthworms who made it all the way across to the other side and now they give lectures and encourage all the little worms to never give up on their dreams?  And since they’re worms…can’t they just go under the sidewalk?

            I used to think that all of this fascination with all the things of the world meant that I must have a really big brain – like maybe I was even a genius! But now I don’t think that anymore. I have not attended MIT and invented a new sort of rocket fuel made only from ripe bananas.  I have not composed a piece of music so beautiful that bats fall out of the sky whenever it is played.  I fail the Mensa test every time I take it. They really should cut me off.  

            Of course there are lots of people in the world who are interested in birds or insects or building houses out of ice or the periodic table, or wooden sailing ships or liquid propellants or koala poop or Alpha Centauri or the sex lives of invertebrates, but I have yet to meet many other people who are interested in all of these things at the same time.  

In fact, most people I have talked to who are really interested in one particular subject seem to get really offended when I let on that I am also really interested in other things, too.  Like I’m somehow cheating on Ancient Greek Coins with White-Water Rafting.  They look at me like I’m some kind of intellectual floozy, the harlot of the Science Library. 

Maybe they’re right, maybe I am a bit of a tramp, going out and having one-night stands with Rock-Tumbling and Learning the Harp.  Maybe if I was interested in fewer things, or more fascinated by one or two things, I could settle down and find a nice stable intellectual pursuit to spend my future with. We could mate for life, like swans. They mate for life, don’t they? But how do they recognize each other? Do they have a unique scent? Some kind of swany smell? A distinctive mole on their bills? And snails – are they faithful to each other, too? Aren’t they each both sexes, like earthworms?  How does that work?  Does anybody really know?