Desperately seeking my filter

For the past few days, I've found that pretty much every thought that pops into my head comes spilling out of my mouth uncontrollably. I'm not sure what's up with that, but I fear that it's going to start having some consequences.

I've had some better success with emails -- I type everything in my head, but I'm smart enough, for the most part, to edit before hitting Send -- but I feel like I now need to post all of those unsaid things, as well. We'll call it TMI Thursday, I think. Here we go. I'm warning you, though: you may think I'm disgusting, crazy, or both after reading the following.

-- As Minnams and I were discussing the earwax study with another colleague, I felt compelled to tell them about how, when I was studying abroad, I dislodged a piece of earwax so impressive that I mailed it to my sister in a Halloween card. And then, when she and my brother-in-law moved this summer, she found it, and mailed it back to me, and I nearly died laughing, and the Smelmooo nearly divorced me, I think.

-- I caught up yesterday with a consultant I used to work with all the time but whom I hardly talk to anymore; I got in touch with him because it was his birthday. He asked me how a project I'm now working on is going, and I just vomited out, "God, I hate it so much. I hate the people working on it; they all suck, and I'm miserable." Blah blah blah inappropriateness and self-centeredness, and on the poor guy's birthday call!

-- As I said, I'm doing better in writing, but I want to get it all out of my system in the hope that it cures me. So this morning, I responded to Seth's post about changing dentists, but what I deleted was a whole diatribe about not wanting to change gynecologists, even though mine is an hour away, because I love how predictable everything is (exact same questions, exact same order, exact same wording, every single visit) and, more importantly, I love that there are soothing posters on the ceiling over the examination table. Love it, and I've never heard of any other GYNs who do that, so I'll stick with the commute until I do.

-- Our friends are having an Oscar party (yay!), and we're all supposed to bring our favorite movie-watching snacks. I changed it to pretzel bites on the Evite response (or maybe I got rid of any references altogether; I'm too lazy to go back to check), but the first thing that popped into my head was that I should bring Twizzlers and Diet Coke, for the purpose of using the Twizzlers as a straw for the soda. But I think that, while that may be fine for a dark theater in junior high, not so much for a party in our friends' living room on Oscar night.

I kind of think all of this inappropriateness is spilling out because I've been spending so much time biting my tongue directly to the stupid people like the ones I ranted about to my consultant on his birthday. I don't know. I worry that I might crack one of these days, and turn into Ben Affleck at the Will Smith press conference in Jersey Girl. Yeah, you read that right. And I even watch parts of it when I stumble across it on TV.

I'm in trouble, aren't I?