For reasons I haven’t fully discovered yet, I didn’t watch the fantastic series ‘Friends’ during their first airing in the 90s and 00s. Therefore I now have the luxury of binge-watching ‘Friends’ – as many episodes as I want at any given time of the day (or night). While watching it I had the experience so many others have had: I felt as if I had a very special connection to one of the six main characters – and so I decided to write her a letter.
Dear Monica,
Here is the girl writing that colour-codes her calendar, that makes plans to make plans and that needs to arrange her beauty products in the order of usage. I see you, girl. I know what you go through when someone doesn’t put forks in the fork part, spoons in the spoon part and, oh my god, the knives in the knives part. I understand the importance of folders and oh-so-glorious post-its.
Let me tell you a little story: My biggest fear has always been losing my calendar with all my important stuff in it, yet I couldn’t leave the house without it (yes, I even brought it to a bar when meeting friends). You will be proud to hear that I’ve since conquered that fear (OK, I switched to a calendar app that on my phone). I even change events afterwards to match their actual duration. The best thing: It connects to the cloud so I will never ever lose my appointments. Also, in the black hole of organization apps, I’ve found the holy grail of To-Do-List apps where you can make folders for lists and sub-lists within those lists! Yeah!!!
I love things when they are in place. There are four hooks next to the door for four keys. There is exactly as much space between the toilet seat and the wall to place two rolls of toilet paper there. Isn’t that glorious, Monica? I know you’d like this as much as I do!
I organize my fruits rectangularly, I plan my days vertically and I love horizontally. Graph-Paper is my favourite paper because everything looks so neat when written on it. Monica, is it just me or do you also try to arrange the goods you buy like in a perfect Tetris game while waiting at the checkout? Oh, who am I kidding, I know you do!
I love cooking as much as you do – yet I also understand Joey’s obsession with sandwiches, forgive me Monica. Even though I won’t become a chef, I still share your passion for ingredients and flavours. If I didn’t know how competitive we both were, I would probably write that I bet my homemade sushi is better than yours, but let’s leave that aside – or otherwise we’d be stuck here forever.
Well, all I want to say to you, Monica, is that I love that we are both organized, love to make lists and adore planning – because in the end it will be people like us that make sure the whole group of friends gather and put plans into practice (because it was us who made those plans, and our plans never fail).
Monica, you are awesome! Let’s make plans to get a (very organized and well planned) coffee at Central Perk soon! I have a free spot in my calendar from 15.41 to 17.18 that is screaming your name…
All the best,
stripped 