Blog, Thy Name is Wilson

A few months ago, I left my steady “8 – 5” job to work at home as a freelance writer. Probably the thing I miss most is talking to co-workers during the day. I have observations on a lot of things, and I’m not particularly reticent in keeping my opinions to myself. It’s a testament to her human kindness, that my former cube-mate didn’t try to strangle me with an Ethernet cable in a last ditch effort to make me shut up about any of an enormous assortment of topics.

So now I have this blog thing, which is effectively not much better than talking to myself or my cat, and much more complicated. Yet because it’s being posted on the Internet, I can enjoy the illusion of a engaging in conversation. And the fantasy made me feel better.

But I’m remembering Wilson.

Wilson, in case you’ve forgotten (or didn’t see the movie) was Tom Hank's “companion” on the desert island in Castaway. Most significantly, Wilson was also volleyball with a face drawn on it. And though Wilson couldn’t talk back, Tom Hanks talked to Wilson all the time. They became best of friends, until that tragic moment when Wilson fell off the raft and was lost at sea. Maybe you think Terms of Endearment was a tear jerker, but Debra Winger had nothing on that half-inflated ball of rubber.



Is it crazy to talk to yourself, a cat or an inanimate object? Probably no --- strictly speaking --- but typically we still try to steer clear of those people, especially if they are standing on a street corner and are talking really, really loudly.

Yet here are bloggers, frequently typing furious rants to essentially no one but themselves, and they (I) get a pass in the sanity department because our “Wilsons” are high tech.

Maybe I should get a mynah bird.