A Pirate Queen with Delusions of Inevitability

The CEO, The Ninja, and The Pirate, or, Finally... A Slightly Epic Battle Rages

2010-07-18T18:24:00.002-04:00

When I finally woke up from my concussion, aka "nap" induced by Mr. Congeniality/Andrew... I was so far beyond pissed off that pissed off was only a distant happy memory.

After all this... Was a pirate actually taking the side of a ninja? I mean, sure... Congeniality did kidnap me, and give me an enormous pain in the ass... But on the other hand, I did enjoy torturing him... and he hadn't ever actually done anything to me...

What. Tha. Fuck.

Was I actually defending that smiley faced bastard?

For the Love of Carlos... I think I've finally lost my mind entirely.

I gave myself a mental head slap and then got busy checking out the layout of my newest prison.

I was tied to a pillar in the middle of the biggest office I had ever seen. There were simply acres and acres of gray marble floors, and the windows gave a 360 degree view of the entire city. Near the eastern edge of this domain was a desk made of some warm and buttery looking wood, and Shiruken, the CEO of the College Board, and Congeniality were standing gathered around a white board on an easel next to this massive work of artistry. Shiruken looked on the board with little interest, smoking some sort of pipe. Wisps of smoke gathered about his head like stroking hands, and he leaned back against the desk.

As I stood slumped against the pillar, all three men were discussing the movement of Princeton Review troops into the suburbs of every small town, minor city, and metropolis in the United States. Their plan was to force every single high school student in our land to take the PSAT, not just once, but TWICE...freshman, sophomore, AND junior year!

Oh the humanity!

My stomach roiled around in an unpleasant dance with my intestines and my colon. For a moment I actually started to believe that I might commit that unpardonable sin (at least in my own eyes) of completely ensuring that I would forever bear the name "Virginia Poopy Pants."

The CEO was a darkly tanned man with brown hair which receeded from his forehead as though it were actively attempting to get as far away from his face as possible. This was understandable, since between his cold gray eyes, hard sneer, and the lines on his mug, I can imagine that any hair follicle worth its weight would run screaming from him... as would anyone else who got in his way. His face was shaved so closely that I wondered if he just stared at his chin in the morning and ordered his follicles to stop producing. It seemed likely. I heard him say,

"Are you sure that the senator has recieved his "contribution"?

Shiruken stared at the CEO in a way that managed to communicate his complete disregard of the man without being insulting enough to give offense before saying,

"Naturally. Andrew paid him last night after escaping from that tub, the Unvanquished. Relax; your plan is a success."

At this, I really did lose it. Though the moan that escaped me was barely a breath of wind, it drew the attention of all three men.

I can't prove it... but I think I actually did stop breathing for a time.

The CEO froze into complete stillness as his eyes met mine across the vast and echo-y chamber.This was much more disturbing than you might think. Although he was somewhat rotund, he seemed to convey a nearly palpable sense of danger, and there was a suspicious bulge under his left arm that suggested to me that he might be carrying more than simple bulk under his suit jacket. His suit was as dark and foreboding as the rest of him, and his Italian leather shoes squeaked for mercy when he turned in my direction.

He didn't look like the CEO of an "educational" corporation. He looked like a hit man for the mob. His whole bearing suggested a clenched fist, ready to be planted squarely in the jaw of anything that might get in his way, and that was exactly how he was looking at me.

I actually felt ice crystals forming in my guts.

'Well that's just great.' I thought. 'First, I'm going to soil myself... and secondly... I'm going to shit icicles. This is going to suck.'

Naturally... This did the trick of making me even more furious.

Was I going to allow this?

Hells to the NO, as the Lizz would say.

Slowly, I conducted a silent scan of my entire body, and everything seemed to be intact... But where were my compadres?

It was at this moment that Shiruken looked away from the whiteboard. When his eyes met mine, the cold look dissolved like ice cubes melting in a glass of warm water; they crinkled and sparkled with humor. He turned slowly, and began to stalk forward. Though it was impossible (for me at least) to determine his actual age, he must have been at least twice as old as me. Still, he moved like smoke across a still room... Nearly flickering from my vision a few times.

It was disturbing in the extreme.

When he was close enough to reach out and slap me, he stopped and said,

"Awake already?" After a slight pause during which I made absolutely no reply, he continued.

"I must say, your highness... My friend Andrew didn't lie when he said that you have the hardest and most unbreakable skull he's ever encountered. At first I thought he was merely pulling his punches, due to his nearly maniacal obsession with certain... female attributes... But perhaps not."

I snorted, and then hawked something out of my throat that looked like a cross between a hairball and a green and yellow gummy bear, hitting him somewhere in the middle of the chest. The goop slid down the front of his shirt like a snail, leaving a track of my DNA in its wake.

The humor in his face vanished quicker than under age college students when the cops show up at a house party. He cocked back his fist for a punch that would probably have landed me in Mass General, but before it could fall, Congeniality was standing at his side and nudging him out of the way. He said,

"Oh Master, please... Allow me. I owe the queen many times over for the insults she has ventured upon my person, and after all, as part of my reward in this matter you did mention that I could... play with her for a while... Yes?"

I could feel my face blanch so white that I probably turned nearly translucent for a minute, and I almost choked on my own tongue.

Now this was the absolute, rock-bottom, slime-covered, purple-backpack-carrying, LIMIT. A sudden hot flash raised my temperature so high I thought I would just start to smoke from every pore. If anyone had touched me at that moment without an oven mitt, they would have taken a third-degree burn to the hand, I swear before Carlos and his holy mother.

"Play?" I spat out.

Before I could continue what would no doubt have been a rip-roaring, ear-searing, side-splitting diatribe, Congeniality/Andrew hit me square on the left cheekbone with no less than 4 knuckles... Though it felt like ten.

But only for the barest whisper of an instant.

Purely in defense, my head snapped to the side, and I took a hard knockl of column to the right side of my face.

When I got my bearings and turned back, Shiruken was drifting back over to the CEO, who was once again staring at the White Board of Doom, and Congeniality first raised his eyebrow at me, and then gave me a look that could charitably be called a smirk.

And he winked.

In a voice so low that it felt like he was speaking directly into my cerebral cortex, he asked, "How was that?"

I whispered back, "Just shut up and untie me smartass... I'm sick of pretending to be scared of you."

He restrained himself... But I could see his eyes, and he was definitely laughing on the inside.

With one swift and silent cut, the knot of the ropes holding me to the marble column gave way like a sandcastle hit by a tsunami. Before Shiruken, the CEO or any nearby henchmen could react, I reached into a hidden location on my person, and pulled out a very small detonator.

And that was the moment that the tide began to really turn in our favor.

The explosion that resulted from my finger on the detonator switch was a small one, but significant.

The desk that Shiruken was once again leaning on exploded in sparks, as the CEO's laptop and his Blackberry both erupted like tiny tiny grenades. Apparently, my emails of the evening before really had been successful.

Sweeeet.

In the next instant, windows were imploding from every side as furious, riled-up, and just plain crazy-ass pirates rappelled in to the room from above. They were howling, swearing, and generally striking fear into the hearts of all and sundry as they landed on the marble floors and skidded towards their foes.

God it was beautiful.

As they landed, ninjas raced in silently from the floor below, and the two groups met in ferocious battle. Smoke bombs flew, pistols kicked out shot after shot, and katana and cutlass clashed with the music of swordplay.

I saw the Quartermaster shooting with one pistol while he dueled a ninja with the other. The boatswain took out three ninjas with a resounding crash when he came barreling into the office from the floor above.

In the center of the maelstrom stood the CEO, staring alternately between Shiruken's fallen form, and my own upright one. His eyes had darkened to the color of dirty and soot-stained pebbles, and his glare could have killed a Pekingese at twenty paces.

But it was lost on me.

With absolutely no thought, consideration, or hesitation, I threw myself across the intervening distance and launched myself at that suit-wearing, holier-than-thou, cappucino-drinking, bastard. I bounced down hard, but my shoulder met his knees with a solid ka-thunk... and I heard something pop in a way that sounded... mighty unpleasant. The CEO let out a roar that could almost be heard above the clash of battling scurvy knaves and silent shadow fighters.

I could feel his hand going for his weapon, but I would not be stopped now. I had been abused, kidnapped, insulted, and thwarted too many times. I was more than willing to "take one for the team" by sacrificing myself, if it would only save all those innocents from the forces of standardized testing.

He reached into his jacket, but I got there first... And my manual dexterity is a hell of a lot better.

The gun went off with a pop that barely registered in my thundering head.

It wasn't so bad...

He won't need that thumb anyway... Not where he's going.

He was still howling at me and glaring furiously into my eyes, as a boot came from the side and struck him right in the ear... At which point he dropped into a sweet and peaceful dream state.

And a hand was offered...

I took it.

As I got to my feet, the battle continued to rage... But it was almost over.

Can you believe it?

*Personal Note to the Reader:

On a side note, I would just like to say... When you are a sneaky, badass pirate queen like myself, there are a few advantages to being built like... well... A Fucking TANK, and they are the following:

1. Distraction (If you can't win them over with your looks, you can at least shock them into stunned silence with your... fashion choices).

2. Hidden cargo space that never seems to get searched (personally, I think it's because I've just got too much acreage in the ... pectoral area... The entirety just never seems to get completely "patted down" if you know what I mean).

Just sayin'.

The Furious Ninja Horde and a Resounding Defeat... Or is it?

2010-07-17T22:34:00.003-04:00

When we reached the end of the back hallway into the College Board headquarters, all was silence.

I knew that I was totally within my rights to be terrified.

Carlos only knew how many of Shiruken's men lurked above with malice in their hearts and cold steel in their hands.

Thus, even though my teeny tiny heart quaked just a bit, I "nutted up" and took point at the head of my small band. I thought that I heard one sailor growl in his throat while another let escape a small sigh of relief. I could totally relate to both of them.

I put my hand on the knob, and began to turn it slowly.

The bolt gave way in a perfection of silence, and pulled the door slowly toward me, keeping my free hand on my drawn sword.

And as you probably expected... That was when 18 new kinds of hell broke loose.

The second the door was fully opened, and alarm began to blare with a voice like Rush Limbaugh after a 6 day bender... Which is to say, loudly, and at great length... With more than just a hint of a sneer thrown in.

I refused to let this slow me. I looked across what felt like an acre of vestibule... or do I mean lobby?

It was deserted.

Well, of course, by deserted, what I mean is that the floor itself held no ninjas.

Nah.

Instead, the ninjas were approaching by means of 5 different stairways, and several glass elevators.

My little band was, for all intents and purposes, completely surrounded by a black-clad, slipper-wearin', steel star-throwin', cousin-lovin', ninjas.

My tiny crew froze for only an instant before shots began to ring out from behind me, tossing back some of the first wave that had only begun to set foot to the shiny shiny floor.

It was no good. Though we fought mercilessly, we were doomed from the start.

My vorpal blade went 'snicker-snack' through the fruminous horde, slaying many times the number of ninjas I could possibly count on two, or even four hands, if I had them.

It still wasn't enough.

Cosgrove took a star in the shoulder of his sword arm, and it stuck out like a badly placed piercing. Grrrl went down with a handful of gunpowder still in her hand like a fistful of magic dust. The bodies of our enemies made a small hill before us...

And then I felt the blow to the back of my head. I just barely had time to think,

"WTF... AGAIN? SERIOUSLY? This is COMPLETE BULLSHIT!" When spots began to appear everywhere in the room, and my vision shrank from its usual catlike acuity to a mere pinprick.

The final thing I saw as I slumped, gasping, to the marble floor was the crinkled eyes, dimple, and huge grin on the face of Mr. Congeniality as he stood over me.

And what did that smiling bastard say to me?

"Gotcha, Queenie. Sweet dreams."

Oh shi----

Once More... With Feeling!

2010-07-17T22:32:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it feels really weird having a diary that anyone in the whole world could look at if they really wanted to... But then I look at the SiteMeter on this page, and I realize...

"Huh... Apparently no one actually wants to read my thoughts. Well, okay then."

And I go about my merry little way.

So it is with that thought in mind that I inscribe this missive to all those who will never read it. Yes indeed.

It is once again late at night. It is once again hot. And as on other occasions... I cannot possibly fall asleep.

Why?

Well, for once I have an actual reason.

My reason is complete mystification. Yes, I know it's hard to believe that I can't understand something, being the kick ass grammarian super-heroine that you know and love... But I just don't get it.

There are actually two hidden things going on in the Queen's life right now. The first is that I discovered recently that a mercenary with whom I once had dealings is dying. No one knows about this except one of his offspring, myself, and Papergrrl, since she is the only one that I've told about this.

And I'm torn. On the one hand, I feel sad that the offspring in question is so distraut. Now he's mostly distraught not by the fact that the mercenary is dying, but by the fact that he is homeless and continues to return to the great outdoors instead of dying in a hospital bed. Apparently, he has gone to the hospital several times, but given the fact that he has the plague, they have said that there is nothing they can really do for him. Naturally, his illness is exacerbated by the fact that he split his head open on a railroad tie at some point during a fight with another mercenary.

Naturally, I'm vaguing this up for you, in order to protect both the innocent and the guilty.

Guess how I spent Friday afternoon this week?

I'll tell you... Hunting for homeless camps in Concord. Oh yea, I cannot possibly make this shit up. I only hunted for him in order to hopefully scare him into staying in the hospital in order to make his offspring feel better.

I didn't find him, but Papergrrl and I are still looking.

Of course I also mentioned another hidden issue.

That one is a bit more sensitive, and I'm loathe to discuss it... Even with you. I mean, I know I can trust you not to say anything... But it's a bit embarassing.

Suffice to say... Clearly, I don't have a fucking clue, and I absolutely hate that.

Why can't we all just say what we really mean? It would make life so much simpler. (Naturally, given the fact that I've basically told you nothing about the second issue at the same time as I say that I wish people would just say what they really think is totally ironic. Trust me, the irony of that statement wasn't lost on me, there just isn't much I can do about it).

*sigh*

Alright... I guess I'm done for now.

