Confabulate...

...what a cool word, no?

The dictionary defines it as a conference -- what people do at a confab -- but I have also been told that "to confabulate" is (or at least used to be) a term of art in psychiatry, denoting someone who, perhaps because their internal gears aren't meshing tightly, makes up nonsense words or phrases.

PARENTHETICAL MUSICAL-EDUCATION MOMENT: My favorite example might be the Slim Gaillard song, "Ce-ment Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti," with such lyrics as:

Ce-ment Mix-er, Put-ti Put-ti
A puttle ti-voot a puttle-ti vout a puttle ti-roonie

But then, Gaillard might've just been indulging in onomatopoeia.

I have a reason for thinking about confabulation. I've heard before that some people who experience traumatic events feel a desperate urge to talk, talk, talk. Or, perhaps, type, type type.

I now know it's true. I am fully possessed by that urge.

But it is perilous. I am simultaneously possessed by the urge to not say or write things that, while entirely truthful and positive and "good," might push someone's wrong buttons. I may have already done that today.

My emotions run strong these days. Not your problem, but it gets a bit unnerving for me.

And I still gotta talk.

Just sayin'.