Categorization crisis

While I rebel against stereotypes and pigeonholing people, I do like things to be neat and tidy. I think literally and absolutely cannot mind-map to save my life. There is no ways I can think like that, all over the place. I am left brain thinker (is that the logical, math side? Well, I’m that one). I am terribly uncreative and even my stick figures look wooden.

I love headings and sub-headings. I love them. They make such sense and keep things so nice and orderly. Bullet points are a dream. Life should be more like bullet points. Neat, aligned and to the point. I love math. 1 and 1 = 2. Isn’t that beautiful? Have you ever seen any thing more beautiful? So neat, so logical, so perfectly symmetrical.

(You will notice that I am extremely anal and a bit of a control freak. So you can just imagine how infertility was the biggest cosmic joke ever. There is no order, logic, fairness etc in infertility. And input does not equal output. A completely random, illogical, fucked up order of events. Something to torture Tertia’s logical mind. A lesson I hear you say?)

Anyway, back to symmetry and order. Surprisingly, in spite of my fondness for order, I am a total anarchist. I hate following somebody else’s rules and if someone says ‘you are not allowed to do that’, then that is an open invitation to do that very thing.

One of my pet hates are forms where the place to fill in your response is too small. I always complain. “How the hell am I supposed to fit my email address in on this small space? You know email addresses are long, how can you make the line so small?” (jeez, I am anal!)

The order I like is order I create. The lists and bullet points I create in my life.

On Typepad, the engine that powers this blog, you have the option to create lists, for example lists of links to other people’s blogs etc, like you see on the right hand side of this screen. You also get the option of categorizing the lists under headings. Beautiful. Headings. Lists. Love them.

Except when the people in your categories don’t quite fit. I am having a categorization crisis. It is disturbing my sleep. I am having nightmares about things not being orderly. Where do I put pg infertile people? Where do I put people who have kids but who were infertile? Where do I put people who are adopting? Who are on a break? Who decide to live child-free? Who have nothing to do with infertility or motherhood?

I am too scared to create a pg infertile category because of the ‘jinx’ factor. Plus how heartbreaking would it be to have to move someone out of that category and back into the infertile category? But what if some poor infertile soul stumbles upon my blog, looks up a link in the infertile category and is bombarded with pg talk? Due to my sloppy categorization?

I am breaking out in a cold sweat. My categories are in disarray, the headings and numbering are out of sync? Infertile people are getting pg all over the place? What am I to do????

Comments

[Janine]

You were DEFINITELY a librarian in your former life. I too love lists and categories. Give me a puzzle and I'll turn all the pieces upside down and number them. Logical, no?
And re your last comment on my blog: don't worry - I'm working on the manual to childrearing even as we speak. It'll be indexed down to the last sub-sub-heading.

[Bee]

You are both such big nerds. I hang my head in shame.
Love
The Cool Disorganised Chick

[Karen]

OMG, Tertia, I JUST. HAD. THE. SAME. FRIGGEN. THING happen on my blog.

You will notice that I recently "made categories." Um, I agonized over what to do with the people who were pregnant now but infertile before, the people who might have had some problems getting pregnant but are pregnant now and I'm not so sure they would consider themselves "infertile," etc. etc. I didn't want to make a "PREGGERS!" Category for the same reason you say--too heartbreaking if I have to move the women. I still don't like my categories (there are only two women in one of them, and that is soooooooo annoying to me) and I still agonize over it every time I see the damn things.

I'm glad there's someone out there as anal as me about her blog. I re-read every entry seven times to make sure there are no spelling errors. If I can't immediately fix something, I am haunted by what I see as a huge glaring boo-boo. Ugh.

Love you girl.

[Linda]

OH MY GOD!!! I just have everyone in the SAME category! What if I'm offending someone or causing pain to someone going through infertility?! I have to do some organizing immediately. When you figure out your categories, let us all know.

Oh, and if someone says to me "You can't do this" or "You must do this" without a good, reasonable, logical explanation, I sure as hell am NOT going to follow their instructions. And math=goooood.

[RainbowW]

My wife would say, "It's called therapy. Get some." :)

[dish]

"'you are not allowed to do that’, then that is an open invitation to do that very thing."
People in my life have learned to stop saying that. I once showed up a bunch of burly men at a summer job when they insisted that a girl shouldn't/couldn't do a particular job. Well, I did it, and I did it better than them! I was never bothered again...