Sorry for turning all girly on you. My bad.

Square Pegs and Hidden Firearms

2010-07-13T21:47:00.001-04:00

I have always known that I didn't quite fit in. In society, at the Saltmine, in my family...and I wasn't always comfortable with that...until now.

This story starts as so many others of mine have...Setting off on the road.

So I was blasting The Artist In the Ambulance when I started to get thirsty on my ride home tonight after a meeting at the Saltmine. I pulled off the road in a little nowhere town called Hillsborotonville and squealed (only a little) into the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot. It was 5 in the afternoon and it never occurred to me that I might be getting myself in trouble, but I had just gotten my license to carry concealed and I was getting used to having a gun strapped in a place that is...well...accessible, but not overly so.

I locked my car. This town appeared to be chock-full of car-stealing-cow-tipping-pot-smoking-wanna-be-gansta types, and I wasn't going to take any chances with the G.B. As I was walking to the front door, about to go inside, just drooling and trembling with the thought of my next iced tea fix, I heard a VERY loud wolf whistle. As per my usual modus operandi, I ignored the irritating whistle and tried to convince myself that I wasn't instantly embarrassed and regressing to the 10th grade. I continued to proceed calmly toward the front door of said Dunkin'. (Sometimes, I call it Dunkie’s for short but only when I'm mocking one of my least favorite acquaintances).

Only a few moments later, while being served by a woman with glasses as thick as the windshield on the president's limo, I hear the door open behind me. The part of me that is still way too curious began to turn, when I smelled it. The odor was something like a combination of wet cow dung and VERY potent B.O. While puking in my mouth a little, I paid for my merchandise and turned to leave, avoiding the smell with the sixth sense of a woman who works with the great unwashed masses, when the source of the odor stepped up and said,

"Hey, I seen you around a coupl'a times this week. You must be new 'roun here."

"Uhh, suure," I said, smiling and heading quickly for the exit...which irritatingly seemed to be getting farther away instead of closer for some reason.

Predictably, this red-neck boy/man must have seen one two many bad action flicks as a teenager, he stepped back in front of me and said,

"What's yer hurry, Baby? You gotta nice rack there."

Seriously. I cannot possibly make this shit up.

Also predictably, I sighed inside and wondered, ‘didn't this guy ever pay attention to what happens to the guys in the bad action flicks who say this crap?’ (Having recently seen the movie Predators, I have this on good authority).

Luckily, though he was focused on me, he wasn't expecting much resistance, so I made my move and pulled the classic basketball defense, the pick and roll, using the equally aromatic buddy standing behind him as my unlikely teammate.

Reaching the front door I burst through into the stagnant but not nearly so fragrant, air outside the vestibule and breathed deeply, hurrying to my car.

You have to understand, it wasn't that I was scared of him, I just didn't want to waste good iced tea by spilling it all over the pavement.

Just as I had set my coffee on the roof of my car and was about to unlock my door, I hear the sound of scuffling feet on the pavement behind me. I turned. Guess who? Oh yeah, it was him....again.

Before he could get any closer I reached down for my Berretta, pulled it out and shoved it in his direction. The second he saw the gun, he froze. (Thank Carlos). And I said, "Listen buddy, I'm a fucking teacher, therefore, I'm totally on edge, I'm crazy as hell, I'm really pissed off right now, I have a fast car, and I'd just love to shoot your nuts off...

I'm sure every sheep, cow, and pig in this little pissant backwater would all thank me. Care to try your luck?"

Needless to say, with no further molestation, I returned the gun to its holster, grabbed my tea and unlocked my car. The mingled shock, disbelief and horror on the townie's face filled my heart with glee.

Sometimes it's pretty good to be me after all.

What a shame I won't have a dancing partner at the next ho-down though.

Oh by the way, I got the guy's license plate down...

Anyone with no sense of smell looking to meet a hairy, buck-toothed local?

I can definitely get you the hook-up!

Just a Rant for the Road

2010-07-13T21:46:00.001-04:00

I just noticed this on my homepage in the ads section...

"Inside A Boyfriend's Mind
Simple Tips Any Girl Can Use To Keep Your Boyfriend In Line!
www.CatchHimAndKeepHim.com"

I have just one question here...
Do any guys out there find this to be degrading and insulting?

If not, consider me to feel degraded, insulted and disgusted on your behalf.

You see, this is what's wrong with our society.

Supposedly everyone is searching for love, right? Yet, the goal is to "catch" someone and then manipulate them into loving you.

Personally, I think that's pretty fucking sick.

AND YET, I'M THE SCREWED UP ONE??

I think not.

Just so you know, I like the male species. I mostly find them to be funny and charming (with a few notable exceptions). Yes, they are certainly different from women... Uh, frankly, I always kind of thought that was the point... But obviously, I'm clueless.

Here's an idea... Just accept men and women for who they are...why feel that you need to "change/save/fix" them?

If you are a girl who thinks that ad is a good idea and would willingly click on it, I feel sorry for you.

Yet ironically, you'll probably never be single.

How tragic.

A Nap, A Crew of Scurvy Knaves, An 18-Wheeler, and A Workable Distraction, or, Don't Give Up Now Folks... We're Almost There

2010-07-12T20:56:00.000-04:00

When I finished sending nefarious emails I hit my bunk for a short cat nap.

A few hours later it was still dark, but I dragged my barnacled butt out of bed, tossed on a rather kick ass and frilly shirt, some black jeans and yet another pair of my ubiquitous boots.

I strapped on my cutlass, checked to ensure that my flintlock was ready for action, stuffed my recovered multi-tool in one boot, and sashayed to the deck.

Thanks to the superior sailing skills of my loyal crew, we were already nearly at our destination... The port of Boston.

We would make those ninjas sorry for their shenanigans.

And take out the forces of standardized testing at the knees.

I could almost hear the rousing strains of "The Final Countdown" ringing in my ears.

When we made port, the boats were lowered, and we filed on board.

Within minutes we were trooping stealthily (for pirates anyway) through the streets of Boston, headed for the Northeastern headquarters of that hive of scum and villainy... The College Board.

Stationing the bulk of my force around emergency exits, myself and a few of the bravest souls headed for the rear entrance. Dodging guards, and even a few ninja sentries, we made our way to the loading dock.

There we waited.

Within minutes of my text message to "Brisket" Cosgrove, the sound of an 18-wheeler on steroids came echoing down the entrance to the monolithic corporation's headquarters.

He was right on time.

A few mothballed security guards, and quite a few ninjas came hustling out the back entrance, leaving the dock almost entirely deserted. Cosgrove took this opportunity to gun the huge beast's engine, and make straight for several, much smaller, vehicles.

The scene on the dock was total pandemonium as Cosgrove took out three small trucks and an SUV that stood inconveniently in his path. Ninjas were whirling into action, taking aim with smoke bombs, throwing stars, and several makeshift weapons, but Cosgrove had chosen his vehicle well, and he shook off every attack like a horse shakes off flies with a flick of its tail.

Seeing that he had the distraction well in hand, I signaled to the loyal band of scurvy knaves with me, and we snuck in the back. Some of my men had daggers clenched between their teeth, and Grrrrl had her lock-picking tools in hand. Of course, by lock picking tools, I refer to horn of gun powder and an unlit match. She took only moments to pop the lock on the final door standing between us and a back hallway to the offices of The College Board.

We were in.

And those damn ninjas had no idea the hell they had brought down upon themselves.

I just love it when a plan comes together... as a famous actor once said.

The Pirate Queen's Soundtrack, or, Seriously... Who the Hell Wants to Live Forever?

2010-07-11T17:00:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I’m finally back from rollerblading… Two hours in the hot sun was enough for me. Luckily though, my favorite local roller blading spot was pretty deserted, which is good. As you know, I usually go late at night, mostly because I tend to wear significantly less clothing than I do under normal circumstances, and I am well aware that ladies who look like me--- well, let’s just say… There are some things that NO ONE wants to see.

I can accept this. And the fact is... When I put on a tank top... The damned thing is bound to scream for mercy.

I am aerodynamically challenged. It is what it is, and short of major surgery... it's not going to change any time soon.

Get the fuck over it. If I can live with it, you certainly can. Afterall, you're not the one carrying a six-month old around on YOUR chest.

Still, there are some days when it just feels good to get out under the sun and sweat a bit. So off I went, with a song in my heart and a swing in my hips.

As it happens, when I stopped off at a local watering hole to obtain an enormous bottle of water for my little excursion, I happened to run into someone I know. They asked where I was off to, and I explained. This person noticed the headphones slung casually over my shoulder and said, in a shocked voice,

“You listen to music while you do that? Isn’t that awfully dangerous?”

At first I laughed, because I thought that they were totally kidding. When I realized that this person was actually serious, I put on an equally serious face, crossed my fingers behind my back, and said, “Don’t worry, I only put the volume on LOW.” The look of relief on this person’s face was painfully obvious.

I left the encounter feeling a bit put off. I mean, I realize that this person was only concerned for my safety. But still… What the fuck, do I LOOK like I want to live forever?

And the truth is… I NEED a soundtrack in order to exercise.

Running… roller blading… hiking… bull-fighting... driving...

The only time I can do these things without music is when I do them WITH someone. If I’m alone, I either get bored, or I start to think about things that piss me off, namely HOW MUCH GODDAMNED PAIN I’M IN.

Am I the only one who understands this concept?

Hell, if I could somehow pull it off… I’d have a soundtrack following me EVERYWHERE.

That way, no one would ever actually have to ask how I was doing… They would be able to tell by listening to my theme music.

Now that’s an idea…

Anyone need a job?

Tee-hee.

So anyway… Someone recently asked me what kind of music I listen to when doing any sort of physical exercise alone… So here’s the list.*

Feel free to either ignore it, or mock me. (I have made some notes next to a few of the songs, but I’m pretty sure you won’t be interested in reading them).

Meh.

Talk to you later, Homes.

Oh, and by the way... There is pretty much one volume that music should be played at when exercising, and it's not LOW.

Just sayin'.

*The Pirate Queen's Current Playlist (with notes)

Click, Click Boom - Saliva (Do I really need to explain this one? Seriously?)
My Way or the Highway - Kid Rock (Why the hell not?)
Holly (Would You Turn Me On?) - All Time Low
Crazy Bitch - Buckcherry (LOL... Oh come on... How could you NOT love this song?)
The Birds and the Bees - Breathe Carolina (I bet you can guess what THIS one is about)
You Should've Killed Me When You Had the Chance - A Day to Remember
Someday You Will Be Loved - Death Cab for Cutie (Well... Here's hoping anyway)
Break on Through - the Doors (Need I say more?)
Those Shoes - The Eagles (As you know... I'm all about the shoes.)
May It Be - Enya - Lord of the Rings Soundtrack (If you don't already know that I love that movie... I guess you don't know me as well as I thought).
Paralyzer - Finger Eleven (Yup... another song about sex... God I'm transparent).
Remember the Name - Fort Minor
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Hell - Four Year Strong (The title still makes me laugh)
Pure Energy(club mix) - Information Society (HOLY 90's BATMAN!!)
Your Body is a Wonderland - John Mayer (Hmmm... nevermind. I'm not saying it.)
Heartless - Kanye West
Dance in the Dark - Lady Gaga
Given Up - Linkin Park (I FRIGGIN' love these guys... Seriously)
Valentine's Day - Linkin Park
Deep Enough (Fast and Furious Soundtrack Remix) - Live (I mean, come on... Have you LISTENED to the words? LOL)
The War of All Against All - Receiving End of Sirens (Best. Intro. EVER.)
Save Me - Aimee Mann (Every girl needs a hero... Even me, surprisingly).
Danger Zone - Kenny Loggins (Top Gun soundtrack)
Playing with the Boys - same as above (Oh come on... It's so cheesy, you have to love it)
Fortress Around Your Heart - Sting (*sigh*)
Bad Girlfriend - Theory of a Deadman
Pain - Three Days Grace
Sandstorm - Darude
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme Music - Nerf Herder (Still one of my all-time FAVORITE shows... I LOVE Spike)
Kryptonite - Three Doors Down (I mean, come on... It's a love song that incorporates a superhero... need I really explain this?)
Here I Go Again On My Own - Whitesnake (Sure... it's old... but it's basically the story of my life)
Remember Me - Josh Groban (I'm not explaining this one)

Well... If you actually read all the way to here... Wow. Honestly, I didn't think anyone would actually bother, so if you did...

You're obviously a masochist. But I love you for it.

V t PQ

The Beginning of the End of the Latest Pirate Queen Tale, or, The Queen Drives the Yellow Submarine

2010-07-11T17:00:00.001-04:00

...As Shiro’s dying light bobbed ahead of me, I ran full tilt, heedless of rocks, holes, or any other obstructions.

The prospect of mayhem filled me with the same giddy joy a Girl Scout must feel when she crushes the opposition by selling 1,000 boxes of poisoned cookies to a charitable organization. Those Girl Scouts are second only to the ninjas on the Pirate Association's "Most Wanted Dead" List.

Still... Cookies... Mmmm. Now back to the story.

Anyway, though the sprint seemed to take only minutes, by the time Shiro had stopped in a small cavern, I was dripping with saltwater... unfortunately, it wasn't cool and refreshing Atlantic seawater, it was my own sweat. It was running into my eyes. Ick.

As much as I would like to believe that this was a devastatingly sexy look on me… I tend to doubt it. I mean, the fact is… other women “glow” when they work out… I on the other hand… Don’t. Seriously, it would take either true love, horniness on an Epic scale, or a serious vision impairment for any man to not run, shuddering, away from me when I’ve been running/rollerblading/hiking/etc.

When it comes to being glamorous and sexy, I’m a total Fail.

But, I digress.

This smaller cavern was still dark, dank, and unwelcoming, but it had a distinct advantage over the previous one, because it was stuffed chock full of submersible goodness. Oh yeah… before me in the water sat a lovely little submarine. Although I should probably have been thinking about how great it would be to get back to the Unvanquished, what I mostly thought was,

“Oooh… Shiny!”

