My chief complaint about being a student is that I no longer have time to blog about other peoples’ mistakes. Between drinking espresso and smoking self-consciously and wearing knee socks, I’ve been forced to neglect all the truly exciting, schadenfreudy stuff like typos on the GOP website and arts & crafts gone bad and fashion faux pas(es?) documented by the Fug girls. But tonight I couldn’t resist taking time away from my studies to note the following fuck-up. From my inbox:

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 3, 2009

sommelier \suhm-uhl-YEY; Fr. saw-muh-LYEY\, noun:

To involuntarily repeat a particular response, such as a word, phrase, or gesture, despite the absence or cessation of a stimulus, usually caused by brain injury or other organic disorder.

If the wine list is not online, drop by the restaurant in advance, look over the list and talk with the sommelier. It’s a small investment in time that will pay big dividends.
— Ernest Hemmingway, The Sun Also Rises

I want to feel terrible for the Dictionary.com intern responsible for this, I really do, but at the same time I’ve made so many embarrassing errors this semester, from going in for the hug when someone was just stretching, to bombarding my professors with PLEASE FIND ME CHARMING emails, to cringing in class because I burnt my wrist with my skinny gold bracelets while drunkenly cooking pasta over an open flame, resulting in a week of appearing to have slashed myself for attention, while simultaneously fending off a recent compulsion to lick my front teeth at every idle moment, I think because my oral hygiene’s not so great, basically declaring myself a cutter with a coke habit, preventing me from raising my hand confidently in class and from excusing myself for the restroom without sending up a red flag, that I. . . um. God, it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged.

In short, I really need to feel superior to someone right now, and so I choose the person who spells Hemingway with two m’s and gives him a web-surfing habit and who, even more delightfully, attributes Tourette’s Syndrome to wine experts. On Tuesday, after I’d notified my father of the Dictionary.com mistake, he forwarded me his own word-of-the-day definition from Wordsmith.org. I don’t think it’s coincidence that “daymare” landed in his inbox an hour after “sommelier” landed in mine. These vocab people must all know each other:

daymare

MEANING:

noun: A terrifying experience, similar to a nightmare, felt while awake.

Here is a girl who got a perfect score* on her verbal SATs, but who can’t find a synonym for “awesome” in quotidian** conversation. Or who finds herself stuck with “interesting” as a default adjective whether she’s discussing a Great American Novel or the pizza she had for lunch.

The verbal portion of my brain freezes up completely in mixed company. All I can process are the ways in which people are looking at me. I try to be articulate – I really do – but I get distracted by the sweat running down my back or by the scrutiny in other peoples’ eyes or by the fact that I lost track of what I was talking about a long time ago. If I’m going to say something borderline intelligent, the social climate has to be right to within an eighth of a degree. For example, the sweat glands, the digestive system, the state of intoxication, the room temperature, what I absorbed on the internet right before the party – this all has to line up perfectly or I will start blabbering.

This is all a prelude to an important lesson I learned over the weekend. If you really want to feel eloquent, hang out sober with a bunch of people who are balls-to-the-wall wasted. I picked up my lovely little sister and her adorable friends at Foxfield on Saturday, and I plan to take on the DD role every spring from now on. Not only did I get to be the hero who arrived in the nick of time to shuttle the kids back to town before anyone else got arrested, I also got to be the cool cucumber who knew just how to nonchalantly accept all the praise heaped on me for being the “awesomest.” I was driving a 12-seater van, I was cracking jokes, I was telling the drunk people about the salad I had for lunch – and they were all riveted and enamored by me, I swear to God. And when I walked along Barracks Road on the way to the field and was passed by all the undergrads in pickup trucks who shouted, “You suck!”,*** it didn’t even matter because I knew that I’d be able to recite the alphabet better than anyone within a mile radius. What a great day.

I’m wondering if maybe I should become a late-night taxi driver. I can try out some smart-person vocabulary on drunk passengers, give my self esteem a boost, and make some money in the process. I wish that I could be that sober all the time, but sadly, slight intoxication is the millstone I must wear around my neck in order to deal with average social events like lunch and dinner. I tried yoga, deep breathing, and meditation, but they’re so much harder than a mixed drink.

*STILL bragging even though it was over 10 years ago and those smarty-pants brain cells are all gone now. And please don’t ask me about the math portion – just give me my moment in the sun.

**See!!?

***In fairness to these people, after they harrassed me they would typically notice the purebred dog I was walking and then they would forget that they’d just yelled, “You suck!” and politely ask, “Aww, is that a Bernese?”

Front page headline updated six minutes ago:

William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82

Mr. Buckley marshaled polysyllabic exuberance and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse.

Someone studied for his SATs.

Last night in writing workshop, Middle mentioned NanoWrimo, the National Novel Writing Month that owes much of its popularity to being fun to say. Not only can people churn out novels like robots, but they can actually sound like robots when they explain what they’re doing. “Na-no-wri-mo,” I thought. “Hehe.”

“It’s only 50,000 words in November,” Middle said. “We can even get a head-start.” Annie, a full time student at UVA, looked aghast.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “What’s the big deal?” Selvi reminded me that some people had jobs.

Middle and I smiled at each other, complicit in our marathon novel-writing plans. I imagined that the whole coffee shop was solemnly witnessing a historic event. It reminded me of last Saturday when Darren and I played soccer for the Crutchfield team, and he scored (what could be considered) the game-winning goal. I ran across the field and slapped him ten and gave him a kiss. I assumed that all the other players were watching us, thinking “Aww. Look at those lovebirds. That is so cute.” Then I heard “Hustle back, Crutchfield! Get in position! Anyone need a sub?”