Why Am I Blogging march 23 2013

I grew up in a talkative family, six children competing constantly with each other at table, only silent when their mother launched into one of her amusing anecdotes.  Yes, in retrospect it seems to have been a tad compulsive, no doubt a defense against the immense silence created by the absence of our father, killed in a car crash, when we were all relatively young.  My first wife talked as much as I did; I welcomed the silence of my second, still shocked in grief at the death of her predecessor.  My second wife and I had four children all talkers as tots, still at it in their maturity.  Nothing is more uproarious (and sadly enough rarer)  than an evening with all four.  All their spouses sit about moodily, tongue-tied, which gets us to this blog.  I am presently married to a man who has been with me some twenty odd years.  He is forever reminding me that he is an introvert when I restlessly yearn for crowds, and parties, and endless noise; he also has to remind me from time to time that he has heard more than once whatever it is that I have embarked upon telling him.  Poor guy, I am a retired professor who once had a hundred or so seemingly willing listeners to whom I naturally could repeat what I was saying since there was a new group in front of me every year.  Talking can so easily degenerate into a routine if you do it for a living.  Which gets me to where I am now.  The kids have all left home years ago, there are no more students in class or colleagues at the faculty lunch.  Richard is buried deep in his study reading the Iliad in Greek and resolutely determined to turn inward.  I whimper like a dog kept on a short lead.  I want to talk.  Okay, I shall write