OCD and Doodling

All of my old notebooks are different. Some are full of school notes and assignments, some are full of poetry and fiction, a few are full of quotes, and a couple even have detailed diagrams of buildings and technology. But there are a couple of things that I've found in almost every notebook.

The first is doodles, which is a normal thing to find in a notebook. Along the margins there are flowers, balloons, clowns, mice and the occasional zombie. At times, I've written around these sketches and they are an island of art in the midst of words. I'm an artist at heart though and there are times when the margins aren't enough. They aren't big enough to satisfy my desire to draw. So there are whole pages taken over by artwork. A grinning snowman stands guard over a page, a waterfall cascades over two pages. A tropical scene, a stormy night, a ball gown, a race car all grace the pages in my notebooks. There is rarely rhyme or reason to the drawings. Just whatever I happened to feel like sketching on a particular day.

Secondly, I've found several charts for clothing. My OCD doesn't seem to manifest itself in a clean room or fastitodous note-taking. Instead it's focused on vacation clothing. I seem to plan out, by chart, what I'll need to pack and wear on vacation. The charts vary by size depending on how long the vacation will take. Some are for overnight jaunts, some are for two week jaunts, but most fall somewhere in the middle. Each day has a column in which I'll write down the shirt, pants, socks/shoe, and pajama choices. (There's also a giant U at the top of each column which stands for 'unmentionables'...I tend to be modest even in my ocdness.)

It's fun to go back and see try to guess which trip corresponds with which chart. The 8-day chart where I planned out jeans and sweaters must have taken place in the winter. The three day chart that lists bathing suits, towels and sunscreen obviously was a trip to the beach in the summer. But not everything is so easily deduced. One chart reminds me to bring "glasses, books, emergency flares" along with my charted clothing. Another has me wearing a parka and gloves on Tuesday and capris and a tank top by the weekend. I can't recall either of those trips or whether they were as exciting as the charts make them out to be.