Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?

While I was in Utah during the past week all of my blogging relatives urged me to start my own blog. I don't know that I'm likely to be very good at this - I've always had a perhaps too keen appreciation for the permanence of the written word, which makes me a very slow and deliberate writer. The idea that just about anyone might find and read what I write here is only likely to exacerbate my trepidation, even though I know that no one outside my family is ever likely to bother. That kind of feeling is entirely at odds with the spirit of blogging, so I'll try to overcome it.

A word about the title. I think my family will mostly get it, but on the off-chance that someday someone else wanders by and takes the time to read this, I'll explain. My grandfather was famous (within the family) for the often pithy, if almost always nonsensical things he would say in his sleep. Family members began to write down his unconscious utterings for the edification of the rest of the family. Many of these have even been compiled into a book, and I know several of them by heart. One of these somnolent aphorisms is, "People are always wondering what snails pick their teeth with." This, then, is my place to write about snail toothpicks and all the other, equally weighty things I ponder about.