Hot mess has a full summer

It’s about time for all the kids to pen their “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essays.

So today I thought I’d recap the last few months and share one, too: “What I Did on My Summer Non-Vacation.”

■ I completed a bootcamp fitness program.

More like I had to huff and puff up the stairs for two weeks when the elevator broke at work.

It’s functioning again. Unlike my fitness resolve.

■ I made a new friend.

At first this gent wasn’t so pleased with me. In response to a late May column I wrote referencing the late Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell, a reader wrote: “How have you maintained your job when you write about various (occasionally important) subjects, but in the end, it’s all about you? You can’t be that young anymore, and the Valley Girl thing is wearing thin for you.”

But weeks later he messaged back and made amends: “I wrote that email during a negative cloud I was going through, and kind of regretted it after sending. You seem alright, and I really don’t set out to make people feel lousy. For that I owe you an apology.”

I accepted, of course. He didn’t make this Valley Girl feel lousy at all. Quite the opposite. Read back over his first email. Ooh, he, like, totally called me thin.

■ I made a new enemy.

Her name is Audrey F. Hill. You know her by her middle name Faith. The country singer, who recently had to rest her voice and cancel her tour date with husband Tim McGraw at North Little Rock’s Verizon Arena, ruined an afternoon for me last week. Not because I wanted to see her. But because we had to reconfigure our Thursday Style section at the last minute.

She’s forever on my naughty list with artists who have made similarly inconvenient cancellations. I’m looking at you, Master P and Ashley Simpson!

Of course, Ashley never had to stop touring to rest her vocal chords. She never used them anyway.

■ I changed my name.

Or at least it looked like I did when my friend and cohost Leesa P. Fisher gave me a cute monogrammed birthday gift with the wrong middle initial (even though she’s a stickler for accuracy, even though we spend a minimum of 20 hours a week sitting next to each other, and even though my handbag, Yeti cup and day-off ball cap I often wear all have my monogram). All is well. I got a beautiful, spell-checked replacement present. And I just got her back! Didn’t I, Lisa G. Fischer?

■ I got a new driver’s license.

Back in June I wrote about needing a new license and having to decide between the regular and the higher-security enhanced version (required to board domestic flights beginning in October 2020): “The enhanced license was the way to go. I’d just go to a revenue office and get it. Not so fast. … There are additional valid forms of identification required. Exactly 1,348 of them.” I concluded, “It will enhance my life greatly knowing I don’t have to deal with any of this for another eight years.”

Worse. I have to deal with the ghastly picture for another eight years! The washedout photo certainly didn’t do anything to enhance my appearance, but rather made my complexion colorless and my eyebrows and mouth clownlike. I determined I looked like a deranged Bette Davis character from the old movie featured in the FX Feud anthology series.

The aforementioned “Leesa” agreed: “Whatever Happened to Baby JENN!”

■ I began writing another column.

Paper Trails. Arkansas section. Sundays. It’s the one that has the same ol’ picture as this column. Clearly I’m a bit photo-phobic after the whole license ordeal.

Eventually I’ll get another picture taken one day when my roots are done, my hair behaves, my fake eyelashes are perfection, my neckline is flattering, my jewelry is just right and my contouring is on point. So I’d say I should be ready by the eclipse.

Not the one happening Aug. 21. The one happening April 8, 2024.