The other day, I described to my roommate E.V. how my brain sometimes feels like it's filled with fifty different televisions all set to different channels with the volume turned all the way up, and asked her if she ever felt the same way. To my surprise, she said no.

I dunno. My brain is so full of things. It's almost impossible to get it to shut up. That's one of the reasons I like taking walks--it gives my brain a time to clear out and wander instead of running around like a squirrel on caffeine. The same goes for knitting. But, the rest of the time, I've got five or six different levels of thought going. I might be walking to class and thinking about the homework I just finished, and a conversation I had at dinner the night before, and all the errands I need to run during the rest of the day, as well as planning some knitting project I want to start, and what sort of things I should pack when I join the Peace Corps. (Yes, I won't have to worry about that for at LEAST another year.)

As far as I can tell, it's always been like this. I think I've been dealing with that in different ways pretty much my entire life. I remember back in first or second grade, I would narrate my life in my head. Literally, things like, "She turned on the water and started to wash her hands . . ." while I was in the bathroom. I've graduated from that a bit--now I compose blog posts in my head. Only a fraction of the posts I write in my head as I go about my day actually make it to the blog, because that's not really the purpose they serve. Putting things to actual language in my head helps me focus on just one television screen. Even if it's not a productive one, it quiets the other televisions down a bit.

I think this might also be the reason I talk to myself so much. When I was shopping for my soups last weekend, I was talking to myself the entire time, telling myself where I need to go next. People probably thought I was crazy, but I was so frazzled, and that was the only way to collect my thoughts enough to function. Actually, that makes it sound like I am sort of crazy. Who knows--maybe I am, a bit.

What about you guys? Do you have trouble sorting out the televisions in your head? What do you do?