Proof that I should be in charge.

I have a BRILLIANT idea.

I think I mentioned that I was on vacation in Maine this week, and as I drove home on Thursday to go back to work, I ran into a bit of traffic. This was neither unexpected nor unusual, since I was getting close to Boston...soon to be renamed "City of Eternal Construction and NO THE BIG DIG IS NOT DONE YET YES IT HAS BEEN MORE THAN 10 YEARS IT WILL NEVER BE DONE IT IS A BIG CONSPIRACY AND A HUGE HOAX DON'T ASK ANYMORE." (It's a long name, but seems to save time when people ask where you're from if you just give all that info up front, because if you say "Boston," there's going to be a series of questions resulting in the above statements.) In any case, I digress. So, I ran into some traffic.

Turns out they were repaving the highway. Now, I'm sure many of you have driven by a highway repair crew doing some repaving, but have any of you had the chance to drive by it so slowly that you get an up-close-and-personal view of exactly what the machines are doing? I've seen some post-pavement cleaning, and some pre-pavement preparations; but never have I had the chance to see them actually IN the process of laying down the pavement. It's actually kind of cool - there's this big truck and it lays down pavement, 1 to 2 inches thick and a whole highway lane wide, all at once. As the truck drives, it leaves behind highway that looks ready to go. (Now, of course it's not, since it's still hot and all, you'd probably ruin it by driving on it, but it *looks* ready which is really cool.) And I noticed, as I drove by this event quite slowly, that the traffic I was in was not from the lane closure but from people fascinated by this magnificent machine.

Hmmm...I thought to myself. This is similar to the phenomenon that happens at evening rush hour here in Boston - there is ANOTHER magnificent machine that goes along the highway and moves those huge concrete highway dividers (I think they're called NJ dividers or something...they're about the length of one car each and they put them up to block off a lane usually when doing construction or something...know what I'm talking about?). Well, in Boston we use those highway dividers to widen one side of the highway or another depending on the direction of rush hour traffic. In the morning the side that goes into the city is wider, and then the machine comes through in the afternoon and moves the dividers and the side that leaves the city is wider. Makes sense enough. Anyway, what's marvelous about this machine is that it picks up and moves these dividers in a fluid motion, as if they were all one unit. And it does it fairly quickly, considering these dividers are built to be solid and heavy enough to stop a car should someone go flying into one of them. Anyway, I think it's really cool to watch. But the issue is, it causes more traffic than it alleviates because apparently the rest of Boston agrees with me. Even though it makes the lanes wider, traffic still bottlenecks because everyone slows down to look at it.

It was at this point that I realized what we ought to do. About 5 miles before any fun-looking machines are going to do work on a highway we put up a big sign that says "WICKED COOL MACHINE DOING WORK 5 MILES AHEAD IN LEFT LANE. RUBBERNECKERS PLEASE GET INTO LEFT LANE NOW. THOSE NOT WISHING TO LOOK AT COOL MACHINE'S MAGICAL SKILLZ, GET INTO RIGHT LANES." Then, we put cops up by the wicked cool machine. And they give out tickets to anyone trying to rubberneck from the right lanes. You have to choose. If you're feeling curious, you choose to get into the left lane. If you're in a hurry, you get into the right lane.

Now, there's some kinks in this plan, I know. What if people change their minds? We'd have to find a way to make it illegal or impossible for this to happen...either make it such a huge fine that it deters people from changing lanes, or maybe put up some of those orange barrels (easier to move, and I don't think they need a fun machine to be moved so when they were being put out it wouldn't cause traffic) to prevent lane changes after a certain point. And we'd clearly have to make the ticket for rubbernecking from the right lanes pretty huge too, and have some very astute cops. But overall, I think this could work. And it could create some jobs, which is good for the economy and all.

Anyway, just some proof that I'm brilliant and should be in charge.

Of course, I don't want to be in charge. Who the hell wants that job? ICK. Too much pressure to solve everything. I'd just rather have it recognized that I should be in charge because I'm so wicked smaht and have people bring me bon-bons and hang on my every word when I have a brilliant idea and leave me alone otherwise.

That's not too much to ask, is it? ;)

Yo ho ho and a bucket of chum!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, mateys! Red Charity Bonney here, invitin' you to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day with me! And if ye don't, well...I'll throw ya in the brig and feed you chum and set my salty wenches on you with their high-pitched voices and their irritating gossip! And if ye likes that sort of thing, I'll make ya walk the plank! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

That's right folks, it's international Talk Like a Pirate Day. Of course, by the time I post this it'll be fairly late in the day, so many of you may have missed out on the fun. Fear not, fellow pirate lovers! You can talk like a pirate any day, in my humble opinion! Just follow the link above and go through the menus - there's tons of fun (and important) time wasters like a pirate glossary, pirate pick up lines, and quizzes in which you can get in touch with your inner pirate. For example, I did not pick the name "Red Charity Bonney" all by myself - no no! I took a soul-searching multiple choice quiz and the masters of piracy examined my choices and let me know how my pirate personality would best be expressed in name form. See below:

My pirate name is:

Red Charity Bonney

Passion is a big part of your life, which makes sense for a pirate.
You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from
full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

I also took a quiz which explored my "pirattitude" in even MORE depth and came up with a personality profile (bonus points for this quiz, which happens to mention the muppets on several occasions throughout the questions):


You are Ol' Chummy

You look old for your age. Hygiene is just that thing that happens
to other Pirates. You like what you like. Taking a cannonball to the
head in your younger days hasn't helped. Not one to take risks, you
enjoy quiet evenings on your bunk. You're a collector. You like things.
Not, "nice" things- just things. Some people think of you as a blight
on humanity - a carbuncle on the alabaster skin of man. You think of
yourself as a swell guy with lots of friend - just the one, but lots of
him. If you weren't a pirate, but rather lived in the 21st Century, you
would be the kind of guy who has played a computer game for four days
without thinking of showering and living solely on Mountain Dew and
Cool Ranch Doritos. What you lack in physical attractiveness you more
than make up for in interesting skin conditions. What's the upside of
all of this? With the Captain's lifestyle, you are likely to be running
the ship in a week or two. Ahead! Warp Factor ONE!

