'scuse me--does this bus go uptown?

Everybody knows that my navigation skills aren't that advanced. Muffin Uptown and The Boy alternate between pity and disdain for my inability to maneuver through the town in which I've lived now for two years. At the office, it's not unusual for me to change course in mid-stride when I suddenly realize that I'm traveling in the wrong direction. (Almost always, somebody catches me doing this.)

I don't even pretend to know where I'm going anymore--I just trust in Jesus and let whatever good-hearted soul who wants to rescue me lead me back to the right route. But I do, for the most part, know where I am supposed to be.

Or so I thought.

When Wednesday morning's three-legged race for the door was in full swing, I knew I had to complete three things before pulling out of the driveway. I had to make sure I was wearing all the clothes I meant to put on that morning; I needed to remember the items I had worked on the evening before and would be presenting in an 8:15 meeting, and I really wanted to finish up and publish that day's post. Neglecting the first carried with it the guarantee of ridicule from my coworkers. Failure to get to work with the proper materials would result in a serious loss of professional face. Being late with my post meant--well, I didn't really know what that might mean, since any deadline associated with my posting was self-imposed.

As it turns out, I have a very real deadline for posting. If my blog isn't right where it's supposed to be, my mother worries that I have again succumbed to a malicious corn dog, Tawana and my readers on the East Coast start jonesin' and calling my house for their fix, and my Fred-in-law sends scouts out to make sure I haven't succumbed to marauding savages.

Meanwhile, I'm dripping crunchy and delicious drive-through taco juice all over editorial copy or Composition II papers, or sleeping through CSI, or wondering how to make Ira Glass notice me. All the while, I'm wishing that someone within my sphere of influence would do something I could lie about and make sound funny.

I don't know what kind of powder keg you people are used to, but that's way too much pressure for a girl who can't find the conference room without Mapquest.

photo, Steve Woods