Oh no, Ozone.

This is how I feel all the time, Earth.

Lately I've been feeling a bit out of sorts at random times, and I haven't been the only one. I feel like every single one of my friends have mentioned just feeling a bit "off." Yesterday, in a meeting full of business professionals, we asked ourselves aloud several times if there was an impending full moon, because we simply felt a bit out of it.

My salon expert and very good friend, Leslie, has offered up the best solution I've heard for all of us feeling a bit like we're losing it: The Ozone.

That is not me, hard at work.

Now, we all know that our selfish earthly habits are causing the globe to go a little bonkers. Without getting too much into my politics here, I'm going to make a sweeping statement that we're all well aware that global warming is inevitably happening. (Except for Joel's OSO--that's other significant other, because I'm starting to hate the term bff--AJ, who says--and I quote--"I mean, what do you want me to do about it anyway?") (To get off topic again, Joel has one OSO, AJ, but I have a whole entourage of OSOs! You'll hear about them here often, and one day, I'll write a blog dedicated to each one.) Wait, where were we? Oh yeah, the ozone. So, it's Leslie's theory that the ozone melting away and soaking us with harmful sun rays is causing us to all have little glitches in our internal wiring. I thought this was a genius discovery and have set out to prove this theory.

Warning: what you are about to read is not at all highly scientific and has not at all been tested and proven by me, who is, in no way, shape, or form, a professional scientist. 


So here is what I have determined to be the side effects of said ozone deterioration:

--Jumbling and mumbling of words. Over the past few months, I have tried to eek out very intelligent phrases that have ended up sounding like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets. Today, I tried to say contribution four times without success.

--General clumsiness. I have always had a bit of clumsiness, but lately I'm noticing it in everyone around me. My very pulled together friend, Jo, almost bumped into a huge rack of clothes today for no good reason. Wednesday, I dropped the bat phone no less than three times, and the last time, dropped everything else in my hands trying to pick it up.

--Impaired motor skills. Not only has it been taking me far too long to type texts because I simply can't make my fingers work properly, but I also fight--on a daily basis--with getting the pictures I attach to my blog to go where I want them to. (Hear that, Blogger? It's too hard to move those bastards around!)

--Lack of focus. Lately, I've watched my beautifully planned out, productive days crumble into impromptu shopping sprees (which may or may not have happened again today).

--Fatigue. Despite how much I've been sleeping lately, I still refuse to get out of bed in the morning, stay up past 9:30, and wake in the night to pee. I am groggy and grumpy, and have bags under my eyes that like look like I'm packing for a month-long European vacation.

Yup, that's about how my texts look.

--Fogginess. My friend, Sharla, whilst on the phone with me, was dumbfounded as to the whereabouts of her phone. I find it hard to process simple directions lately and spent about 15 minutes driving around in circles today looking for my destination. My coworkers had a meeting time and place for a tour we took recently. The time and date: July 11 @ 10am. Two of the ladies thought the tour was on July 10 @ 11 and one (I won't name names) thought it was July 11 @ 11.

--Forgetfulness. I have also become really good at showing up to present to 60 students with not a single publication in my hand, or my car, or anywhere to be found. I have to look at my calendar five or six times to remember what I'm doing tomorrow. And despite the fact that Joel reminded me about 100 times, I STILL forgot to get the tire in the Camry patched. (Luckily, he took it to get fixed bright and early this morning.)

--Disappearances. A few weeks ago, I washed a swim suit at Kevin's house. I left it there and picked it up later. I know--for a fact--I put it into my purse that day. It is now nowhere to be found. I had $80 of Express cash recently that I purposefully ripped of the receipt and stuffed into my purse for a later shopping trip. When I attempted to retrieve it, it had vanished into thin air.

--Strange stuff. Although the swim suit in my purse is no where to be found, there is--and has been for about four weeks--a pair of underwear randomly in there. Don't worry, they're clean.

There they are. Undies, in my purse.

Clearly, this ozone thing is nothing to laugh about. Freaky sh*t's happening, and the only thing that can explain it is the melting of the ozone. The only good thing is that when I mumble, stumble, slip and fall, get distracted, fall asleep, forget things, lose things, and/or find myself writing a blog while eating quinoa with not one but two forks in it, I can say with certainty, "It's not me, it's the ozone."