Though out history and still even, today, in some places. When we are all perfectly normal.
As has been said before, define "normal." Define "alternative." Also, writing students are discouraged from using words like "normal" when what they really mean is "common" or "mainstream" -- "normal" implies a value judgment.
I'm middle class, and live a comfortable life in a house with all the proper bourgeois accoutrements, so my house probably looks very "normal," if bookish, if by normal you mean "recognizable to mainstream middle-class people." But I read 2-3 books a week at least, which is not "normal," if by "normal" you mean "common among the general population." However, among people with PhDs. this amount could be called "normal," but having a PhD, which is something like 2% of US citizens, isn't really "normal." I'm a Hellenic Pagan, and dude, we're only a tiny percentage of *Pagans*, much less the population as a whole, which looks decidedly "not-normal." But the idea of worshipping the Greek gods is often more familiar or comprehensible to middle-class sorts who received a classics-inflected education than, say Wicca might be, so that can actually sound more "normal" to outsiders. I'm bisexual, which puts me firmly outside of the heteronormative mainstream, but am married to a man, which *looks* "normal." I'm a liberal feminist, which may not count as "normal" for the general population, but does count as "common," even "normal," among people with my education level. And on and on and on.
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