I think we are anal soul-sisters (ok, that sounds weird)...you know what I mean. I love numbers, charts, and order. I made pretty graphs of my BMT, etc...and then IF said "Ha! Gotcha!"...IF is a total beeyatch.

And you are completely cool...but I now fear ever having a blog because I will have to create categories! Yikes!

[lobster girl]

Yes, yes, bullet points and sub-headings. Love them. I clicked on the mind-map link and had to close the window fast. One glance at that map made my brain twist up like a pretzel.

And categorizing the infertiles, pregnancies, etc., yes, yes, yes, I've been worrying about that too. The instant I started my blog with an infertile category, three of the women got pregnant and I didn't know what to do! I've been paralyzed and have therefore done nothing. Pitiful, isn't it?

[Kristine]

You're just stinkin' adorable with your li'l list dilemma! I like lists and headings and sub-headings too. And the whole how to categorize us infertile/habitual aborters/with children/without children....ugh! It makes me head want to explode! (and what a mess that would be...no, can't have that!)
You can just categorize me under un-offendable.

[Julia]

I totally ignored the fertile/infertile issue and just clumped according to cool women with offspring, and plain 'ol cool women.

Then again, avoidance is one of my main coping techniques.

[Sherry]

I, too, love the order I create and hate the order of others...only when it doesn't fit my order, of course. Sounds like you need to get out that DayRunner, Slide Rule and Palm Pilot to figure this thing out!!

[Mandy]

Hey girl.....just wanted to let you know I'm a "listie" too, but my brain damn near exploded when I tried to figure out how to classify everyone. What do I call the women who have been trying for years and are now pregnant? There's no way I could act as if they would forget their years in the trenches. And the thought of what I would do if someone had to be put back into the "trying" category..oh god....I couldn't take it.

So,the blogs I've got listed are all under "Awesome Women" - that way the heading is true, regardless of whether their bodies know they're moms or not.

[Kris]

I just used the title people who keep me sane. Its all the blogs I read that make me know that I can do it, and *this is gonna sound rude* I am not as bad off as I could be at this moment. Or the fact that I am still in the running, still have a chance. :)

[Karen]

Does anyone else check other blogs incessently to see if you've been added to their Blogroll? *smallvoice* I get so excited when I've recently been added. There are so many good blogs right now, it's taking me FOREVER to organize my list. In the past three months, there have been like 20 new blogs. I can barely keep my lists up to date! Hellllp!

P.S. I failed math. But I still love lists, and especially *shudder of delight* BULLETED lists.

[Tertia]

My sisters in analness, we are one!

[anotherjen]

I love lists- but have been lazy with my blogroll- mine is called "stuff i read" that's all. I figure it's true, so it can't be too bad.
seeing how i'm such a newbie i'm not worried about some hapless infertile falling into pregnant talk from links from my blog. I think everyone who's read mine has gotten there from the mercifiul links from other blogs- so they probably know what they're getting into.

[Anne]

Coming a little late to this discussion …. but Tertia if you were a librarian in a past life you were clearly a cataloger. Those people are so left brain, all about creating order and assigning labels/subject headings. Me, on the other hand, I’m a strange breed - a reference librarian, I’m completely right brain it took library school to help me to become more organized and let me tell you I’m a work in progress. For reference librarians (well for me at any rate) it’s all about the journey, the path you take to find knowledge. Sometimes the path to knowledge is a meandering one; full of dead ends, curves, and only really clear once you reached the end of it. At other times that same path can take you right were you want to go. Sounds like you prefer the straight to the answer path (nothing wrong with that), personally I like the meandering one, it can be full of new insights, new discoveries, and it is seldom boring. Infertility clearly seems to me like a meandering path.

[Heather]

Take a Prozac and call me in the morning. =o)

[Danae]

Okay all you anal list-makers, please teach me how to make a bulleted list on TypePad. I just posted an entry with bullets, but it looks more like someone sneezed on the computer screen.

And, after that, could someone please come over to my house and organize my filing cabinet?

[Kendra]

Left-brain, cataloger, almost-librarian, INTJ, popping in to say that my category is called "Women Who Get It."

My problem is what to do with Women Who Get It who also have something to do with Academia or Libraries. Hmmmm... Still working on that one.