What's Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The
Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!


What's scary is how dead-on this profile is. Even when you take out all the pirate references, it makes sense. I *do* like things. They don't have to be nice things. Those of you who know me know that I'm easily amused by small things and a gift from the dollar store is almost more likely to be cherished than a gift from Tiffany's. I just like crap. (Don't get me wrong, I have champagne tastes about certain things, but I just totally dig those cheap-o toys they sell at dollar stores like potato guns and pinwheels.) And we've all explored the nature of my nickname "Krashworth" - I'm VERY likely to have been hit in the head with a cannonball! In fact, I may have hit the cannonball with my head instead of the other way around! But the scariest part is the part about playing video games with only soda and junk food for sustinance. Because, well, we all know that story. Scaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ry.

Anyway, this pirate is up in Maine with her pirate lineage (aka my parents) enjoying a little time off from plundering and pillaging. We managed to celebrate by wearing pirate tatoos all day and interjecting our conversations with pirate speak like "shiver me timbers" and "bunghole" and "grog" and all sorts of other fun. We also played mini-golf at Pirate's cove (of course). The day was a beauty, as the pirate-folk would say. And so I'll sign off reminding you all to:

Keep an eye out for any scallywags tryin' to plunder your booty; sharpen your swashbuckling skills smartly before any bilge rats take ye unawares; and have ye a feast of chum and grog to celebrate!

Moving Sucks (Redux)

This week I am in the midst of a move, and I won't have regular internet access again until Wednesday. Lest I encounter any angry comments about my lack of posting, I thought I'd give you something to chew on whilst I'm finding a place to put all my stuff. (That's right, I used "lest" and "whilst" in the same sentence. I like those words. They're fun. You should use them more. In fact, if you're balking at what I've done, deep inside you're just jealous.) ;)

(As a sidebar, I have several decent ideas for posts, so when I have some time there should be some regular posting in the near future.)

Since I'm moving for the second time in three months, I've had a fair amount of thoughts on it. My last post on moving was straight to the point, and dead on. But I have an addendum now:

Moving sucks less if you have a kick-ass boyfriend to help you out (or, really any good friend/significant other/assistant/personal slave; but I wanted to give a HUGE shout-out to Jay, since he singlehandedly saved my life this week). Now, everyone has a different packing style. I'm a sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow packer. I kind of make a big mess and then organize it and then pack it all up. I sit around and moan about how much I hate packing, then after 3 hours (the length of a really bad movie I've seen 100 times on TV, which I watch as an excuse - any excuse - not to have to pack), I pull out a whole bunch of stuff and throw it haphazardly in boxes. Next I spend some time moaning about how much I hate packing, watch some more bad TV, then get motivated and take everything out of the boxes, make a big pile, organize it into little piles, and then put the organized piles into boxes. And it all turns out OK in the end, but it takes forever.

This week I didn't have forever. I had a few short hours to pack, and a few short hours to move it all. Jay came over, though, and while I was in the midst of my second round of griping about how much I hate moving (we substituted the Red Sox game for the really bad movie) and throwing things haphazardly into boxes...he stopped me, asked what needed to be packed, and suddenly a whilrwind ran through my room and almost everything was packed. Then he started carrying all the heavy stuff down while I did easy packing like clothes and stuff. And he stuffed our cars full and the next day he helped me unload all of it after we both had been at work. So moving hasn't really sucked all that much this time.

It actually reminds me of the time I was packing to go to my freshman year at William and Mary and Emily came over and thinned out my wardrobe by half so I could fit everything in the suitcase. She was right, too....I hadn't worn half the stuff I had originally packed in years, and I didn't miss it when I didn't pack it.

Which leads me to the second train of thought I've had in the past week (and I have every time I move): how much stuff do I *really* need? Because I knew I would be moving three months after I moved up to Salem in May, I packed a whole bunch of stuff I thought I could live without for three months and kept it stored in the basement. As I loaded all that stuff up in my car, I wondered - if I lived without it for the whole summer, do I really need it? Now, some of it is winter clothes, and living in Boston, I NEED it. But the other stuff...well.... And then there's the stuff I had packed up from Florida that I left at my parents' house in Virginia when I came to Boston (no room in the dorm room for all my stuff when I moved up here)...that's going to be coming up to Boston too, and I wonder how much I really need all that, since I've been living without it for two years.

The point is, my final stage of packing is the point when I'm almost done, when almost everything is packed and moved, and I'm sick of the whole mess. I reach a point where I start evaluating my life in a more existential/zen/minimalist view and throwing out things willy-nilly because I think to myself, "Self, how much stuff do you *really* need?"

I have to say, I'm dying to know what I've been living without these past months and years. I'm sure some of it will return to good use in my daily life, and some of it will be donated to goodwill, and some of it will sit, stored, until I move again, and re-assess my need for it.

In the meantime, I'm really thankful for all the things I have. And the best thing I have, I think, is good friends and family who support me...and who help me with my deficiencies (especially those that fall under the "moving/packing" category). And in the end, that's *really* all I need.