My second thought was something like,

“I wonder how fast I can get it to top speed? I mean, I don’t have a license or anything… but how hard could it be to drive? It looks like a Volkswagen Bug for otters. Sweet… I wonder if it’s a standard or an automatic?”

At this point, Congeniality stumbled out of the passageway and into the cavern as well.

I growled.

“Hey Shiro,” I said, “I don’t suppose you have something Mr. Congeniality can wear do you? Every time I look at him my Twinkie threatens to leave my guts in an unpleasantly projectile-esque manner.”

For a second Shiro looked lost, and then realized I was referring to his brother. He snorted with laughter before reaching into what looked like an empty oil drum and pulling out some pants and a shirt and tossing them over. He added, “Congeniality… That’s good. Actually, his name is Andrew, but we generally refer to him as “Billie D” since he’s hoping that someday he’ll actually be smooth with the ladies.”

Congeniality, aka “Andrew” grunted as he pulled on jeans. “You’re just jealous. Look how much Queenie likes me already. Hey, Your Majesty, want to shiver my---“

Yeah, you guessed it. Before he could finish the inevitable “timbers” comment, I pushed him over and onto his backside in the sand. He lay there for a few minutes, laughing at me. Rotten smiling bastard.

(Trust me, as a pirate girl, I’ve heard them all… “swab my deck” “polish my turret”… For the love of Carlos, if you can’t be original, than just shut the hell up, would you? *sigh*)

Within 20 minutes, we were in the sub. Cozily packed in… that is, if by cozy you mean, the three of us were closer to one another than I’ve been to anyone since I got divorced. I think I still have the imprint of Andrew’s elbow in my ribs… Or was that Shiro’s? (At least, I sure hope it was an elbow). The point is, it was impossible to move in there… or at least not without provoking even more snarky commentary from Congeniality, a la, “Hey, Queenie, feel free to just, wiggle around a little more...”

Stupid smartass pirate.

I would’ve given anything for my multitool.

Needless to say, the sub could definitely move. Shiro plotted a course, and I got to steer (Damn, that was fun), and we zipped through the waters off of southern NH and straight to my little hidden cove.

We popped to the surface with a splash, in exactly the same way that a rock wouldn't, and it was the work of minutes for me to extricate myself from the sub, and swim as fast as I could to the side of my baby, shouting, “Ahoy there!” all the way.

Cosgrove and McMann lowered a rope to me, and I was hoisted up the side, to the sounds of cheering.

Still… What I found after the obligatory back-slapping and bear-hugging was disturbing.

One of my crew was not involved in the celebration. In fact, she was barely conscious.

It was “Iron” Morgan Kidd. Although she’d joined the crew just a few months earlier, she had distinguished herself with me by being both blood-thirsty and creative. She no longer looked blood-thirsty… Just… well, thirsty.

The Quartermaster rushed to explain.

“Lady, after making port in the harbor, we had all gone to hammock, when the man on deck saw a light. He was still for a few moments, and then heard the sound of Windows XP starting up. On further inspection, he realized that it was Morgan. She had smuggled a laptop aboard, installed a wireless router, and was sending Facebook messages to her cohorts, one of whom is Shiruken. She was just in process of revealing our hidden location, when McMann clubbed her over the head, and slammed the laptop shut.

We were waiting for your return in order to pass judgement on her behavior.”

For an instant, as I looked at Morgan’s wretched face, I felt an unbelievable sorrow rise up within me. Although I had suspected that there was indeed a ninja in our midst… Even someone with a soul as dark as mine can hope.

I crushed and shredded that hope like a wood chipper crushes the bones and sinews of traitorous mobsters.

I said, “Leave her for now… And bring me the laptop… I have some messages to send.”

Cosgrove raised his hand, and when I nodded to him he asked,

“What will we do tomorrow?”

Laughing, I made my usual reply…

“The same thing we do everyday, Brain… Take over the world.”

Then the Quartermaster passed me that traitor’s Toshiba… I opened it and began to type.

Introverts Unite! (And Other Paradoxes)

2010-07-11T16:59:00.002-04:00

I have a question for you... yes, you. Have you ever met someone, and liked (or disliked) them right away for no good reason that you can think of?

Second question. How often did it turn out that your first instinct was right?

This has happened to me several times in my life. I know, I know... perhaps it's all just subconscious. Perhaps something in my brain reminds me of something about the person I have just met and relates that person back to someone else I once knew. Yeah, I'm sure that the scientists amongst you would espouse that view.

Personally, I often wonder if it's more than that. Being a Buddhist, I tend to think that it's more about souls... There is a school of thought that suggests that souls actually travel in packs, and that when you meet someone who you instinctively have strong feelings about it is a result of having known them before... Sure, it sounds crazy, unlikely, and made up...

That's probably why I like it so much.

Anyway, I guess my point there is that when I meet someone who effects me that way... I have stopped ignoring it. If I like you immediately... I act. If I despise you immediately... I put my head down and RUN the other way. Of course, if you're reading this right now, it's likely that you are in the first category. I can count on two hands the number of people I know who fit into the first category right now... and not so strangely, all of them happen to be friends with me on FB. (Of course, most of them have no idea that this is why I probably went way out of my way to acquaint myself with them... and that's the way I like it. I am nothing if not a woman of mystery).

You see... I find myself thinking about this sort of thing a lot. This is not unusual because I tend to make a habit of thinking entirely too much. That's probably the very reason that I spend what other people seem to think is way too much time alone.

What can I say? I'm not really a "large gathering" type of person. While I do enjoy being around other people... Once they start socializing, I usually find myself on the periphery, wandering about, amusing myself by touching things, tapping, pacing, or finding an excuse to run out to the store for something.

Yes, friends and neighbors... I know you'll be shocked to hear this... But regardless of the fact that I basically TALK for a living... I am an introvert.

I am just as happy to be sitting alone in my room playing computer games as I am to be out in public with a large group of people.

Actually, that's not exactly true. I would be even happier if I were sitting in my room with say... one or perhaps two other people, and playing video games, etc. Frankly, I'm a hell of a lot more fun and interesting one on one than I am in a group... Unless the group is made up of people that I've known for a hell of a long time (say, family, or The Shepherds, for instance).

But seriously... in a group of say... 5 or 6... I mostly just disappear.

I get very quiet, because I just don't feel like I have a whole lot to say. I don't want to bore or annoy anyone, so I basically just shut the hell up.

On the up side... When driving long distances, I make an excellent travel companion. I seem to find limitless subjects to spazz out about, but I'm also not at all bothered by silence.

Trust me... Sometimes, silence can be your friend.

I'm boggled by people who feel the need to talk ALL THE FUCKING TIME. What's so wrong with just... Chillin'? (So to speak...ha ha).

So in the end... I guess this ramble didn't really have a point or anything... Like I said, sometimes stuff just goes through my head, runs down my neck, into my shoulders, courses down my arms and comes out through the fingertips in the form of typing. It's like a consciousness waterfall.

You, my friend, just happen to be the ocean where it ends up... Sorry.

Just sayin'.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is... You should know, that if you're on here... and I was the one who added you... It's entirely possible that I think we have known each other before. Of course... I'll never admit it. It's part of my charm.

Now think on THAT for a while.

Your friend,

V the PQ

Shiro's Tale, Or, I Have a Weakness for Men Who Cry

2010-07-05T15:14:00.001-04:00

When I finally summoned the uterine fortitude it required to once again lift myself so that I would be perpendicular instead of parallel to the ground, I found that my fury had scarcely been abated.

I demanded that Shiro explain what in the purple fuzzy dice was going on.

What follows is the story he told me:

“Well, Your Highness… A few days after your daring rescue from my pursuers in Concord, I managed to make contact with a few like-minded individuals in my… organization, if you will.”

“You see… Our leader, the Great and Terrible Shiruken has recently become a bit erratic. Though he’s always been a horrible leader, until now he has ensured the continuation of our clan by selling our services to the highest bidder. Also, he has maintained the honor of our band from all comers. Our clan has the highest reputation among the assassins’ guilds. Our speed and secrecy knows no b—

At this point I interrupted Shiro’s narrative flow by saying, “Come on Shiro… Will you get to the story part of this story already? I know how big and bad you ninjas all think you are, blah, blah, duty, blah, blah, blah, family honor. I get it! Now please… Continue.”

He lowered his brows and took a page from my book by growling. After a short pause and a staring contest with me, he gave up and resumed his narrative.

“The point is, he recently engaged us in some jobs that were exceedingly lucrative. Unfortunately, doing these jobs caused us to lose face before the other guilds… Shiruken was advised by his most trusted allies and family members that he should under no circumstances take these jobs… But he failed to heed any advice, and signed several contracts with--- Oh Spirits of Kamigawa--- I can’t even speak the name---“

At this point he interrupted his own narrative by… Oh Holy Mother of Carlos… SOBBING. His narrow black clad shoulders shook, tears poured down his pock-marked face, and his eyes, which had been the caramel color of cream soda, turned the muddy, hopeless brown of contaminated pond scum.

At that moment, if the two of us had an Awkward-Off, he would have beaten me like a rented Kia.

If there is one thing that never fails to melt my cold, cold heart… It’s a crying man. No, seriously. It’s one of my few soft and weak spots.

Of course, having my deeply frozen heart melted under any circumstances really pisses me off. Do you have any idea how much liquid nitrogen costs these days? Well, let me just tell you… It ain’t cheap my friends. It would take me weeks to earn enough money to re-freeze my heart.

Plus, it really friggin’ hurts.

I hauled off and whacked Shiro on the back of the head. Like a stuttering engine or a skipping Girl Scout, he coughed and then came back to some semblance of his former ninja self.

I was incredibly relived. The emotion caught in the back of my throat returned to my stomach, like a burp that never saw the light of a high school cafeteria. However, not wanting him to know how greatly his tears had affected me, I growled and said, “For the love of Carlos, Shiro… spare me the Jerry Springer family shit.”

He gulped, took a few deep breaths to center himself, and spat out the most dreaded name in all the lands and upon all the seas of this tiny, blue-green planet.

“Shiruken signed seven contracts with---The College Board.”

I drew my breath in with a sharp hiss.

“NO!!” I shouted. “How could he? With the ninjas on the College Board’s side in the coming battle against standardized testing… The company may be---”

“Unstoppable.” Groaned Shiro in a deep and totally hopeless baritone.

I leaped to my feet, shoved Mr. Congeniality’s head off my lap (where he’d made himself quite at home I must say…grr), and grabbed Shiro by the oxygen tank.

“We have to get out of here now! I don’t have time for anymore of your Sally-Girl whining! The forces of Standardized Testing must not be allowed to reign over the face of the earth!

“I would rather have dinner and drinks with a family of rabid squirrels! I’d rather have a pool party with zombies! Why, I’d rather hang out with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan in a cabin in the Ozarks, discussing geo-politics!

“Hell, I’d even rather return to my former Saltmine for a rousing afternoon of chit-chat, poisoned Kool-aid, and stale granola bars with the Super-horrible-intendent, Sammy Davis Jr. herself!”

I pulled Shiro to his feet, and punched him as hard as I could in the chest in order to get him motivated. This technique worked on him like a defibrillator on a heart patient. He seemed to wake from a dream-like trance, and his eyes focused on mine.

Once again, my arctic blue gaze met his. His back stiffened like someone had just shoved a frozen eel up his colon. He said, “This way!” turning on his heel, he shot off into the darkness at the back of the cave, with only a failing glow-stick to light the way.

I followed. Every footstep felt like it could be taking me closer to doom. My guts roiled like spoiling venison by the side of I-93.

And then I felt Congeniality following along in my wake. I smiled a mischievous grin, and gave a small snort of laughter, way down deep in my throat.

I slowed down just enough to let him catch up with me, and then I stuck my foot out, tripping him up and sending him rolling into a low boulder sticking up from the ground.

I’m not usually so petty… But torturing that smiling bastard just a little bit brought the spring back into my step, and a smidgen of hope into my desolate soul.

“Damn you, College Board! You’ll taste the bitter flavor of my poison-covered multi-tool this very night, by Carlos!!” I shouted into the darkness.

(There’s a story there… Can you tell?)

I raced on, into the cave depths and toward a conclusion…

Perhaps.

The Unvanquished

2010-07-03T20:28:00.001-04:00

... So naturally, most of what I am about to describe here took place after I had plunged off the side of my ship and into the briny depths. Suffice to say, since I have limited psychic powers, I happen to know everything that occurred in my absence.

Oh, just go with it.

Moments after I and Congeniality splashed over the side, the ninja captain wiped away a few tears of joy, and sent the order to begin the wholesale massacre of my men. (That lying, trecherous, scum... I knew he would go back on his word). The Quartermaster, Boatswain, and a few others were to be included in the first round of executions.

Thank Carlos, there was something the ninja captain didn't know about my people.

Of course he realized that they were loyal to a fault... What he failed to understand was just how much my apparent death would galvanize them into action. Far from taking the wind out of their sails, his behavior put renewed powder in their cannons.

"Brisket" Cosgrove was the first to make a move. As soon as I tumbled off the plank and splashed down amongst the sharks, he let out a yell of such fury and ferocity, that the unprepared ninja guarding his flank lowered his sword for an instant.

This, he should not have done.

Cosgrove shoved up from his knees and drove himself headfirst into the poorly prepped villain's defenseless middle. By the time he had fallen over backward, the rest of my furious crew let out shouts of fury and anguish easily as terrifying as his.

Every where on deck, a pitched and terrible battle was renewed. My crew, armed only with makeshift weapons gathered from the supplies at hand, pulled no punches.

In fact... They fought dirtier than a tanked Lindsey Lohan at a pool party.

The quarter master grabbed a fork directly out of the hand of a ninja crew member who was eating the last of my precious ration of cheesecake, and stabbed him at least three times while yelling, "NO ONE touches the Queen's cheesecake, thou black, heathen, rump-fed, ronion!!" (Each insult was punctuated by a stab of the eating utensil).

That sleazy bastard's crew, even though they outnumbered my men three to one, were taken almost completely by surprise.

