Miss Universe won the biggest crown ever, then passed out. I know how she feels. I fall down frequently. Sometimes I fall because I didn’t notice a rise in the sidewalk, sometimes I tumble off my heels, sometimes I just fall. I also pass out from time to time, usually on hot days when I’m not feeling altogether vertical.

I think occasionally I just forget to stand. I have this problem with my head. I get sort of space cadet-y, lose myself to the physical world entirely, and then say something just as loud as a plane crash that everybody but me seems to hear. In the middle of a lecture, if somebody shouts out, apropos of nothing, “I want a hamburger!"—that would be me. Like in my Faulkner seminar, 1999: mid-class I declared, “Yeah, I guess.” Not so bad in itself, until the professor tried to follow it up. “You guess what, Penelope?” The room waited as I stared at the wall. “Penelope? What do you guess?” Again, silence, wall-staring. Finally, “After this, we should go to the Mexican place with the margaritas.” But of course.

When things like this happen, I don’t remember them later. Asked why a conversation about As I Lay Dying led to thoughts on a Mexican restaurant, I’ll say, “What? Margaritas? Where?” with no memory of having brought this up myself. Then will follow the explanation, and …

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