Upon further reflection, I believe I've discovered the source of this vocabulary habit. (And living in California for 10 years doesn't quite cover it.)
I think it all started one night about a year ago. Corey and I were climbing into bed. I was blithely chattering along about the trivialities taking up room in my brain, and he was exhausted and half-comatose. Even as he settled onto his pillow and closed his eyes, I kept up my sporadic stream of information.
Apparently, at one point, he actually fell asleep on me. (The nerve!) Thus, when I launched into my next story, he bolted up -- like someone who's twitching from falling asleep too quickly -- and blurted out, "Seriously?!?"
It totally cracked me up. Corey teases me a lot about my verbalness, but he's rarely mean. (Probably because he's realized that chattering is what I do when I'm happy. That's right. I'm like a bird. A happy, little chattering bird. Only I don't like suet.) So his undisguised, unfiltered response struck me as really funny.
So now, whenever I start to ramble on and on about nothing of consequence, he'll wait until I stop to catch my breath and then say, in jest, "Seriously?"
Of course, it doesn't happen that often anymore. Because now I have this blog. And you, my dear imaginary Internet friends, are the newfound recipients of my stories and fascinating tales.
My husband thanks you.
Seriously.