Me, in the WSJ

Recently, I was interviewed by a columnist for the Wall Street Journal about my propensity for talking to myself. You can read the article here. My quotes are at the end, so if you don't want to read the whole thing, just read the last two paragraphs.

Before I was interviewed, I sent the writer an e-mail detailing the extent of my conversations with myself. Here is the bulk of that e-mail. Enjoy. Read it aloud to yourself. Then I won't feel so alone.

I talk to myself for many reasons. For one, I live alone, and I’m a talker in general, so I’ll talk even if there’s nobody there to listen. I talk to the TV; I talk to the cat. I have arguments with him. I’m not sure if that qualifies, but I’m not sure the cat understands, “If you want to root for Virginia over Texas Tech, so be it.” Sometimes I’ll practice conversations I want to have with people or that I’ve already had. I did competitive public speaking in college, and I used to practice speeches (often about current events) all the time when I was alone. A lot of times I pretend I’m being interviewed by someone. I think that’s just so I can say aloud all the trivial things I know and feel like someone cares. And of course, if you don’t say the Jeopardy answers out loud, it doesn’t count. . . especially if you are pretending your old high school teachers are watching you to see how much you really know, and you want them to hear your answers.

I also have a somewhat long walk to work, which leaves me alone with my thoughts. And sometimes, stuff spills out.

I can’t clean my apartment unless I’m singing showtunes, which I also guess doesn’t count as talking to myself, but still, it goes to the whole, “I’m alone and I have to hear noise” thing.

When I’m at work and at home, I talk to my computer. A woman’s voice on my home computer announces the time on the hour, and at some point I named her Carol, so when I hear the time, I say, “Thank you, Carol.” At work, when something is loading too slow or I can’t find a file or I forget to save something, I’ll let out a string of expletives.

Sometimes I’m just not really aware of what I’m doing at all. I’m sort of a space cadet. In a meeting a few months ago, I started whistling the Mork and Mindy theme. I have no idea why. Luckily, it was a small meeting with only two other co-workers. And sometimes complete sentences will come out of my mouth that make no sense whatsoever, like, “No, she isn’t in North Dakota yet.” And I don’t know who I’m talking about or why I’m saying it. I have an active imagination and think about a lot of different things at once, and I think sometimes, between brain and mouth, there’s a miscommunication and words just come out. Nobody usually notices.

Sometimes when I’m trying to concentrate I’ll read out loud the words I’m writing. And since my job involves math, sometimes I speak the math problems as I’m doing them to try to stay focused. And I treat myself like my own 12-year-old a lot of the time—there’s responsible Carli and childish Carli, and responsible Carli is kind of bossy. I’ll say stuff like, “Okay, you’re done with that. What’s the next thing?” Once, a neighbor caught me walking up the stairs to my apartment, saying, “Okay, we’re gonna drink some Gatorade, take a pill, and then take a nap.”

Finally, I have OCD. I count letters in the words people say, I play all these weird mind games where I have to, say, list all the kids on Eight Is Enough without thinking the word “cancer,” or I have to start again. Or I’ll have to organize a thought into a complete sentence and think it all perfectly without thinking of another “bad” word. It’s under much better control than it used to be, but when you try to do something like that twenty times, you start whispering the words to yourself to try to stay on track. I have a “special” place, a little nook in a little-used hallway, that I go to when it’s really bad and I’m pacing back and forth mumbling combinations of words that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else.


Up next: I watch videos of dogs opening Christmas presents on You Tube, and it leads me down a dark, dangerous path.