Stay Curious

Written November 6, 2001

Once upon a time I had a boyfriend…a nice guy, one who loved to watch sports and various other televised events. He liked it so much that he had a big dish put on our house and when it was all hooked up we could tune into any one of 300 channels on our television…Discover Channel, A&E, MTV, VHI, HBO, HBO2, HBO3,HBO 4,5 and 6, The Animal Channel, The Science Channel, The Real Life Caught  On Tape Channel and The Home Shopping Network channel just to name 15...

One day the time came for my boyfriend to move on, it was an amicable parting, a happy ending even of sorts except that he took with him his big dish with it’s three hundred channels and his televisions too. He packed them up and off he went…

One early morning my now ex-boyfriend called me and said “turn on the television,” “very funny,” I snarled – not yet awake and in no mood for jokes – “I don’t have a television – remember?”  It was the morning of September 11th .  By the evening of September 11th I was packing my brand new TV/VCR combination into the house and plugging it in to hear the news of the day, hour, minute.

There was no CNN, ESPN, TNT, Movie channel, Showtime or Lifetime to turn to.  Just 5 stations. I remembered when I was a kid we only had 5 stations.  At least now I had a remote.  But it wasn’t the same without the other 295 stations to flip through.  Flipping through stations can be an evening entertainment in and of itself.

So I turned to less conventional ways of occupying my time…I read a book curled up in my covers, I talked to a my friend Shelly about her new boyfriend and my new boyfriend and the trials of love and relationships, I went outside….Aaahhh – outside.  There’s a whole world out there.  A big giant world full of curious and wonderful things.        

This is not to say the I don’t cozy up with my remote control and my 5 stations…I do. I watch channel 10 more now than before. It makes me feel smart. Last night I was watching Channel 10 and they had a little commercial message and the message was…”stay curious.”

Stay curious…I like that. I’m curious about astrology and gardening…I’m curious about the cultures of the world and the politics that surround them…

Are you curious?