So on Saturday I was making a t-shirt that says "Viva Nashville" on the front in iron-on letters (and who hasn't spent a Saturday afternoon doing that?) when tragedy struck. I couldn't remember how to spell Nashville. Actually, I'd already cut out all of the correct letters, but in the moments before I ironed them on I thought, "That cannot possibly be right." My thought process proceeded to wobble down the following path:

"Wait, 'ville'? like Cruella Deville? How did I never notice that the spelling looks so French? So eville? How else could it be spelled? Nashvill? Nashvile? No, no."

I tried to recall writing my return address on mail when I used to live there, but all that came to mind was how my street name was "South Observatory Drive" and it was such a pain to write out. So do you know what I did? I looked up Nashville in the dictionary. Twice. Because by the time I got all the way to the back room where the iron was, I had already forgotten what I read in the dictionary.

This disturbs me on two levels. First of all, that I had to look it up in the first place. Me, with three spelling bee medals in my possession (Not in my current possession, though. I don't even know where they went. Certainly they're not sitting in my living room in a plexiglass case, if that's what you're thinking). Me, winner of a dictionary emblazoned with my name in gold letters on the front, the spoils of a mid-pack finish in the spelling bee regionals in Detroit. I'm the one people ask how to spell words. And here I am, having reached the spelling equivalent of pushing all my wordly goods down the alley in a shopping cart, dressed in a ratty old formal and ballet slippers. The bottom of the barrel, folks. I've lost my edge. Next thing you know, I'll be looking up the spelling of 'barrel'.

The second thing that disturbs me is that I feel this little incident is indicative of something I have long feared: I am indeed getting dumber as I get older. It takes 20 seconds to walk from my living room to the back of my apartment. I forgot what I read in the time it took to make that walk.

Last week, I turned 26. This week, I can't remember how to spell the name of a city I used to live in. Next week, I expect you'll find me wandering around Marshall Field's pricing lovely sweater sets. Aging is cruelle. That is all.