Obsessive Bullshit...
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On Anal-Retentiveness


 There are many synonyms: fastidious, perspicacious (I like that one, don't you?), mincing, discerning, discriminating, particular, demanding, finical, scrupulous, meticulous, painstaking, conscientious, critical, hypercritical, persnickety, censorious, precise, rigorous, exacting, puritanical, perfectionist, exigent.*

Whatever. It all boils down to the fact that I'm really far too obsessive. If my homework doesn't *look* well-organized with scrupulously neat handwriting, then it's no good. I'd rather do it over again. And suppose it's two o'clock in the morning, and I'm dirty (by my standards... I don't do anything, so I don't *really* get dirty), would I take a shower anyway? Yes. When I cover my books with contact paper, and there are air bubbles trapped underneath, it bothers me. Not a single one of my cosmetics is dust-covered, broken, or rimed with globs of product due to careless usage. I'm not sure if you've seen my binder, but it looks like this:
  • protective sheet: schedule / picture montage (on other side)
  • translucent blue folder with history papers (cleaned out after each test): chronologically ordered, with the syllabus at the very back facing backwards... notes (arranged by date, then by topic—set apart by sectional breaks) corresponding to one specific syllabus on one specific piece of paper
  • translucent green folder with chemistry papers (cleaned out after each chapter/test): from the front - notes (continuous notes, arranged by dates then by topics—again with sectional breaks), class work, homework, labs, science project "stuff".
  • protective sheet: common polyatomic ions / single chart with activity series and solubility
  • protective sheet: periodic table of elements
  • protective sheet: single chart with selected molar enthalpies of formation and selected average bond energies / *another* periodic table of elements, not as comprehensive
  • protective sheet: lab report format / common units
  • translucent pink folder with French papers (cleaned out when a book is finished, or when we have a chapter test) : papers arranged chronologically, syllabus facing backwards
  • translucent yellow folder with Latin papers (cleaned out after finishing each major topic, like "infinitives"): papers arranged chronologically, with important paper on subject being learnt facing backwards
  • protective sheet: "Pronouns and Pronomial Adjectives: The Final Frontier"
  • protective sheet: "Irregular Comparison" / "Conspectus Declinationum"
  • translucent folder with English papers (cleaned out... with each new book): papers arranged chronologically
  • protective sheet: vocabulary list
Now, indulge me here and tell me that that isn't the least bit frightening. I dare you. It surprises me. I had no idea. I don't even think about it; I just do it.

Still, I am not wholly perfectionist. My room is a mess. I don't mean "messy"... I mean, "worse than peanut butter" messy. I'm awful about putting things back to where they belong, be it cups, clothes, books. Should something spill on my clothes, nonchalance I'm floozing through with hardly a blink.

Where's the bullshit? I don't really know. I can't change. I don't want to change. It's impressive. Why should I change? No changing. No.

Don't let the madness get to you.

The Original Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (Americanized Version). UK: Longman Group UK Limited, 1992.

« Last modified: February 24, 2002 »