Embracing My Monica Nature

Most of you Gen-Xers out there are familiar with the long-running and fairly recently ended TV show, Friends. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, there is a character named Monica who gets teased for her OCD personality. And I get teased for being exactly like Monica.

Exhibit A: my bookshelf. The books are organized by genre, and then alphabetized by author. And within each author's section, the books are alphabetized again by title.


In my defense, I also used to do this with my CDs, but I've come a long way, baby. While the CDs are still grouped by genre, the albums within them are in completely random order. Luckily, we listen to most of our music on the computer, and the machine does the alphabetizing for me.

Exhibit B: my closet. Actually, this is a picture of Thomas's closet. I maintain everybody's closets. Thomas's shirts are organized by type (Hawaiian, bowling, short-sleeved, dress shirts) and then hung up by color. Don't laugh. It makes picking out a shirt to coordinate with the suit and tie much faster.


Exhibit C: the playroom. Yes, I know. It's a playroom. But Elliot is exactly like me in many respects. He likes to have everything just so. He likes to return items to their proper places when he's done playing with them. I don't see this as a problem. It's an asset.


Imogen, on the other hand, makes her way around the playroom, pulling out toys as she goes. She plays with them, throws them all over the place, and then moves on to the next thing. I can only follow her around cleaning up after her for so long. She'll be good for both of the OCD personalities in this house.

Having kids has actually helped me relax about the organization thing somewhat. Again, don't laugh. I said somewhat. I'm just slightly less frantic about having everything just so at all times. But it's true, I can't fall asleep at night if there are dishes in the sink or Thomas has left the curtain on the closet open slightly. I really will get out of a warm bed with a sleeping baby next to me to remedy the situation. I can't help it. And yes, I do go back to my old blog entries and edit them whenever I find typos or think of something I left out. It's never too late for perfection.

So I'm embracing my Monica nature. Someone out there needs to keep the world in order. Admit it, you don't actually think I'm crazy. You're just a wee bit jealous. You want me to come organize your cupboards and file cabinets, I can see it in your eyes. Nanny, nanny, boo, boo.