Ouch. I’m pleased that I share the same medical condition as Lewis Carroll and Thomas Jefferson and Joan Didion but holy hell does it suck when that freaky zigzag light aura of a stroke-like-migraine appears inside your eyeballs when you are talking in front of a room full of people. I just had to let everyone believe that I am drunk. It turns out that I am a little drunk from sleep deprivation and four days of LA nights anyway. I could blame the red eye flight and the 60 degree temperature difference and my lightweight coat made of Indonesian felt and my faulty car battery that, if left parked for more than two days does nothing (as in does not start) but set off the car alarm.

I could blame those crazy events for me nearly falling over in class and having to nap it off in a Save-On Drugs parking lot but the real other near truth is that my head is broken and the wires are short-circuiting from standing near people traveling in sweat pants, being around people anxious about being in an uncontrolled environment - just having to listen to overwrought people waiting to get on a plane spew their insipid neurotic verbal byproducts is enough to tie my veins in a rolling hitch knot. Conversations about whether or not to get the large bottle of Aquafina or the small bottle because last time they got the small bottle and it wasn’t enough but they did have to pee a lot and why is this German guy smashing his cross-shoulder bag into my hip and no you did not seriously get all settled in my window seat with your crossword puzzle and your shoes off like you didn’t know E was a middle seat and This Lady will cancel her cruise right now if her husband is not going to talk to her the whole f-ing time.

Or maybe my head imploded from the single greatest lightening round of pictionary in history, or from a mad Softbones recording sesh, or from sitting in the Burke Williams eucalyptus room for too long and then using every last available hair product in the finishing room creating a toxic chemical mixture that is making me lose my hair and my mind. All of these things, including long cabana-based conversations with old friends and too many pancakes, can cause undue brain discomfort. But it is, and it was, and will continue to be, worth it.