First sign of madness?

A friend once said to me, “you know what I love about you, Louise” [first of all: thank you! I love you too!] She said, “I love that you just don’t give a shit what people think of you!” Lovely - but so wrong. I’m extremely interested in what other people think of me. Too interested if anything. The main thing they seem to think of me, is that I’m zany, wacky, a little bit mad. And, leaving aside the fact those terms are now often seen as pretty ableist, I just can’t see it. Thanks for reading Rambling Missive! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. In my head, I’m perfectly standard, thank you. But… I do talk to myself. And that’s famously the first sign of madness. I’m doing it now. That’s not a passive aggressive moan about having a small number subscribers. I’m not saying that “doing this feels like I’m talking to myself”. Far from it. Some of you have been very kind indeed about whatever this is. It’s just that as I am reading this out loud into a microphone [did you know I podcast this for anyone who can’t be bothered to read it?] it feels pretty normal. If I wasn’t recording it, I’d still be saying it out loud. If I wasn’t reading it aloud while writing it down, I’d still be saying it out loud. There’s a bit of online discourse, at the moment, about how we experience our internal worlds. People asking each other to what degree they envisage things in their mind’s eye - and how much or little internal dialogue we have. Well, I have dialogue. It’s just not internal. I have always talked to myself, and I always will. As I say, when caught doing it in public, “well at least I listen to me”. I wish I had the reaction speed - and time - to reply with a quote from the majestic Helen Broderick in the movie Swing Time, who says “I always talk to myself -- you see, I am my own grandmother and I have to keep the old girl interested”. God, I love Helen Broderick. So dry. So funny. I have various categories of self-chat: * practice for difficult conversations I’m definitely going to have. * practice for difficult conversations I may eventually get to have * practice for difficult conversations I know I’m never going to have * re-doing difficult conversations I’ve definitely had * re-doing difficult conversations I almost had * re-doing simple conversations someone made difficult * remembering things * suddenly remembering I’ve forgotten things * interviews Number 9 is my personal favourite. I’ve been doing it since I was very small: walking home from primary school pretending to be on Wogan. What was I telling Sir Terry Wogan and millions of UK viewers? What stories did I think would hold up alongside those of real life guests David Bowie, Madonna and Anne Bancroft? Just, like, which were my favourite trees on the walk home, who was my best friend, why I like these socks. Important stuff like that. Even now, sometimes when I’m listening to a podcast in the car, and I feel I have something to add to a conversation, I’ll join in to the extent that I have to switch off the podcast so the other people on the podcast will shut up and actually listen to my story. And I’ve definitely practised what I’d say about three of the songs I’ve chosen for my Desert Island Discs. I think probably all of these types of chat are kind of like waking dreams. I’m sifting through the stuff in my brain, sorting the glitter from the dried lentils, like contestants once had to do on The Great Egg Race. Oh hang on - quick diversion, to explain The Great Egg Race. It was a science show, I suppose, from the 80s, presented by a bald professor in a bow tie and glasses called Professor Heinz Wolf (his Desert Island Discs is just brilliant, by the way). Anyway, in the show, nerdy types, engineers etc had to make machines, often out of household objects, designed to perform specific tasks. And I vividly remember one where they had to make a machine that would sort out a great big pile of mixed, different sized small objects which I am sure contained both dried lentils and glitter, into their various different subcategories. Am I explaining that well? Anyway, there was a lot of faffing with sieves. But that’s what I’m doing when I talk to myself. Sifting through the piles of stuff in my brain, trying to organise them. And I know I’m not alone. Sometimes I catch other people doing it: Gesticulating angrily - that’s often a category 1 or 2 (practising for difficult conversations that are likely to happen), or just stopping still in the street saying “Bugger! Lemons!” before turning round and heading back to the Co-op. I also know I’m not alone because in the days before smart phones, my friend Emily and I used to discuss talking to ourselves and how we could disguise it by using a dictaphone. Or even something that looks a bit like a dictaphone. You can talk to yourself as much as you like, if you’re holding that in front of your mouth. As long as you remember to say “note to self” first, you’re golden. And also, I know I’m not alone, because of pets. Pets are like Emily and my fake dictaphone. They’re the perfect cover for talking to yourself. Because you can’t be mad when there’s a dog, cat or even a gecko who’s listening to what you’re saying, can you? Side note: I think I met a dog called Jennifer this week. Not Jen, not Jenny, Jennifer. Thanks for reading Rambling Missive! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit louiseleigh.substack.com