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Yeah, I use them a lot. Yeah, I just noticed that I keep using them in my blog titles. Yeah, I’m slightly self-conscious about it.

What? Are they pretentious . . . or irritating . . . or confusing?

Um. Oh well. Yeah, I say “um” a lot, too. And an “oh well” is due during the explication at least every other major theme. Because, well, what are you going to do? It is.

And I like to use dashes, and parentheses (and other parenthetical devices–like the dashes [though not strictly in that sense]).

If you heard me talk, if you could see my thoughts, it would make more sense, I think. The “um”s though–I think (I hope) I actually write those more than I speak them, ’cause, um, “um”s are irritating to listen to. I just think that they signify uniquely in writing. The parentheses, the ellipses, the dashes, et al.–those are indigenous. “Um” might be more of a colloquial affectation. I’m more comfortable writing that kind of thing than saying it . . . sometimes.

Sometimes when I write, I hear a cooler version of me saying the things that I wouldn’t ever quite say. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Yes and no.

And sometimes when I speak, those things come out anyway, and the cooler me cringes, because they just sound wrong stumbling off of my tongue.

I promised myself and a few friends who were kind enough to listen–and kinder still to pretend to care–that I would write, that I would, as I said it, “spew crap,” if necessary to keep the words flowing.

Um, yeah, there’s another promise I’ve broken. But here I am, attempting to unbreak it.

You might rightly ask, “why?” Well, you might not ask, but every time I start something like this, I do. And that’s another story. But, well, let’s just say “one might ask” and pretend that that “one” isn’t me.

One answer is that it’s cheap therapy, and, indeed, it’s easier–no matter how difficult I might make it–logistically than finding and committing to a therapist.

So here we are “healing” or at least being sick more expressively and maybe more creatively–certainly more verbosely.

And I promise, a lot of this will be crap. So far, so good, right?