You crazy!

I am trying out the "scheduling" feature in Blogger, so I can continue to post to the blog even while out of town. My fingers are crossed that it works!

Right now, I am probably comparing crazy-notes with a friend in New York. (I am sad that it will be a little too early to see this crazy pal.) And I wanted to see if we (that's me and my three persevering readers) could do a little sharing as well.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a very real and serious anxiety disorder that affects people in often debilitating ways. I don't have it. But the term "OCD" has crept into the vernacular as a way to make light of the repetitive or meticulous habits that many people display (I think as a way to deal with the REAL craziness of modern living).

Using the more common and informal definition as a benchmark--and certainly in no way mocking anyone who suffers from the actual disorder--it is safe to say that I do have "OCD" like mannerisms.

Slightly obsessive: My mornings are so chaotic and disorganized that I have to make sure I have locked the door to the house and, when I get to work, the car, at least twice. This is because more than once I have failed to lock one or the other of them and about had a nervous "mental" twitch for several days afterwards.

Maybe compulsive: Also, if I am at a table, I will eat M & Ms in a very specific way. I can't do this if I am standing up, but it means I will keep looking at the M & Ms and trying to arrange them in my mind like I would were I at a table.

Step 1: The M & Ms are jumbled in an incoherent mess. I will eat them out of my hand like this, but I don't like not knowing if I am eating them in the right order.



Step 2: I lay the M & Ms out in rainbow order. Always a right-to-left rainbow and always like an upside down bar graph.



Step 3: I eat the "longer" bars down (evenly) until there are an equal number of colors.


[Next I would eat a green one, then an orange one]

Once there are two of every color (in this case) I would eat them one at a time from left to right. I do this without really paying attention. I will be working or talking and doing it out of the corner of my eye (so to speak). It has been brought to my attention before, but I am not so embarrassed about it to stop (obviously, or I wouldn't be blasting it out all over the intertron).

Not too crazy, right?

Now it is your turn, make me feel a part of a giant neurotic web and tell me about your real or caricatured fake-OCD symptoms.