Every paragraph in this post starts with 'I'

I'm a disaster.

I am late and usually unprepared. I rush and look around at various surfaces in my apartment to make sure I've not forgotten anything I need. I carry around the tackiest hot pink multi-pocketed bag you've ever seen, and it's stocked with everything I would ever need if I got stranded on the side of the road somewhere. I often spill things on myself just enough to totally ruin a good shirt. I forget to clean out my car when it's going to be used for business, and then end up shoving the books and CDs and papers and sun screens and receipts and shoes and umbrellas and dishtowels into a pile on one side of the back seat to accommodate anyone who might be required to sit back there. I suck at finding good parking downtown. I never have cash. I say stupid things and make pained faces during awkward silences. I point to things on menus and say I can't pronounce them even if I can, just because I don't want to slightly mispronounce something and sound like a total idiot. I probably seem like I am completely flighty or completely hopped up on painkillers or goofballs or glimmer all the time, because of these cursed tired eyes and the wacky things I sometimes say with a flat effect. I do tend to mumble once my sentences get long and/or too complicated. My mouth spazzes when I try to prolong a dead smile. I say "uh huh" too much when other people are talking.

I am taking Lack of Sophistication to a whole new level. And, to me, it's kind of hilarious. I plod along through my day — every single day — laughing at my ridiculousness. (Yes, sometimes audibly.) Sometimes I get annoyed with myself, like when I lose things I had in my hand mere minutes before, but mostly I just take my antics in stride. After all, I've been pulling these elaborate and unintentional shenanigans my whole life. They are who I am. I are who they is.

I don't envy people who have to hang around me for too long, that's for sure. Thinking back to the blogger bash and our dinner with the potential new designer tonight, I just cringe at all the moments my Shut Up-o-Meter failed to blink on. I can always count on my mouth to take me to a new and magical place where my brain totally didn't want to go. But at least I can laugh at me. Even if other people are smiling at me and wondering what is going on up in my crazy head.

I think I might have gotten some delirium-inducing sun poisoning today or something. Brandon and I, like troopers, took our cameras downtown and walked around the Main Street Mall (we took no photos; I blame the delirium) around noon or one. We watched a bit of My Blueberry Nights being filmed at Arcade. Brandon for a fleeting moment thought he might actually get his chance to hit on Norah Jones, but we didn't see her. We hoofed it up the Mall and ducked into McAllister's for lunch. We scoffed at their ridiculous closing time of 3 p.m. on weekdays. We headed back outside into the sun and took the trolley loop around back to where we parked near Butler Park. And then we walked down to Tom Lee Park and sashayed through the sprinklers before I decided to go back home and into reverse hibernation (where you don't come out all summer), so we — still troopers — climbed back up the three thousand stairs that separate Tom Lee from Butler.

I made a stupid decision to wear a black T-shirt, yes, and jeans. I don't own any shorts or casual skirts, and that shirt was one of my only three clean T-shirts (none of which are lighter than navy blue). When we got back to Brandon's car I started to feel like there was something growing in my skull that needed to be lanced. We got back to my apartment and I started tossing back glasses of water and pain reliever and here I am, 12 hours later, and the headache is still with me — after another shower, dinner at LoLo's Table (which we decided on because it was super close to the designer's hotel and it was a bit cheaper than Stella, and we started getting sorta spooked about spending too much company money; LoLo's was still overpriced and I wasn't too impressed, though our server was very nice), a glass of wine, and a couple of hours on the couch with Phil and Langston and David, watching Mr. Show and ATHF.

I've decided my physiology has changed a lot in the past several years (obviously, but I'm talking about microscopic molecular shifts in my sun and heat tolerance), and where I once might have been more outdoorsy (though I never really spent time outdoors unless it was for an organized sport or, predictably, band camp), I am now definitely going to stick to my more natural environment — fluorescent lights and push-board cube walls — during the most uncomfortable moments of the year, and only come outside if I can see my breath in the air.