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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 the dreadful realization that another moment has passed where my subconcious self has been broadcast. Because it can never be mundane things, no, it’s the palpable desires completely unchecked by conscience that the room will hear. I will say something gluttonous ("I need more cheese!"), anatomical ("My butt hurts"), frank ("I like peeing"), sexual ("I would never suck his penis"). Humiliating. Dreams roll out like somebody has set up a projector to play them across the back wall. It’s true: I do like margaritas.

Although generally my problem is treated as comic, I sometimes wonder if I should speak to my boss/professor/livery cab driver to explain that this lies entirely out of my control. Why it happens, I’m not sure. I’m not a big one for going to doctors, so I’ve sort of left this be. Maybe its on account of the head injury, maybe I drank too many margaritas, but I’ve had enough EEGs in my time not to want to feel the yank of suction cups or to wash that nasty glue out of my hair again. Yes, even if, during a work meeting, I say, “That poster looks like a twat.” And everyone wonders what poster. Hell, HR loves me.

I am, in short, used to embarrassing myself.

I know I’m speshul. Miss Universe won her crown, I purchased mine for $5.99 at Claire’s. But I’m thinking everybody else embarrasses themselves too, so by all means, tell me I’m not alone.