"Brisket," who was by this time leading the uprising, right along with the Quartermaster, directed the men to dump every last ninja over the side.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew were running below, loading the guns with every implement of destruction they could find. Some of these included smoke bombs and hand-made grenades wrenched from the bodies of flailing and slack-jawed ninjas.

They managed to put holes in the side of the ninja sloop that made it look like a slab of blackened Swiss cheese... only much less tasty.

In 37 minutes, the battle was over, the ninja sloop was sinking into the waters of the Atlantic, and the evil men in black were being happily chomped upon by a number of sharks.

The crew took only a moment to breathe in relief at the rout of the villains before turning to the problem of their missing queen. Faces turned red with rage, and white with anguish.

A hush fell.

There was an extended moment of complete bafflement and hopelessness...

And then, one of the oldest members of the crew, a small but ferocious female crew member, spoke into the silence.

"She's still alive. I know it. We have to meet her in our secret port... She'll manage to get there somehow."

There were scattered grumbles, some of assent and some of disbelief.

Again, the Grrrl, (that was her name) spoke. "Come on... After all this, don't you think we'd know it if she was dead? Hasn't she come through worse than this?"

The Quartermaster let out a bellow of laughter, thumped Grrrl on the back and said, "Of course! Why, don't you men remember the time we found her in a meat locker, suspended over a vat of chicken parts and tied to a Laotian dental hygenist? She had managed to tie up the machinery meant to turn them into sausage with just a pair of toe-nail clippers and a buckle from one of her boots!"

Cosgrove chimed in, "Or the time when she used a Gila Monster's venom to bring down a rampaging hydra in east Keene? Who knew that you could use a Slurpee straw as a makeshift hypodermic?"

Grrrl added, "And how about when she had to escape from the car crusher when she was locked in the trunk of a Dodge Aries? She had nothing except an angry Pomeranian and a warm 12-pack of Diet Coke to help her... and she still made it out! Ye gods... Do you remember the explosion?"

There was a moment of silence followed by deliriously joyful shouting.

There was still hope.

Most assuredly... The Queen must still be alive.

"ALL HANDS ON DECK!" Shouted Cosgrove.

The Unvanquished, limping, but by no means down for the count, sailed meekly across the water road toward the safety of her hidden port. There, she would be repaired and await the return of the queen.

If you could have heard the silent prayers in the hearts of the crew, it would have brought a tear even to your jaded eye...

The only words spoken for the rest of the night were the ones that breathed out, unheard by anyone except the gulls in the bay.

"Kick some ass, Pirate Queen... And please, make it fast."

The Eternal Twinkie vs. Sno-Ball Debate, Or The Pirate Queen Sends Herself to Time-Out

2010-06-30T20:39:00.002-04:00

...As Mr. Congeniality lay moaning in the shallows, Scuba Steve and I hunkered down on the sand in the back of the cave. I was shivering as he removed something from his belt that looked like a watertight fanny pack. He handed it to me, and I opened it to discover a tube of Neosporin and some other basic first aid materials.

Then he finally removed his goggles.

I scowled at him... There was something familiar about the shape of his face, and I never forget a face.

I tend to remember faces especially well when they are the faces of mysterious ninjas that I've helped while patrolling Concord, NH in the dead of night.

Oh, that's right children... Those shifty eyes, that rat-like face, the black cowl...

It was Shiro Linh.

*sigh*

Just what I needed... More Carlos-damned ninjas. Well, that's just fan-frickin'-tabulous.

You know... At any other time in my life I would probably have had some sort of reaction to such an unveiling...

But at that moment?

I had nothin'. I merely stared.

Actually... There might have been a need for me to wipe some Forest Gump style drool off my chin.

He dug into another pouch, and removed some snacks.

I swear to Carlos, this guy was like the Scuba/Ninja Mary Poppins or something. I wondered if he would pull a nuclear submarine out of a hidden pocket next.

He paused, then looked more closely at the snacks laid on the sand in front of him. Lying there, looking innocent and virtuous in their pristine packaging were:

1. A granola bar (oats and honey)
2. A protein bar (cookie dough flavor)
3. A package of Hostess Sno-Balls

AND (Carlos be praised!)

4. A lone Twinkie.

Before you could say, "Hey, gimme that!" I snagged the Twinkie and nearly ate most of the wrapper along with the sugary, spongy, cream filled treat. Mmmm... cream filling... yum.

I'm not sure that I actually chewed.

Shiro goggled at me momentarily before stating, "Well, if Twinkies are what you live on, it's no wonder you've lost your ship."

I hissed in his face and scowled at him. But then added, "Gee, thanks for the fortune cookie statement, Confucius. If you have a Red Bull somewhere on you I'll forgive you for that remark, otherwise, prepare to die."

Before I could move to put my hands around his throat, the Magical Elixir appeared in my hand as if it had been delivered by the archangel Gabriel himself.

I gripped the slender cylinder and admired it as though it were the idol from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc. In fact, I could almost hear a heavenly chorus singing "Light My Fire" as I popped the can open and began to drink.

In my opinion, they could have benefited from a few more guitars and fewer harps... But that's just me.

When I finished, I placed the empty can gently on the sand next to me and gave it a little pat. Then I looked closely at Shiro, and asked him for the only information that is ever really necessary for one person to know about another...

"Shiro... Have you ever killed anyone in a knife fight?"

He raised an eyebrow.

I continued, "No, seriously. Have you?"

He munched on a mouthful of granola (ick... that stuff will kill you faster than... well, a shark).

"Not as far as I know... Though there was that one time... at Band Camp."

I laughed so hard I nearly regurgitated my Hostess Treat.

At last... Someone who understands me.

Too bad he's a damn ninja. I may have to kill him at some point in the future. Oh well, I suppose we can't have it all, can we?

Naturally this was when Mr. Congeniality finally pulled himself up on the sand, and sat next to me. Of course, when I say "sat" what I really mean is that he collapsed, and then fell over. He had landed entirely too close to me, totally "popping my bubble" as Saltmine inmates might say.

Before I could move away, or shove him to a safe distance, he reached across me and grabbed the Sno-Ball snack.

I snorted in derision... Of COURSE, he would like that one. After digging in, he moved so that he was laying down, put his head on my thigh and said, "When you two are done with girl talk, can you wake me up so we can start planning? Thanks, that'd be greeeat." He then appeared to drop instantly into a sound sleep.

I was just a tid bit miffed.

Okay, that's a lie. I felt a desire to perform acts of violence upon that smiling bastard more strongly than I ever had before... It was a new personal best.

I stiffened, and then grabbed for the hair on the back of his head in my left fist in preparation for an enormously pleasing "Sand-wash."

Just before I could rub his nose in the dirt, Shiro put a hand on my arm and said,

"Please Your Highness, I know he is extremely annoying to you, but I would take it as a personal favor if you did not abuse my brother any more... Right now anyway. When you get your ship back, please feel free to torment him at your leisure, but we might need him soon. Sand in the eyes could throw off his aim."

I experienced a complete brain bottleneck. You know that feeling, when you have so many possible questions and or comments in your head all at once that they get stopped up and you just can't seem to make any of them come out?

Well, that was me.

Comment Overload Girl.

I stared down at the back of Congeniality's head (he, I should add, had seemed to completely sleep through the homicidal impulse I had aimed at him, and was now making a sound that was midway between a snore and a growl), and then looked sharply at Shiro.

W. Tha. F.

"Brother? Brother? What?" I sputtered and foamed like a mad dog on a dirt road.

My overloaded brain just couldn't seem to handle this conversation... So I yowled a barbaric "GAAAAH!" at the top of my lungs and pounded the sand with the hand not holding my empty and slightly sticky Twinkie wrapper.

Let it never be said that I'm not a sparkling conversationalist.

Then I just kind of fell backwards to lie in the sand for a while. I had a somewhat muddy idea that I would wake up and be back on board the Unvanquished. Yeah right.

I tend to believe that my brain decided to take up my teacher persona without my permission...

It assigned me to a Time Out.

Friggin' know-it-all teachers.

Who the hell likes them anyway?

The Biography of the Pirate Queen

2010-06-28T22:01:00.001-04:00

Excuse me, have we met?

Oh, I guess not... but your face did look a little familiar just then... Huh, that's weird.

Well, since we don't know each other, please let me introduce myself.

My name is Virginia, but since I like your face, you can call me Verge. Not Virg. VERGE...as in, "I'm on the Verge of doing something really f'in' crazy."

Let's see... What do you want to know?

Oh... Well, there really isn't that much to tell, but I'll give it my best shot.

I work in a Saltmine, and I try to make life bearable for the inmates.

I'm constantly battling ninjas, usually in the forms of standardized testing and people with no senses of humor or proportion.

Essentially, most of my life consists of doing these two things:

1. Telling stories
2. Picking up after people's messes, both literally and figuratively.

Since I work in a Saltmine I tend to be dirty, covered in germs, and exhausted.

I subsist most of the time on Redbull and hope.

I rollerblade in the dark, drive fast on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere at all hours of the night, and watch the sun come up from unlikely spots.

I like to pretend that superheroes could be real... I think I may have met one once.

I try to do my best, work hard, and I hope I'll make a difference in your life, now that we've met.

I laugh a lot.

I laugh as loud as I can.

I refuse to "grow up" or "take things seriously."

I think in haiku, and I meditate during long meetings.

I amuse myself by wearing name tags that say "Lola," "Bubbles," and "Trixie."

I'm always searching for the truth behind the lies that we all (myself included) seem to spout so easily.

I often refuse to sleep, because I don't want to miss anything good... or bad.

I hate milk.

I love cheesecake and white chocolate, and I watch football and basketball so I can yell at the screen.

If you come over here, I'll tell you a story... It's about some ninjas and a duck in White's Park.

I'll make you laugh if at all possible, sometimes at the most inappropriate imagery you'll ever hear. I used to have a sense of propriety, but I gave it up for Lent.

I'm not Catholic.

I was broken badly a few times, and I fixed myself... But I'm still not 100%.

I'm still hoping for a hero... but I'm losing my faith.

If you tell me what you need, I'll help.

If you smile when you see me, it'll make my day, and I'll do just about anything for you.

If you mess with me, I'll mess right back, but don't worry, I don't hit... Unless you're a redneck who picks on people weaker than you.

If possible, I'll save you... Or better yet, I'll help you save yourself.

Well, I guess that's all you need to know about me... See what I mean? I'm not all that interesting... I'm pretty much just like everyone else, but I keep hoping that someday I'll be as awesome as you are.

It's been nice talking with you... I hope you'll remember me when I'm gone, 'cause I could sail off into the sunset any day. And you never can tell when sharks, ninjas, or a bus with no brakes could strike.

Party like a rock star.

Just sayin'.

Namaste.

And Once Again, The Proverbial Plot Thickens

2010-06-28T20:58:00.001-04:00

Well, as much as I have often wished to die a super cool death at the teeth of a shark, I somehow discovered that I still had will to live.

Will wonders never cease?

As the big fish came closer I realized that I had very few choices. Despite my rather nimble skills as a swimmer, there was no way I could out swim this big boy. Also, I probably had almost no chance in a biting contest with him, regardless of the sharpness of my razor tooth incisors.

What's a girl to do?

And then, I remembered my feet. Luckily I was still wearing my spiky boots.

As the shark came barreling toward me, I aimed as well as I could through my complete and utter terror, and shoved my heels toward the master of the deep's nose.

I completely missed.

However, before the monster, who looked big enough to swallow me whole with one gulp (no chewing necessary), could chomp down and take both legs off at the knees, something latched on to me and yanked me backward and down, pulling the regulator from my mouth, but adding enough mass to my weight to pull me underneath the shark.

The beast, unable to stop his forward momentum, sailed over me like a yacht. I saw every inch of his ancient white belly sail directly over my face, mere inches from my nose. It was battle-scarred. For just an instant I experienced a total sense of awe and wonder at the big guy's power and majesty. What must it be like to be him?

Of course, that was probably just the effects of oxygen deprivation combined with adrenaline overload.

Unfortunately there was no time either to cheer or continue to wonder, even if I could have.

Already my body was once again beginning to scream from oxygen starvation, and whatever was pulling me down had me in a vise-like grip, pinning my arms to my sides and sending me, for the nth time that day into complete and utter panic.

Before I could really let go into all out terror mode, I saw the opening of the cave just to my left and down, and whoever had grabbed me let go.

Dammit.

Oh yeah, you guessed it.

Mr. Congeni-fucking-ality.

I barely had time to register my dismay at possibly owing the continuation of my marvelous career to that smiling bastard when my scuba angel grabbed my arm and began pulling me toward the mouth of the cave. Anxious to breathe again at some point in the near future, I gave my heart and soul to the swim.

The cave was nearly as black as the gaping maw of the shark that had almost sent me to the cool kid's table in hell... But had significantly fewer teeth.

The hold on my arm tightened, and I felt a splash on my face, and then, Thank Carlos, cool air filling my lungs. There was a second's pause, when it seemed like I had lost the knack of breathing altogether, but it was merely the fact that I appeared to be enthusiastically and heroically throwing up about 6 gallons of seawater. It tasted absolutely filthy.

I doubt I'll be having salt put on the rims of my margaritas for a while. Just sayin'.

The next thing I heard a crackle, and the sound of something being shaken. Within seconds a chemical glow stick lit up my surroundings.

So there I was... sitting in the shallows of an underwater cave with MysteryScubaGuy and Mr. Congeniality.

I was dripping wet, my leg was still bleeding, and I had absolutely no idea what the hell I was going to do to get my ship back or rescue my crew.

I wanted to put my head back under the water and resume trying to grow gills like a fish.Perhaps drowning wouldn't be such a bad way to go... It was certainly simpler than fighting...

Of course, Congeniality took this momentary pause in the action to give me a huge smile. He followed this impertinence up by saying,

"Hey, scuba guy, got any aloe or Neosporin in that pack? Queenie here owes me a rub down for saving her life."

He then had the unmitigated temerity to raise his eyebrows at me a couple of times in a distinctly smartass fashion.

I heard the person in the mask give a muffled snort of laughter.

