I'm Talking And I Can't Shut Up

As I’ve stated before, I think I’m a pretty fun guy (insert your favorite mushroom joke here). I’m not a party animal, and, I do dislike parties where I don’t know anyone, but when family and friends get together, I’d like to think I’m rather entertaining.
Therefore, it’s with rather sad feelings that I’ve come to realize that I’m losing it. I used to enjoy telling a joke or two around the table at get togethers. But, these days, everyone just stares at me strangely, as if to say, “what in the world is he talking about and when will he ever stop?”
And it’s not just my jokes either. Time was I could bring down the house by lying in the floor and doing my impression of bacon frying. It was a comedy sketch I’d seen on TV, but if I do say so myself, nobody did bacon frying better than I. Not anymore. I guess the idea of a fat old man twitching on the floor is just not that amusing to most folks. Or, could it be that most of my friends do, after seeing my bacon thing over and over again, grow tired of seeing my timeless humor. It’s a moot point, I guess, because just doing the bacon shtick hurts so badly, I can’t move for about an hour after the performance.
There’s something about asking your friends to lift you off the floor and lay you on the coffee table that makes for a less-than-satisfying ending to a comedy routine. And something else, when I was younger I never got nauseatingly dizzy when I did the bacon thing.
But, then too, when I was younger, we’d hold our nose and spin around in a circle to make us dizzy. Now, all I need to do is eat a Hostess Twinkie and forget to take my diabetes medicine and I get the same effect. I guess it’s true, what they say about an ill wind blowing no good, or is it that the ill wind blows some good. That makes more sense, but since, I’m not positive what an ill wind is, I really don’t know much about that old saying.
Anyway, I’ve gotten way off the subject. Hey, maybe this is the subject. Maybe I’m not entertaining anymore because I ramble. You know, I think I’ve hit on something here. I do know that I have become a rambling old man. Really, I have.
I wouldn’t have believed it until I got a tape recorder to record the interviews I do for our magazine articles. When I play the interviews back, I find that I’m doing 90% of the talking. I’m sitting there trying to transcribe the interview and I find myself screaming at myself, “Will you shut up and let the other guy speak.”
I’ve become very self-conscious of my rambling. I’m sitting at a table, with a group of friends, and I notice that I have an opinion on just about everything. I also find I’m telling people more than they’d ever want to know about virtually any topic. I’ll spend hours recounting the most boring details in what had begun (or so I thought) as a very entertaining conversation. But no, I ruin it. I just keep talking. I get frantic. The more I want to stop, the more I seem egged on by some old man fixation to keep on chattering away. I’m thinking to myself, I’m talking and I can’t shut up.
I used to hate to be around old men who’d get you in a corner and talk and talk and talk about the most mundane, boring things. I bet those old coots thought they were as entertaining as I have been thinking I’ve been.
Well, I don’t know if I made any points here, but I do think writing this has been rather therapeutic. I feel I’m more in touch with myself right now. Have I learned anything? Well, that’s an interesting question. Let’s discuss it in greater depth. You got a few more minutes?