It never ceases to amaze me how completely and utterly socially dysfunctional I am.

It seems as though at the advanced age of 30 (and three-quarters) I should be able to hold down a fairly lengthy conversation, or at least make a passable stab at it. But, no, unless you engage me about the Beatles, or California, pretty much all you're going to get out of me is a lot of head-bobbing and smiling and not much in the way of actual words.

I will meet someone in person and manage to force out, at the most, three sentences. And then I will go home and proceed to carry on a lively conversation with that same person via email or a message board. This seems slightly abnormal.

I don't really understand it, either, because, at any given time, I have 147 different things on my mind, 146 of which vanish completely from my brain as soon as a conversation is initiated. The one item I'm left with is usually something along the lines of "I like sandwiches" or "My feet are sweaty." It's like, one minute my brain is buzzing with the frenetic energy of Robin Williams mainlining espresso, then someone speaks to me and all of a sudden I'm Rainman. (But I'm an excellent driver.)

So, anyway, this is a shout-out to anyone who has tried to engage me in conversation and run headlong into a dead-end. It's nothing personal, honest. You may rest assured that I go home afterward and am kicking myself for the rest of the day for freezing up. Next time you have something to say to me, it would help immensely if you could email me a detailed outline of the topics you intend to cover, preferably three to five days before the actual conversation is to take place. I'm quite sure that if I have some sort of advance warning I can prepare a script that I can follow and appear darned near normal. Certainly that's not too much to ask, is it?