The second thing I heard was a splash as Congeniality hit the floor like a ton of badgers. The third was a distinct moan.

Oh great... Now my knuckles are bleeding too.

Son of a bitch.

Apparently, Congeniality, in his infinite wisdom, managed to find the one moment in my mirth-filled life when I had lost every scrap of my Titanic sense of humor.

Maybe I should change his nickname to "Iceberg."

I hope I broke that smiling jackass' nose.

Rub some aloe on that, smartass.

A Gallon of Atlantic Ocean Seawater Makes a Great Diuretic. Ask Me How!

2010-06-27T17:44:00.002-04:00

...I hit the ocean in the face like a fist, and then sank beneath the waves.

Still blindfolded, and strapped to Mr. Congeniality, I sank like a platinum weight. (You ever notice how it's always a "lead weight" in the old saying? What's with that? I like to think I'm worth more than friggin' lead).

Sorry... tangent. ADD moment I guess.

Anyway, there I was, thrashing and flailing about in a complete panic, being dragged to the bottom of the ocean floor by a passed out and unbeliveably sunburnt pirate that I'd managed to capture and subdue with no small amount of effort, with sharks circling above me and wondering if I'd go well with a side of dolphin, when I felt myself grabbed by the hair.

What little rational mind power I had left... I lost.

I managed to throw at least a couple of weak and water-logged punches before the blindfold was torn off and I found myself staring into the face of... Captain Nemo?

No, seriously, it was someone in a wet suit, scuba gear, the whole works.

It was at this point that the blackness around the edges of my eyesight began to really take over. I nearly decided to try my luck at breathing water when a regulator was stuffed roughly in my mouth and I took my first breath in what felt like decades.

About the same time, an enormous weight was lifted from me... but I hardly noticed.

I mean, seriously.

No one can really ever tell you what it's like to suffocate... Your brain basically goes completely insane. You can feel your head pounding while your brain tries to escape from your skull in search of air, and every cell in your body shouts, "WHAT THE FUCK!!!" in unison.

Needless to say... It's not an experience I would recommend for fun and games, so... Don't try this at home kids.

While I marveled over how much fun it was to inhale something other than water, I had apparently been towed some distance by the diver, and there below us was a cave.

Well, that wasn't so bad, in fact, that was pretty friggin' sweet!

Of course, since my life is generally a series of extreme highs and lows that never seems to even out, it was at that moment that I noticed the twinge of pain in my leg from where I had been wounded in the battle for the Unvanquished. It didn't hurt overly much, but I did notice that a trickle of blood was flowing sluggishly along side me and my guardian scuba angel...

Huh. Apparently my brain still hadn't fully recovered from my dunking. I knew that there was some reason why it might be dangerous to be bleeding, out here in the open sea...

And that was when a shadow came gliding out of nowhere... It was the biggest goddamned shadow in the history of creation.

When I looked up, all I could think of was a line from one of the greatest movies of the twentieth century...

"I think we're gonna need a bigger boat."

And baleful eye of the biggest fish in the known universe fell upon me...

At that point... I completely forgot to breathe.

Meh, who needs oxygen really?

Shopping for a Superhero

2010-06-26T17:12:00.002-04:00

As I write this missive, I am sitting by the side of the road desperately hoping a superhero will show up to rescue me... I'm pretty tired of rescuing myself.

I left Manchester a few hours ago, and on my drive home I got a little... well, sidetracked.

You see, there were these rednecks... And it just goes down hill from there. Suffice to say, I did manage to kick ass, but all I have to show for it is a few bruises, some road rash on my butt, and a car with 3 flat tires.

The rednecks look worse.

Still, while I'm waiting I thought I'd share a few thoughts with you on one of my favorite topics... Oh yeah, that's right... Superheroes.

While I was down at Double Midnight I scored some kick ass comics... 5 issues of Buffy, a bunch of Punisher and Wolverine team-up issues, 2 volumes of The Essential X-Men, one of The Essential Silver Surfer, and naturally, The Essential Amazing Spiderman, Vol 8. Also, I got a totally sweet comic called Death Ship, and I'm pretty much in love with the art. YAY!!

I'm the happiest little geek girl on the planet... Except for the road rash. I surely don't relish the thought of taking an SOS pad to my butt in order to get the gravel out of it. Ouch. That's going to sting, and it's hard to do, even with a mirror.

Yes, friends. I am a geek. I like comic books, games, and sports.

I never have been, and never will be, cool. I accepted this fact long ago.

I'm okay with it. You see, as far as I'm concerned... Life is all about my own personal amusement. To that end, I started thinking about all my most favorite superheroes.

I will list some of them below for your reading pleasure (if you are a fellow geek) and/or for your personal edification (if you are too cool to be geek).

1. Wolverine--- He's small, he's hairy, he's filled with the need to kick major ass pretty much 24/7. I have been seriously in love with him since I was ... oh, 13 years old. Dark and murky past, big claws, sarcastic sense of humor... What's not to love? Now don't get me wrong... I loved the X-Men movies, and Hugh Jackman is obviously a pleasure to look at... But let's face it, he's not really Wolverine... Close, but no cigar (heh heh---never mind, if you haven't read the comics, you won't get it). Wolverine doesn't wax his chest. Just sayin'.

2. Spider-Man---Number one: Basically, he can fly. Number Two: He is the funniest superhero EVER. Number three: He's always worried about important stuff, like paying his rent... Which makes him not only seriously funny and a badass, but also much more realistic than most superheroes. Also, being smaller than most of the others, he has to make up in attitude what he lacks in stature. If I ever grow up, I want to be like him... Only female of course.

3. Captain America--- I mean, come on... He's patriotic, he's strong, he's silent, he always has a plan, and he never gives up. He's nice to children and little old ladies. How is it possible NOT to love this guy? Yeah, yeah, I hear you grumbling that it's all a bunch of governmental propaganda... Blah, blah, blah. I still love him. Deal with it.

4. Batman---Dark, brooding, AND most importantly, super smart... And just look at that car. Admit it ladies, gotta love the bad boy with the sweet car. If I can admit it, so can you. It's Darwinian.

5. The Thing--- Again with the funny... I know, I know. But seriously, whenever I read anything he's in that's well written... I laugh out loud. Also, he's made of rock, but he's a major sweetie. Plus, he kicks the shit out of bad guys. Love it.

6. Beast--- He's blue, he's fuzzy, he's a complete smartass, and he has several doctoral degrees. Do I really need to say more? Well, just in case, let me say it again... He's BLUE, he's FUZZY, he's FUNNY, and he's SMART. He's basically the perfect man. LOL

7. The Silver Surfer--- Ever seen him? He basically looks like the Oscar statuette... Only silver. And he's got this whole "inner sadness/self sacrifice for the benefit of the world" thing going on. Just imagine a cross between Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Rodin's The Thinker and you've got it. He's deep, yet he kicks ass mercilessly. Oh, and he's pretty much naked all the time. Gotta love that.

Hmm... Reading back over this list... I'm sure I've managed to somehow reveal inner workings about myself that probably shouldn't be shared with others... Oh well. Life sucks, get a helmet.

Oops... Well, I think a couple of these rednecks are starting to come around... I better make sure the ropes are tight enough.

Sadly, I don't think any superheroes will be coming to my rescue.

Dammit.

Why do I never get the chance to be a damsel in distress? When I ask for help, men usually just laugh and say, "Yeah, right, do it yourself."

*sigh*

It's tough to be a super hero.

Peace, out.

Just When I Was About to Get Some Answers, Or, A Short Walk and a Long Drop

2010-06-25T22:32:00.002-04:00

Well... The day started out annoying and rapidly moved past "bad" all the way to "friggin' awful" in about 2.2 hours.

Things seemed to be going well at first. Around 11 or so Mr. Congeniality began to really lose his charm under the direct gaze of the eye of heaven.

But by 1pm I managed to suddenly find myself blindfolded, stripped of my cutlass and multi-tool, and taking a short walk followed by a long drop.

Under the blindfold I could see a narrow strip of the sea below... And there were dorsal fins circling the ship.

Those weren't the fins of friendly dolphins.

Oh Holy Mother of Carlos...All I could think was, "Sometime in the next 15 minutes, I could be pulling up a hard plastic chair to join my brethren at the cool table in Hell."

Of course, though I did always fully intend to die young and tragically misunderstood after a life of glorious excess... This was not the time or place I had envisioned.

I know, I know... You're dying to know what happened, right?

Well, here's my sad tale of woe for your merciless perusal.

It was high noon. The sun beat down on my head, bleaching my hair and turning the deck of the Unvanquished a washed out gray. I stood before Mr. Congeniality with my multi-tool in hand, fully prepared to use any means necessary to get some answers.

His head hung forward limply, and the only thing keeping him upright were the few ropes I had instructed Cosgrove to leave tied about his chest.

For a moment, I almost felt a stirring of pity in my cold, cold heart.

I grabbed that feeling around the throat and choked the life out of it while it kicked, screamed, and begged. And then I pitched its still warm corpse over the side. I stepped up, grabbed Congeniality by the scruff of his neck and was about to begin my questions when there was a shout from the crow's nest.

"SHIP AHOY!"

Quickly, I scanned the horizon, and there I saw a ship, somewhat larger than my own fair lady. It's sails billowed out, and its flag snapping in the breeze.

The flag was entirely black. No cheerful jolly roger, no patriotic symbol of any kind...

Those damn ninjas. I should've killed them when I had the chance.

And then the deck seemed to pitch below me, tossing me like a rag doll against Congeniality's limp form. He raised his head, focused his bleary eyes on me and said,

"Not right now dear... I think I've got sunburn on my--"

The deck pitched again, and I pushed away from the smartass, running for the rails and shouting for my men to assemble.

Though we put up a tremendous fight, battling mercilessly, screaming like berserkers, our foe was too well armed, and willing to sacrifice every last ninja in order to bring us under his thumb.

It was that bastard, Shiruken the Younger.

He gave me a choice, go down with the ship, in which case all of my men would be put to the sword, or take a punishment of his choosing... In which case I would still meet my demise, but the men would live.

I knew he was lying... It was written all over his patchy face.

But what could I do? What choice did I really have?

God damn it. I really fricking hate ninjas.

The worst of it?

He thought that it would be absolutely hilarious to make me walk the plank.

Cosgrove started to explain that "Walking the Plank" is a complete wives tale, but of course he was silenced effectively with a boot to the face.

Oh, and even better?

Before being blindfolded, Shiruken also thought that it would be even more hilarious to tie me up... To Mr. Congeniality.

As I shuffled down the plank, practically carrying Congeniality on my back, I had time to ponder the great mysteries of the universe such as:

How in the deep blue and tan hell did I end up here?

and,

How had the ninjas found us?

and,

How come a decent manicure is cheap, but a pedicure is so ungodly expensive?

To many of life's mysteries... There is just no satisfactory answer.

The sharks circled.

I stood on the end of the plank.

Shiruken asked if I had any last words. I asked him,

"How come all you ninjas look the same? Afraid to stand up as individuals? And what with all those kung fu movies? Don't you know that superhero movies are the pinnacle of human civilization?"

With a growl of rage, the board was sharply yanked from under me, and I dropped like a groundhog into a deep well...

Threats and Intimidation

2010-06-25T01:47:00.001-04:00

Before dawn I emerged from a cat-like snooze and stretched until every joint in my body popped like a bowl of Rice Crispy's.

Damn it... Why must I always awaken before the "crack of sparrow fart"?

A Pirate Queen's work is never done. Besides, I am a firm believer that laziness is a sign of weakness... Unless of course we are talking about house cleaning, in which case I'm all for laziness.

But that's beside the point. Back to the narrative flow...

I carelessly tossed on some black clothing, strapped my cutlass to my waist, slipped black boots upon my feet, and shoved my damp hair under a jaunty blue bandana. I was out of the room in minutes and click-clacking up to the deck with a slight jangle of silver buckles.

Screw that "girlie-taking-forever-to-get-dressed-routine," that's so NOT me.

At this hour just before dawn, about half the crew was awake and sleepily looking to minor chores like swabbing the deck, or moving necessary supplies about. Cook was engaged in shouting obscenities at one of his hapless assistants, and the smell of coffee almost drew me to the galley.

Again, I restrained myself. The primary order of business was to begin a long day of questioning with the prisoner, Mr. Congeniality, and if possible I wanted to be the first thing he saw when he opened his bleary and bloodshot eyes.

I approached the mast with measured steps, wanting to make a point that I had all the time in the world to question him. Also, wanting to project the most menacing figure possible, I set my face in a scowl, and drew my dagger from my boot.

The sight that met my eyes was one of epically pathetic proportions. Congeniality was tied to the mast, stripped down to nothing, and he sagged limply in his bonds, head hanging forward, ropes digging into his exhausted form.

I sneered again, (just for practice this time, as he appeared to be sleeping/passed out) stepped to within inches, grabbed a hank of his hair, and shoved his head back against the mast, jarring his skull in the same place where my blow had fallen the evening prior.

He came to with a yelp, followed closely by a groan. For a moment he seemed to focus on my face with great difficulty, and I let go of his hair. Without my support, his head once again dropped to half mast and then he lifted it, looked into my irritated face, and said,

"Hey. How are ya this morning Queenie?" So saying, he lifted his brow and did that "guy nod" thing. For a fraction of an instant I actually found myself on the cusp of either a blush or a laugh.

WTF.

This REALLY pissed me off.

Instead of answering, I drew back my hand and slapped him across the face hard enough to make his head snap sideways and strike the mast again.

I tell you what... No one hits on me first thing in the morning without my express written consent, signed in triplicate, and stamped by the seal of a notary public.

No one...with the possible exception of Batman.

But, I digress.

I followed the slap by stepping in even closer, so close that I could see each and every follicle of stubble on his face, and said in my very best tone of menace,

"Shall we begin again? You see, this is how it works, I will ask you questions. You will answer those questions, or I will start hurting you. Or better yet, I'll just leave you here to broil under the hot sun for a day or two until you beg me to kill you. Do you understand?"

