I have a confession  to make (ahem) … “My name is Heather and I’m a doodleholic.” The urge for me to enable the making of sweet love between pen and paper is, in the words of the great, late bard Robert  Palmer  – simply  irresistible. Napkins, newsprint, plain old office paper, notebook paper ALL needs to bear my doodles! If I have  a pen – and there is paper close at hand, I WILL bestow my “mental graffiti” on it!

I’ve always been a “doodler.” My mom is also a doodler, so perhaps it’s hereditary! I used to watch her doodle  while she chatted on the phone…

When I was in school – especially high school and college, and I took notes, I always doodled in the margins. My most common “creations” were flowers, spirals, crosshatches, checkerboards, zig zags, chain heart patterns, curlicues, various words, animals/people etc. Studies have shown that when people doodle, they’re actually paying BETTER attention to their surroundings than people think! I don’t know if that’s actually true or not.

I doodled on church bulletins during sermons (I am nothing  if  not a bit sacrilegious). I did the same as a journalist in my 20s/30s when I took notes at various  meetings.

Behold – here is a manila folder of mine from high school. I couldn’t tell you why I still have it – but its cover contains some very, very old samples of my doodles, from the 1989-1990 school year from my American Lit class. This just might give you all a glimpse into what some of my obsessions were at the time! Allow me to introduce you to my 17 year old mind (I like to joke that my mind is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live here):

I had to read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck in this class. Some of the other students thought it would be a good idea to just rent the old Henry Fonda movie – instead of reading the dull, dull book – and wound up flunking the test. I managed to power my way through the dull, dull book – and did well on the test #nerd

I no longer take notes during classes and I am not working as a journalist anymore (which makes me sad because I miss it so, so much), but I do take notes during trivia games! And as you may have guessed it – and my trivia teammates already know – my pen almost never stops touching the paper. Here’s  a  score sheet from 2016:

And here are some notes from a November, 2019 semifinal  game   (this creation is called the “Doodly Ump” (inspired by Edward Gorey’s short story “The Wuggly  Ump:”

Sadly, none of  this brainstorming  led to a correct  answer!

And sometimes…I doodle for fun while I’m  watching TV. Here is one of one of my famous  “one-way mazes” (in color), which I made this morning:

For inquiring minds, this was created with a Pilot G2 pen and a Sharpie highlighter pen!