OCD

I was never diagnosed as Obsessive/Compulsive, but I do make lists and count things. I guess that is not a symptom of the disorder, but seems to me OCD people do stuff like that. Maybe I am not compelled to do list and count, nor obsessed with doing so. Yet I spent the morning merging lists. I want to know how many homeless people I met and interacted with. Thus far there are about 250 of them. For each name that made my list ~ made mostly from memory ~ threw notes away in 2004. Would re-write them, discard, re-write discard...

...for every person whose name I remembered there is another one whose name is gone from memory. Or I know the name, even a vague image of a face, but lost it due to lack of notes. Like Tony, maybe the young man's name was Tony, can picture him still. Yet not sure if he is the kid who wanted to enter a tall building and jump off and not clear if he is the same Tony from the beach who admired my Eracism t-shirt. And is he the Tony who lived on an Indian Reservation for a short time or the kid I mixed him up with. And maybe his name was Rick or Rich or Mark or Al. So many people!

A guy I think was named Al, perhaps from the Carnival, got on my nerves. Remember the incident clearly "And who is going to protect me from you!"

The 250 people list does not include homeless from Phoenix and Orange County. Did not get on first name basis with many of the New Image Los Angeles Shelter people. So maybe I spoke to at least once, or interacted with briefly or on more extended basis is double that number ~ 500 or maybe for sake of what these two posts is about ~ 365.

365 days on the streets and 365 people, how many words does it take to write about all of that?