As I had spoken, his head had begun to drop forward again, but at the conclusion of my "Dirty Harry" impression, he raised it, and looked at me through one green eye. There was a second's pause before he finally answered.

He said, "Wow Queenie... Love that badass thing. I think I'll just... Hang out, for a while."

And then?

He laughed.

Damn... Maybe he really was insane. Well, I guess that would make two of us then.

Disgusted at what I could now see was going to be a long ass day, I stepped back and slowly shook my head. Why can't I ever get the easy ones? Why do my foes always fight with such ferocity when surely they know that it is their fate to either join me or die?

*sigh*

I slowly eyed him, going all the way from stem to stern (so to speak), and before I turned away, I said in a perfectly reasonable voice... "Cosgrove... You'd better cut some of those ropes away a bit... I wouldn't want our guest to end the day with too many unsightly tan lines..."

Behind me, "Brisket" Cosgrove laughed heartily and responded with a jaunty "Aye-aye, Captain!"

There was a swift intake of breath from the prisoner when Cosgrove's knife drew just a drop of blood as it slid beneath one of the ropes, and then he said, "Hey Queenie, could you bring me a coffee? Cream and sugar. Just one spoonful, I don't want it too sweet. Thanks, babe."

My spine tingled, and I could feel myself wanting to straighten up like a fireplace poker had shot straight up through my nether-regions and come out through the top of my head.

But I'm nothing if not a good actor; I faked a laugh of good cheer into the brightening dawn and slowly strode away, not once looking back or rising to the bait.

I found my way to the galley, got a nice steaming mug of coffee for myself, and then took a turn around the deck, never looking at or otherwise acknowledging my "guest."

Christ on a cracker... This was going to be an interesting day...

Dick's Sucks... Or, I Never Learn Anything from My Past Mistakes

2010-06-23T20:10:00.003-04:00

That's right. I said it.

Better yet, I meant it.

So... There I was, in the largest sporting goods store in Concord, NH, and this smartass with bad hair told me (and I do quote):

"We don't carry those. No one rollerblades anymore."

Well, fuck you very much, Brad. (Oh yeah, NATURALLY his name was Brad).

I wanted to reach up, grab one of his eyebrows, and pull every damn hair out by the friggin' roots.

All the more so because on my way up Loudon Road, I happened to drive past two people who were, you guessed it, ROLLERBLADING.

*sigh*

How is this possible?

Seriously. And clearly, I have learned nothing from history... Because this is the very same problem I faced two years ago when my last pair of rollerblades bit the dust.

I LOVE to rollerblade.

It is the one time in my gravitationally and aerodynamically challenged life when I can actually do a physical activity that doesn't require me to wear two sports bras in order to avoid unsightly bouncing.

Plus... It's really fucking FAST.

I love me some FAST.

(Oh go ahead and snicker you perv. I'll let it go this time).

Anyway, the last time, I ended up having to drive to Manchester, where there are two sporting goods stores in adjoining strip malls... BOTH have an entire aisle devoted to nothing EXCEPT rollerblades and rollerblading accessories.

So don't tell ME that no one rollerblades.

I fricken' know better.

So anyway... yes, I once again had to go to ManchVegas to score my drug of choice. But, it's all good. I'm happy with the ones I got.

I just wish I could cast aside for once and all the shackles of propriety and really give one of those Dick's employees the come-uppance they deserve. As it was, all I did was embarrass him pretty good by making one of my oh-so-appropriate comments.

You see, after he told me that they didn't have the item I desired, he continued to follow me about the store. When I stared unseeingly at a kayaking display, he informed me:

"We have all kinds of kayaking supplies...blah, blah, blah... We even have several top of the line flotation devices. Are you interested in purchasing some?"

I raised an eyebrow, looked pointedly down at my chest, then looked up at him.

His spray on tan turned a little pink.

Slowly, I said the following, at the top of my lungs, "Dude... Look at me. I'm a D-cup. I AM a flotation device."

My sister, and several other patrons overheard this.

One guy looked like he was going to swallow his own tongue.

Martha (my sister) laughed out loud, and then repeated what I said in a choking voice that must've carried clear across to the Penacook and Hopkinton town lines.

I then stalked out, with a jaunty step.

Fuck him if he can't take a joke.

I rollerbladed for an hour and a half when I got home... and I plan to go out again after dark tonight.

My sister, ever the nutball, said to me, "Watch out for weirdos."

I looked at her, again raised a skeptical eyebrow and said,

"Martha... I have a metal yardstick, an imitation sword, a plastic pirate hook, 3 pairs of stiletto heels, and a prom dress in my trunk. I AM the weirdo."

Her reply?

"You have a point. Don't hurt anybody... Or, if you do... Make it someone cute, and just wound him so you can bring him home after."

I love her.

This is a running joke for us, ever since I learned that if you are in NH, and you hit something, you get to claim it as yours and take it home.

Watch out.

Just sayin'.

It Starts with The Fixer and Ends with Two Horses

2010-06-21T13:54:00.002-04:00

Part One - The Fixer

Okay, so here's a tale with two parts... and may or may not be true. (Though, as per usual, names have been changed in order to protect both the innocent and the guilty. Just sayin').

This is a story for anyone who has ever had a small, or large, fuzzy friend with a speech impediment. (No, I don't mean your cousin Denis. I'm talking about a pet, you n00b).

_________________________________________________________

So on Friday, I was sitting in the Literary Dungeon with Lockheed/Falcor and The Fixer, and this Wolverine-esque hero was resting on his heels (claws retracted for the moment).

He made an insightful comment.

This is something he is wont to do at various times, and leads me to believe that he is secretly (even to himself, no doubt) a Zen Master. This is entirely fitting since the greatest masters generally see themselves as silly and foolish, and as a result they absolutely refuse to take the world or themselves too seriously... And they have the most fun mocking all those people who walk around with 2x4's shoved firmly up their asses.

These wise people generally go about, teasing others and making them laugh out loud at both opportune and inopportune moments. (Naturally, if you were to make such a comment to The Fixer in person he would pantomime a rude activity, laugh, and walk away with an exaggerated swagger in order to cover his embarrassment over being called any such thing as "wise.")

The Fixer? Who is this Zen Master-like individual? I know you must be curious, since it is so unlike me to begin a story with myself as a subordinate character... Has the world gone mad??

No, no, not at all.

You see, I have recently gained employment at Professor Xavier's Saltmine for the Gifted, and The Fixer is on the "A" team (so to speak) of the facility. (I barely made the "B" team, and that's mostly because the coach felt bad for me... You'll see me at the games, sitting on the bench and drinking water, all suited up and no balls to throw--Ha ha... God I'm so juvenile, I still laugh when I hear the word "balls").

Anyway, I say this because I want you to get an accurate picture of the situation, and as you know, I'm all about characters and imagery. In this case, I was in a perfect position to see the reality of my new situation, because I entered the game so late in the year, when patterns had already been firmly established. I met The Fixer early on, and I recognized him immediately. If you'd been there, and been paying attention (as so few people do) you would've spotted him too. He's the guy that actually does all the stuff to make other people's grandiose ideas happen. Naturally, no one seems to appreciate this until he's not around for a few hours... At this point, generally at least 2 people will, at some point, say to someone else...

"I need __________. Where's The Fixer?"

You know the saying, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone"? Well, it's a cliche for a reason, my friends.

Anyway, I digress. The real point is the comment he made, which will lead me into the second half of my tale.

I will do my best to quote him accurately, but if the statement comes out sounding slightly less profound than you are expecting after all this build up, believe me, the fault is entirely mine and in no way his.

He said (referring to Lockheed/Falcor), "She's the world's smallest therapist. Everyone needs that."

Simply stated, but true on so many levels.

This struck me as being both insightful and wise, and the words have run through my head at odd moments ever since, especially today.

Funny how the simplest truths are so often taken for granted, don't you think?

And here's the real point... The Fixer managed to say in less than 10 words what I am about to say to you with the entire second half of this story.

Perhaps someday I will be as good as that.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Part Two - The Horses

And now here's "the rest of the story" as a famous man once said.

My father is a caretaker for some very nice people who live in our part of the world. For the past three years, a large part of his responsibility has been to look after the care and feeding of two humongous black and white Clydesdales named, of all things, Ben and Bob.

Ben and Bob, for all their size and magesty, are aptly named. The two bonded instantly with my father, who had never been responsible for horses before. Whenever he arrived at the barn, they would come trotting out to him. If he was in their paddock, they would follow him around like two puppies, and he is the only human they would obey or take orders from. When Bob had colic, and the vet was afraid he would die of it, my father stayed up 24 hours a day with him for almost an entire week, laying on the barn floor, and keeping Bob from rolling and endangering himself.

Ben and Bob love my dad, and he loves them.

Imagine if you can two 3,000 lb., stunningly gorgeous and strong... well, puppies.

Over the course of the two years, I became quite close to those two boys also, and that's how this story comes as a result of The Fixer's comment.

You see, the boys left today.

I didn't cry when they got on their horse-trailer, headed for Wyoming... I was strong. I was me.

But after they left, I had a sudden need to go for an extended drive by myself.

I know... I know... You probably don't get it, so I'll explain further, but in order to do so I may have to tell you some things about myself that you haven't heard before... Please, once you've read it, destroy this communication. I don't want any ninjas to see it.

And don't let it ruin your image of me as a kick-ass, tough-as-cold-iron, heartlessly, ruthlessly evil bitch who doesn't need anyone or anything.

I am, and I don't.

So there.

Here's the deal:

Last April I received a tremendous blow. I found out, quite suddenly, that the Saltmine I was working in was going to be closing. I was absolutely devastated, though I think most people thought that I was fine at the time. Of course, they thought this pretty much because I didn't tell anyone.

No, I'm totally serious.

I told almost no one. You see, I own my house, but the property taxes on that house are almost 8,000 dollars per year, and while my parents pay half (they live on the other side of the duplex) they most definitely can not afford to take up the slack if I am without employment. Not to mention all the other assorted bills, etc. that I pay... oil, cell phone, electricity... You get the idea.

I couldn't tell them that I would be jobless.

I just couldn't.

And since I couldn't tell them... I pretty much couldn't tell anyone.

For two and a half months, I went about everywhere with a sense of dread pressing on me like a hand over a screaming mouth. I counted down the paychecks.

I ended by nearly making myself physically ill.

And I was absolutely lost. There was no one I could confide in. As you know... I walk alone.

I'm tough. I'm the one people rely on. I'm the "dependable" one; the one who does what she's told and doesn't complain. I keep a happy face and take care of other people. I blend in with the wall, and when I'm gone people don't really notice much.

I'm just... there.

Most of the time, I'm cool with this... But it can be hard.

I can handle it, but quite frankly... It absolutely sucks to be alone.

And I felt entirely alone, except for the boys.

On most days, when I left for school, I would leave extra early and drop by the barn.

Frequently I stopped in on my way home as well.

Ben and Bob were always happy to see me. I would walk up to their stalls, and they would come out and stand next to me. I could put my arms around their huge necks and just, rest. I told them everything... and I don't give a shit what anyone says about "not anthropomorphizing" animals... I know they listened. Just about the only time I could forget my abject terror was when I had my head pressed to Ben's or Bob's huge shoulder... Feeling their enormous heartbeats under my hands. That was the only time I could let go of control with no fear of being judged, told what to do, offered useless advice, or worst of all... Pitied.

I despise being pitied. I would rather be hated.

I would even rather be ignored completely... And I LOATHE being ignored.

Those two boys have part of my soul, and I gave it willingly.

Of course, considering the size of my small, dark, evil smelling soul... what they gave me was surely far more valuable.

Well... The story has a happy, yet bittersweet ending.

I managed to get another job exactly one week after school ended last year. On the day I was offered the job, I finally told my mother that I had lost my old one because the saltmine was closing... and as I anticipated, she totally lost her shit. Her question of course had merit. She said, "Were you EVER going to tell us?"

My response, "Only if I had to."

I mean really, what would have been the point? There was nothing anyone could, or would, do to help me. So why worry anyone else? I handled it myself, and it came out okay in the end. What more can anyone hope for?

See what I mean about the Lone Wolf thing? Yeah, I thought so.

Naturally... I utterly despised the new job from day one. But I took it, and I smiled, and I said "Thank you." Because it was what I had to do.

Luckily, some benevolent force in the universe finally took pity on me, and now I am working at Xavier's School for the Gifted.

Best. School. Ever.

It totally fucking ROCKS.

And, like the sands through the hourglass...time rolls on.

But today, Ben and Bob left for Wyoming, and a part of me that I can never have back goes with them.

What do I do without my large, sweet, funny smelling "therapists"?

I have no idea.

Good thing I'm so damn tough.

Afterall... The Pirate Queen rides alone, and to show sadness is to show weakness.

Weakness means death and mutiny.

So I smile and laugh.

And when I feel that empty place inside, I will try to fill it with the battle cry I use when I fall upon a ninja with sword and pistol.

And sometimes it will work.

It's the best I've got for now... and I'll take whatever I can get.

Good bye Ben. Good bye Bob. I love you.

Okay, it's time to wrap this sappy shit up before I drive you to an act of violence... Here goes:

If you, like The Fixer, understand the importance of "tiny therapists" my hat is off to you. You are wise, my friend, and I respect you enough to offer you a place on my ship when the inevitable zombie apocalypse threatens to drown us all in a tide of black bile and twitching body parts.

Thanks for everything.

Your loyal and fearless, (yet oddly clueless)

Pirate Queen

Got Family?

2010-06-20T13:12:00.002-04:00

Okay, so the truth is, I did not become a ninja battling pirate queen grammarian superhero without some assistance.

Believe it or not, I have a family.

In fact, I have an enormous family... There is actually a "Warren Family Reunion" today, and there will be over 200 people in attendance. It's crazy. It's in Maine, in a town called Buckfield. Trust me, there is no way I could have made that up on my own.

On my father's side alone I have:

7 uncles
2 aunts
25+ cousins (When I got to 25 I lost count in my head and gave up)

And that's not counting my cousin's children (There are over 12 of them now) or my grandparents and my great-aunts and uncles (Still over 10 of them at last count).

