Talking to Myself for Health and Profit

I've always talked to myself. It's a family trait, and I grew up thinking it was perfectly acceptable behavior. Many a day I'd find my mother chatting to the laundry, yelling at a broken door handle, or conversing with the checkbook register. My father has been known to have involved "discussions" with things like lawn mowers and car engines, and my sister -- well, she would talk from the moment her eyes opened in the morning, whether she had an audience or not.

Me? I'm not entirely sure what spurs on my conversations with myself because I'm not often aware I'm doing it until someone else points it out. A former coworker with whom I shared an office would tell me I was talking to the computer, and would I please knock it off. An old roommate used to drive me insane with her interrupting of my personal conversations by yelling from three rooms away, "What?" Once again, I'd have to explain to her that I was talking to myself, not to her. She never did get it and claimed she'd never known anyone else who talked to themselves. What a sad thing to have to admit.

I guess that's why when you have a relatively small blog with a teeny tiny following, it's good to be okay with talking to yourself already. I have to admit it feels a bit odd this time around; I've started many a blog in the last eight or ten years, but I haven't been at ground zero like this since the early days with a brand new mommy blog before the term "mommy blog" was invented, let alone before the term "mommy blog" made people cringe and make mean jokes behind your back.

I'm okay with blogging to myself. I guess it means I can screw everything up here and there's no one to see it. Like the time I wrote a mommy blog post about which disposable diaper was the better choice, somehow forgetting that it was supposed to be a natural mothering blog. Or the time I had a book review blog in which the very first book I reviewed was of the worst book I have ever read in my life, and I said so. Even though it was a tiny press and a one-time author. (I'd feel bad about that, but the writer was an open, vicious chauvinist, not to mention a crocodile poacher.) So I hope you'll bear with me, whoever you are, because I'm sure to throw something in here one day soon that's horribly embarrassing. Something that, later on, I'll delete and deny I ever wrote. But if you're here, you'll still remember it. You're welcome to it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some bills to pay and it's time I have a long chat with myself about my stamp choices. I really don't think I should be sending cute animal stamps to the bill collectors. Clearly, they don't deserve it.