Stop me if you've read this one before

I’m not sure whether it’s a bad habit (God knows I have plenty of those to spare), my failing memory or the fact I’m a believer in the old adage that great writers steal from other writers. Especially when the other writers are themselves.

I’ve written over 1,181 posts on here—I don’t have to tell you. And almost all of them have their own clever little word play titles.

But as you may have noticed, because I know you’ve read, cataloged and committed them all to memory, many of them unintentionally and unconsciously share the same title.

For example I have two posts called Going Bananas. Three if you count the encore post of one of them. And while we’re on the subject, a lot of people, okay, a few people, alright fine, somebody asked me what the encore posts are. Well, they’re pretty much what they sound like.

Encore posts are reposting of pieces that were critically acclaimed, especially insightful, endlessly enlightening and are constantly being asked for, dare I say demanded, by my many grateful followers who appreciate quality writing and want to reread them over and over again.

Nah, I’m just funnin’ you. I slap up encore posts when I’m too lazy or tired to write a new one. Or I don’t feel like living up to that “quality writing” thing.

Where was I? Oh, right. I also have more than one post called With Friends Like These. And I think there’s more than one Here’s The Thing.

I’m not losing sleep over it. In fact I'm in good company. There are more than four movies called Monkey Business. Three called A Night To Remember. There’s more than one Gladiator, and more than one Twilight (one with vampires, one without).

I'm sure there are other examples, but I have to get going on tomorrow's post. I'm calling it Gone With the Wind. Either that or To Kill A Mockingbird.

I haven't decided yet.

Stop me if you've read this one before

I have a bad habit. Well, I have more than one. But I’m not talking about my addiction to virtually any kind of bread, how I leave near-empty food containers in the fridge or my compulsion to binge Breaking Bad whenever I have a free minute.

No, the one I’m talking about is repeating myself.

The one I’m talking about is repeating myself.

See what I did there?

Case in point. I just put up a post called Drive Time about the agency I’m at, the fact it’s at the beach and how nice the commute is. Come to find out the problem is I’ve put up nearly the exact same post two other times – Tsunami Adjacent and Mourning The Commute. In fact, I've even used the exact same photo a couple of times.

Granted, it’s a good story, but let's be honest for minute—although I've never figured out the upside of doing that—it's not that good. And I’m just a little embarrassed I’ve told it here three times.

I worry that I repeat subjects. Being who I am, I think it may be symptomatic, an early form of dementia setting in and I'll be the last one to know. But then it occurs to me I’ve been cranking out this blog for years, and the truth of the matter is occasionally I run out of topics I think are worth ranting and raving about. Apparently when that happens, I unintentionally go back to the same well and write about something I've already written about. Not that it's always a bad thing. After all, some things are worth repeating.

Although I'm pretty sure this isn't one of them.

I know the nine people who read this on their iPads while they’re sitting on the toilet probably aren’t paying that much attention, and had I not pointed it out, wouldn’t have even known I was telling the same story again and again.

But you’re all paying good money for this, and I didn’t want you to…wait a minute, you’re not paying any money for this. Suddenly I don’t feel so bad.

Anyway, I'll try not to repeat myself as often. And if I do, I’ll try to keep it to the most interesting and popular subjects only.

By the way, don’t miss tomorrow’s post on how I sometimes repeat myself. It’ll be a good one.