It's truly insane to me. (Which is probably why I live in NH, aka, a safe distance away).

That's not to say that I don't love them all... of course I do... But--25 freaking cousins? You have GOT to be kidding. And of course, lucky, lucky, lucky me... I was the oldest girl, surpassed only by my cousin Brent who managed to pop out of the womb a whole 3 days before I did, that rat bastard. Just kidding, we were total BFFs until he moved to Brockton. (Seriously, who does that)?

Of course, the most important ones to me are Varneta and Cheryl, since I spent my formative years running around in the woods with them, reading "Herself the Elf" and "The Black Cauldron" to them, riding bikes with no breaks while one of them sat on the back, and in general fighting, ignoring, laughing, mentally torturing, and playing dress up with them.

The others? I think most of them thought we were the crazy ones.

Huh. They were probably right about that.

But we made it look good.

Well, hell... At least I know that if I suddenly find myself in a gutter somewhere I can always haul my ass up to Maine, and chances are good that SOMEONE there will have to take me in, regardless of how weird or hopeless they find me to be.

Ahh... Family.

So I Went for a Drive, and Made a New Enemy Without Even Trying Very Hard

2010-06-20T06:01:00.003-04:00

As I begin this tale, it is 5:05am Sunday morning.

All day yesterday I was Jonesing to go for a drive, but I wanted to go at an ungodly hour, so I set my cell phone to go off at 2am, and I attempted to sleep for a few hours...

It didn't take.

By 1:30 I decided the time was right for a moonless drive, so I got dressed, burned a special CD to commemorate the occasion, pounded a Red Bull, opened the sunroof, rolled the windows down, put on the music at MAX VOL and sped out of my driveway.

The night was "lovely, dark and deep." The roads seemed to actually sing to me as I sped in no particular direction. I hadn't a specific destination in mind, so when I got to Concord I thought... Okay, cool.

I drove through the city streets, seeking whom I might devour, and ended by cruising up Loudon Road. I stopped in at Club Seven for a quick soda, and that was when it happened.

Obviously, I had made no secret of my intention to go for a mini road trip, so when my phone rang it wasn't totally unexpected. What was strange was the "Number Unavailable" notification.

Still, I picked up and gave the usual greeting. From there the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello? ... Hello? ...Uh...
Unknown Caller: static--then what sounded like a hiccup.
Me: Hello? Hello? Who is this?

(I'm known for my skill as a conversationalist with good reason as you can already tell).

Unknown Caller: Long silence, punctuated by, well, nothing.
Me: Well, okay, I guess I'll tell you about me then! It's 2:47am and I'm driving around Concord. (Light laugh) Anyone there? Hellooo?

Now this is where it gets weird. I'm just giving you a heads up.

Unknown Caller: (Almost in a whisper) I need help... Please... Oh god, they're coming...

Click. the silence at the end of the empty line was so thick you'd have to dish it out with a ladle and eat it with a fork.

At this point, I was dubious. Could someone possibly have the steel cojones it would take to mess with me?

Somehow, I didn't think so.

So, I resorted to my usual mode of travel when I have no place in particular to go, and no time constraints.

Psychic magnetism.

Oh yeah, I said it.

I never used to believe in anything like this, but it's worked for me so well in the past that I've learned to trust it as a valuable method of finding someone.

It goes something like this:

1. Clear your mind of all distractions.
2. Then, if you are looking for a particular person, try to envision him or her in your mind. SEE them there. Notice what they are wearing, and pay attention to facial expressions.
3. Next, simply drive, walk, rollerblade...
4. DO NOT try to use logic or think about where the person should be. Just simply go.

You would be surprised how often you will find the person you are seeking.

This also works well if you don't try to find a particular person. Eventually, just the right someone will cross your path. Seriously, it's weird I know... But oddly, serendipitous.

Anyway, back to the story part of this story.

I started my engine, turned the music down somewhat, and began to drive. I went back down Loudon Rd, took a left when I got to Main Street and then right on Pleasant St.

That's when I got the second call.

Me: Hello?

Silence

Me: Anybody there? Who are you?

Long pause

Unknown Caller: I keep running, but they just keep finding me. Please---

Me: Who is this? Where are you?

Unknown Caller: (In a whisper so low I could barely make it out) I'm on School Street, I'm on a porch. Please---Will you help me? They're coming.

Okay, now at this point, I feel that I need to interrupt this already someone disruptive story in order to explain something about myself. You see, whilst I was indeed a very odd little girl who grew up (physically at least, not so much mentally) into an even more odd woman, I don't generally pick strange people up at 3am.

In fact, I pretty much never pick anyone up that I don't know. Hell, I don't even pick up people I do know. I mean, when I'm driving, I'm in the f'ing ZONE. You could drive behind me for a couple of miles, flashing your lights and honking your horn and I would be none the wiser. Plus...

I've seen "The Hitcher" and I have no desire to end up skinned and worn by some psycho with mommy issues.

However, this was a special case.

I do not believe in coincidence, and the fact that I felt strangely compelled to follow my instincts meant something to me. So I took a deep breath, and said to the unknown person at the other end of the line,

"I'll be on school street in a minute. I'm driving a Corolla with pink fuzzy dice, and I'll be blaring the song "Driven" by Rush. Look and listen for me."

Unknown Caller: (the faintest whisper of a sigh) Okay.

At this point I was almost to School Street, so I raised the volume back up, and rolled all my windows down completely. I slowed to a cruising speed of about 10mph and kept my eyes open.

Just as I was about to pass a large yellow and green house, a dark figure darted out from under the overhang of its shadowy porch and made swiftly for the passenger side of my car. I unlocked the door and slowed down to crawl.

The person, clearly male, opened the door, jumped in, and yelled over the music, "Quick! We have to get out of here! Please!" I couldn't see much of him except his eyes, and they were desperate. He was dressed head to toe in what looked like dark blue pajamas and a, get this, MASK... Like, Lone Ranger style.

There were a dozen questions I wanted to ask, but they got tangled up in my throat like the shoelaces of a 5 year old just learning to make a double knot.

And then my back window exploded, shooting safety glass everywhere.

I slammed my foot down on the accelerator and drove up the hill as though... well, as though I were being shot at.

You know, it's funny... guns always seem so loud in the movies, but the sound I'd heard before my window exploded only seemed like a large fire-cracker. Of course that might have just been because my music was still blasting... Whatever.

The point is, I got us the hell out of there. I zoomed through a couple four way stops without slowing, then zigged and zagged around side streets until my heart stopped trying to bust out of my ribcage and into the night air.

We traveled in silence the entire time.

I finally stopped the car, hit the radio off button, put my car in park, and said,

"Who the hell ARE you?"

My passenger was silent as the grave.

No, actually, MORE silent than a grave.

He was in fact, gone.

In the seat beside me was... nothing except the detritus that has been building over the past week. Items found amongst the wreckage were: a 2010 yearbook from my school, my wallet, a credit card receipt from Starbucks, and my hat.

The hat was the thing.

You see, the brim was bent the wrong way... as though it had been sat on.

I held it in my shaking hands and just looked at it.

And then, as I smoothed the brim back into shape, I heard a crinkling sound, and a small blue piece of paper dropped out onto my lap. It read:

"Thank you, Pirate Queen. I am in your debt, and if I can ever stop running, I will find an repay your kindness to the best of my meager ability. For now I must go, as you are already in more danger than you can imagine, and I do not wish to have your blood on my hands as well.

Your reluctant debtor,

Shiro Linh"

I put down the note after reading it several times, started the car up, and drove aimlessly for a while. When it started to get light, I saw that I was heading down Rt 77, and I had no idea how I had gotten there.

Nearly an hour ago, I arrived home. It took me a few minutes to get up stairs to my bedroom, as my whole body was sore and achy from all of my muscles being clenched up for so long and the precipitous drop in adrenaline levels.

My back window is gone, I've apparently got yet ANOTHER band of ninjas with a grudge against me on my tail, and I still have some bits of glass in my hair.

Not to mention that the brim of my hat will take weeks to get back into the shape to which I am accustomed.

On the bright side... There's a ninja, or former ninja, out there somewhere who owes me a favor.

Which does leave me wondering... Who is Shiro Linh?

Better yet...

How in the sky blue pink hell did he get my phone number?

It's such a trip being me.

3am On a Tuesday

2010-06-19T20:34:00.002-04:00

... When last I discussed my latest grand adventure with you I happened to be staggering back to my cabin for a few hours of well earned rest in my small but cozy Captain's bunk.

Sadly, my rest was to be short indeed.

*sigh*

No rest for the queen, as per usual.

I was just dropping my lightly clad form into bed, when I heard a commotion from the other end of the ship.

For a few seconds I considered simply lying to myself, and saying that it must just be some of the boys having fun with one another, but two things stopped me.

1. One of our Articles of Piracy addresses the issue of fighting on board ship... It is strictly forbidden on pain of marooning.
2. The sound was coming from the main mast, where I had instructed my men to tie and set guards to keep Mr. Congeniality from escaping until I could question him.

So, swearing quietly, I dropped a loose velvet shirt over my head, grabbed my sword in one hand, and threw open the door, taking off down the passage, and emerging onto deck.

The sight that greeted me was displeasing... in the extreme.

The prisoner was standing with his back to me, holding a pistol that he had doubtless secreted somewhere on his person. He was waving it about and holding off my men with threats of shooting wildly amongst them. In his other hand was a knife, stolen from one of my men in the fray that had doubtless ensued when the crew had discovered him extricating himself from bondage.

Well, granted I was wearing almost nothing, but the advantage for me was that I was behind him, and since I was barefoot I made almost no sound on the deck. Also, being dressed only in black, I was nothing but a quiet shadow lurking behind him. So far most of the men hadn't seen me, and the ones who had were studiously pretending that they hadn't.

Mr. Congeniality, sure that he had the upper hand was moving rapidly to the side of the ship and preparing himself for a leap into the ocean. Patiently awaiting my opportunity, I stalked him like a cat, and when he put the hand holding the knife to the ship's railing, I raised my sword, spun it in my hand, and clubbed him with hilt. He staggered back from the rail, trying to right himself, and looked up at me from his stooped position. His eyes went wide for a moment, and he said,

"Whoa... I had a dream like this once..." And then his eyes crossed, and he sank to the floor, witless.

Clearly, I needed to work on my technique. Either that, or I was going soft. I had intended to hit hard enough to drop him to the deck instantly, but at the last moment I'd pulled back on the blow.

My father would have been so disappointed. Hadn't he always instructed me to "follow through with your swing, Virginia"?

I heaved a last sigh, and said,

"What the hell happened here?" I scowled my blackest look at the shame-faced and mostly inebriated crew members who could manage to meet my gaze. They looked away and muttered imprecations at one another. They looked like nothing so much as a group of shame-faced 8th graders muttering about how they had forgotten to do their homework.

I shouted to the Quartermaster, and in quick words that jabbed like uppercuts, I instructed him to have the prisoner stripped. I would NOT have him pulling even more weapons out of unlikely hiding places to use against the crew or myself. I then told them to secure him with irons this time, and then bring the key to me for safe keeping.

A few of the men sniggered, and one or two actually looked embarrassed.

Seriously? I was disgusted by their cluelessness and prim attitude.

"I assure you gentlemen, I won't go into a case of the vapors and demand my smelling salts. If I can stand to look at him, then what the hell is your problem?"

Not one of them met my gaze. The Quartermaster began barking my orders, and the crew leaped to obey, not wanting to incur my wrath.

I let out a snort, and then stalked back to my cabin, to resume my graceful slumber.

Well, okay, so I'm lying. I'm probably the LEAST graceful and peaceful sleeper on the seven seas. I talk to myself, I move about, I some times wake myself up humming, and yes, I drool.

But still, you get the idea.

It was going to be an interesting day of questioning the prisoner, and I would need my wits about me.

As I sailed over the horizon into the land of dreams, a thought struck me... Mr. Congeniality had been closely guarded by several of my crew... There was no way he could have freed himself without assistance...

Was there a ninja in our midst?

Even in my sleep, a shudder rippled through me... An interesting day indeed.

I Have Evil Thoughts, Or, Why It's So Hard to Be Good in This Big, Bad World

2010-06-18T20:32:00.002-04:00

I tell you what... It's hard to be a ninja-battling, grammarian super hero sometimes. Especially when I have evil thoughts that clearly belong to someone like The Joker as opposed to the pure and innocent thoughts of say... Supergirl.

So here's what happened...

After school I met my friend Papergrrrl for a drink at Club Seven. It was chill, and all was well with the world. We talked of various things... ships, and shoes, and sealing wax, and whether pigs have wings... etc. (10 points to you if you get the reference there).

Well, I wasn't really hungry, having just recently feasted with the superheroes at Xavier's mansion, but Papergrrrl was feeling the need for some red meat, so we went to a local chain watering hole.

About 10 minutes after we got seated, coming from the kitchen I heard the sounds of rhythmic clapping and singing, and I cringed inside.

It was the employees, leaving their fortress of solitude in order to sing a "Happy Happy Birthday" song to some unsuspecting customer. The whole time they did their shtick, I had an overwhelming urge to slide down in my booth seat, and disappear from view under the tablecloth... completely reversing my transition to adulthood.

You see, until I was about 5 years old, I refused to sit anywhere except UNDER the table when my parents took me out with them to a restaurant. Honest. They would order, and when it arrived, I would stick my hand out from under the table, and my mother would pass me the food. It wasn't until my sister was born that I actually began to sit AT the table, and that was mostly because she did fun things that I could watch, like fill some stranger's pocketbook with ketchup-covered, half-eaten french fries. Seriously, totally true story.

But, I digress.

The fact is... I absolutely DETEST it when that whole, song thing happens in any restaurant where I happen to be dining. For some reason that I can't really understand, I feel embarrassment vicariously.

Now, I realize the irony here, since I frequently embarrass both myself and others... But that's totally by MY choice, not someone else's.

Now here's where it gets evil...

When the "blessed event" was over. I sat there for a minute... Thinking.

Apparently, my evil thoughts were evident in my smile, because Papergrrrl said, "What the hell are you thinking about? You look like a super villain concocting an evil plan.

Well, here's my thought...

How hilarious would it be, if I went to a restaurant where they do that sort of on the spot embarrassing song, picked a random person out of the crowd, called the waitress over to my table and said,

"Do you see that guy over there? Yeah, him. Well, I'm his "friend," and I happen to know that it's his birthday today. If I buy him a dessert and a drink, would you bring them to him and sing that song?"

Then, when they did it, more likely than not, the server would tell the guy who sent the cake, and I could totally give a little wave and a wink, and then walk out--a woman of mystery and devious wiles.

Damn, I've always wished I had wiles.

Sadly, all I've got is mousy brown hair and an ugly nose that makes me look like Princess Fiona (ogre version)

Still...

Just the thought made me totally laugh out loud and gave me a little thrill.

Can you imagine?

*sigh*

But of course, I can never allow myself to do such a thing... Just imagine if the poor guy was on a date? Or, even worse... with his wife. Oh Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick... I'd probably end up on the six o'clock news as a shooting victim.

I wonder if that death would be spectacular enough to get me a seat at the cool kid's table in hell?

I tell you... I do not regret for a moment choosing to defend the innocent and down-trodden, or taking the high road...(I really try to do these things, in my bumbling and imperfect way).

But there are times when I really really wish...

I could be BAD.

Oh well, perhaps in my next life I can come back as an arch villain...

I'm already practicing my evil laughter.

Enough Already With All This Happiness

2010-06-16T22:11:00.004-04:00

I was just looking over my recent posts, and I find it to be totally ridiculous that I'm so damn perky all of a sudden.

Happiness and joy is so... NOT me.

So, to that end, I'd like to tell a little story that shows just how twisted and unjust life is.

I do hope you enjoy it so that we can get back to our regularly scheduled bitching, moaning, and complaining.

Here's the deal:

People are always telling me things that I don't want to hear.

It's almost like people look at me and they don't see a person, they see a fucking confessional.

In the Hess station the other day I was purchasing a Red Bull, and I made the rookie mistake of saying a cheery, "Good morning!" to the woman giving me my change.

What the HELL was I thinking.

She made sure to tell me exactly how her day, year, and life was going.

10 minutes later I knew that her daughter was pregnant for the third time, and that she has no idea which of the men she is sleeping with is the father. I had also been informed that this cashier was dating a skin-head who had recently been in an accident on his Harley, but since he was drunk at the time, and he nearly killed the old lady whose car he totaled, not only would the insurance be a problem, but that he had been jailed. She also (in a rather creepy and cheerful manner) informed me that she has some sort of skin condition that is becoming problematic.

Does anyone else have this problem? Or is it just me?

Keep in mind... I had never seen this woman before.

Why in the deep purple hazy hell would she ever think... Hey, this woman I've never met must be just dying to hear about all my problems.

What. Tha. Fuck.

OH, and did I tell you about the time when I worked delivering newspapers? Okay, so maybe there were a bunch of times, but the one that really takes the cake is when a woman I was working with, who I had NEVER SEEN BEFORE, told me and another woman the following charming story:

Crazy Bitch #1: "I'm trying to get my boyfriend back."
Me: Oh? (Thinly disguised disinterest)
Crazy Bitch #2: "Why did you break up?"
Me: (Eye roll. Internal thought, 'Who cares?')
Crazy Bitch #1: "Well, he's 13 years younger than me, but he's (and yes, she really did use this phrase) the captain of my heart!"
Crazy Bitch #2: "How are you going to get him back?"
Crazy Bitch #1: "Well, when he gets out of jail, I'm going to buy him an XBox360."
Crazy Bitch #2: "That's a good idea. I bought my boyfriend one and he really likes it."
Me: (Mentally punching myself in the face for even being with these two morons)
Crazy Bitch #2 continues: "How long is he in for?"
Crazy Bitch #1: "Three years"

Then she turns to me and says...

"Don't worry, Virginia, he didn't kill anyone. He was just accused of raping his sister."

Me: "Uh, okay... Well... uh, I'm going to get a coffee... Okay, bye.

Seriously. I cannot possibly make this crap up.

The worst part of the whole thing?

I saw the look that shot between these two women after they finished talking to me, and the look, roughly translated to English from Moron, made the following statement:

"Isn't it sad that she doesn't know how to communicate? She's not very friendly."

I was not at all sure how to feel about the fact that these two women apparently thought that they were doing me a favor by talking to me.

Seriously? Is this what passes for a conversation? How is it that I don't understand?

I guess I always just assume that most people don't want to hear every gory detail of my personal life. I mean of course I talk to my close friends about stuff that is important, but I would never dream of spilling my deep dark secrets to someone just because that person happened to hand me a 20 dollar bill and ask for 15 dollars on pump six.

Am I the crazy one? Seriously?

And you know what else really sends me over the friggin deep end into screaming insanity?

All of these women were dating.

Again I say,

W. T. FFFFF.

Now, I grant you... I have said before and I'll say it again, I have ABSOLUTELY NO DESIRE to associate with the caliber of male that that these "ladies" find attractive... But still.

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. This is ridiculous.

I have to believe that this is not the norm, because if I ever do start to believe that...

I will voluntarily smear chum all over my naked body, and leap, cheerfully singing "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" into the tank at the Boston Aquarium and sink to the bottom as bubbles flow festively from my mouth and nose.

When the shark attacks me, I will hug that big angry sucker and encourage him to end my misery with as big a bite of my entrails as he can possibly take.

---

And now back to this totally un-natural happiness and good cheer of mine.

Thank you, and good night.

Social Skills for N00bs

2010-06-16T19:42:00.002-04:00

Note: This is something that I wrote back in September when I was still working at the most dreaded of places... the Insane Mountain School for Criminal Youngsters. Thankfully, I no longer have colleagues who are of only slightly higher caliber than the clientele we serviced at that fine establishment of lower learning.

I have since jumped ship for greener pastures, but I thought that you might enjoy this particular rant... And it still makes me laugh out loud.

You know what they say... "It's funny because it's true."

______________________________

Okay, so here's the deal... I have well and truly lost it. Whatever "it" is, it's friggin' GONE; gone like the snows of yester-year.

The other day, I finally got sick and tired of being treated like a complete NOOB and went on a rant.

RANT. All caps. As in, strident yelling. As in, multiple uses of the word F@$K.

Oh yeah. I did it.

Virginia has HAD it.

"IT" is goin' DOWN.

And I would just like to say... When VIRGINIA is the model of politeness and social skills in the group...

You've got friggin' problems.

So, anyway, here are the Goals and Objectives for the class I am currently writing a syllabus for. I want to share them with you, in hopes that even before I begin the noble work of teaching this class, you will begin to have an understanding of how the world operates... Or rather, how it should operate.

I'm just sayin'.

Course Title: Social Skills and Professional Behavior in the Workplace 101
Instructor: Queen Regina Magistra Lepidoptera, PhD.

Course Goals and Objectives: By the time you have completed the semester of instruction you will understand the following concepts and be able to apply them in your daily life. Course work will consist of skits in which appropriate social behavior will be modeled. Your final exam will take place during the last week of the course; at this point you will be randomly observed for a period of not less than 5 hours at your work place, during which you will be graded based on your ability to maintain politeness when dealing with co-workers, clients, and the general public.

1. When someone smiles at you and says a greeting, it is not considered couth to ignore them completely. You should, at minimum, respond with a nod or a repetition of the same greeting. It is not required that you smile while doing so, but it is recommended.

2. Even when communicating over email or a radio, it is still considered appropriate to say "thank you" and "please."

3. It is rude and unprofessional to speak to your co-workers like retarded 5-year-olds, whether from a distance (radio, email, whathaveyou) or in person.

4. When someone does something nice for you, it is best to smile politely, or at least say, "thank you." Ignoring politeness will not make it go away. Or rather, it will eventually go away, but you won't be happy when it does.

5. Do not berate your co-workers in the presence of your clientele. It makes YOU look like a jerk, not the person you are berating.

6. Just so you know... It is NOT all about YOU. Please get over yourself.

7. Helpful Tip: People who feel liked, or at least respected are much more likely to "get your back" when you need it later on. This is definitely something to consider, if you are at all concerned about self-preservation and/or karma.

8. Cardinal Rule of Social Skills: All other rules boil down to this simple request... Please, stop being a complete asshole. Thank you.

Tuition: Free, or a slice of cheesecake.

Thank you, and have a pleasant evening.

On Letting Go...

2010-06-16T18:39:00.002-04:00

Okay, so let's just agree for the next few minutes that perception is reality, just for the sake of argument.

I had a sort of epiphany today.

It was the day after the last day of school. No kids. Everyone kind of walking around, mumbling about getting various reports in, etc.

Generally on a day like today I feel nothing so much as an overwhelming sense of ending and loss... I realize that the year is over, and nothing will be the same ever again.

Today was different.

While I did get brain cramps from sitting in front of a computer screen and filling out end of the year reports and inputting grades, I found myself to be... well... happy.

Not happy that the year was over, but simply happy that I finished what I needed to do. Happy that I could look forward to next year with no particular expectations about what I was going to be teaching, who I might have in my classes, or what curriculum I needed to start working on.

You see, I realized that no matter what happens, all that stuff just ends up taking care of itself. I do whatever it is I need to do, help out in whatever way I can, and generally roll with it.

In life, I'm pretty flexible. (With the notable exception of my hacky sack playing, which sucks phenomenally).

For a long time I've had an overwhelming sense of dread and fear about what was going to happen next (with good reason).

Now, I'm just enjoying it.

What 'it' do I mean?

Well, I mean life of course, silly rabbit.

I am enjoying it, and I refuse to dwell on "should I..." thoughts.

I do what I do, and sometimes it works out.

Some days, I kick ninja ass, and on others I find myself tied up in the trunk of a stranger's car with a dead raccoon, a Japanese guy named Chuck, and a case of kielbasa.

So why fight it?

As Dr. Crazy would say, "It is what it is."

Just sayin'.

Don't Tell Me that Skee-ball is Not a Sport

2010-06-16T06:10:00.003-04:00

...the Skee-ball swooped through the air at the speed of awesome, and clocked Mr. Congeniality right on the head.

I always knew that someday the throwing arm I had developed delivering newspapers would pay off.

He dropped to the floor with a resounding crash, and his pistol fired wildly, slaying a Mrs. Pac-Man machine as it went off. The machine died with a furious whine of protest, and then shot a load of quarters into the night air.

For a moment the entire arcade was furiously silent and still, except for the rest of the machines, which continued to light up, buzz, and send out their cheerful racket into the atmosphere.

And then from somewhere behind me, a child stage-whispered to his mom,

"Mommy, doesn't that lady know that she's supposed to throw those balls into the holes to win tickets?"

The entire place erupted into shouts of laughter.

Another kid came running up to me. He tugged on my arm and said, "That was the best show I've ever seen! Better than the movie even! They mostly just hit people with swords in that one! Want some of my tickets?"

I thanked him graciously, and said that would not be necessary, I had been paid by the people at Funspot already for performing.

He then asked for my autograph.

I signed his t-shirt.

Then I borrowed his cell phone to make a local call.(Oh, and by the way, will someone please explain to me what a 10 year old needs his own cell phone for?) Anyway,

About 15 minutes later, a Hummer and a Tacoma pulled up and double parked in front of the arcade.

I had never been so glad to see my crew mates.

They were a lot of salty knaves who were very offended on my behalf, and after slipping me a cold and refreshing can of Red Bull, they looked about, surveying the damage. My first mate went off at my request to locate a manager and pay for any damages. (What can I say? The last thing I wanted was to get banned from Funspot of all places).

They picked up the trash and tossed it out onto the sidewalk. Naturally, by "trash" I mean the scandalous villains who had chased me.

All except one.

When the Cooper, Henry "Hank" Tisdale, and the Boatswain, "Brisket" Cosgrove grabbed my previous captor and were about to toss him with the others, I stopped them.

Oh no... a short nap on a sidewalk was far too good for him.

It was time for a bit of payback. However, not wanting to fall into the same trap as he, I informed the crew that this knave should be lashed to the mast and guarded carefully.

After we had left Funspot, we returned to The Unvanquished, and the Quartermaster, Lee "Mr. Pol" Pol finalized the watch list.

And then we settled down for an evening of carousing.

Tired and beaten as I was, this went on far longer than I had planned, but when I at last left the crew to their singing and saluting one another with rum, I staggered off to my bunk victorious.

I would look for some answers from Mr. Congeniality in the morning... I wondered if he'd be laughing the next time we spoke.

Somehow...

I thought not.

Do You Know the Pirate Queen?

2010-06-14T20:31:00.003-04:00

As you may or may not know, I taught Journalism for several years... This makes complete sense, since I am easily the nosiest person I know.

In the spirit of Journalism, I wrote up a story that looks at my adventures from an entirely different angle... I hope you'll like it, but if you don't... Well, that's okay too. I'll still love you.

__________________________

______________________

Investigative Report, Submitted by Staff Reporter Harold Moffett to Editor-in-Chief, Erika Swenson of the Sunday Union Monitor, Concord, New Hampshire, 03301, USA

Title: Do You Know the Pirate Queen?

When Sheriff’s deputy, John Norwich (28) of Weare, NH, arrived at the house of one Benjamin Anders Cosgrove (26), he expected to find that Cosgrove’s hysterical neighbor had simply over-reacted. The Concord Sherriff’s office had received a 911 call from a Miss Angela James (56) of Fisk Road. She insisted that she was sure that her neighbor, Cosgrove must be dead, as it had been nearly two months since she had seen movement from his house.

To the deputy’s surprise, instead, he found a note, a last will and testament, and a riddle that leaves him with questions that he may never be able to answer to his satisfaction.

The home on 112 Fisk Road was purchased by Cosgrove in early 2003. Its appearance suggests that Cosgrove took genuine care of both his possessions and the house itself, but it does in fact appear to have been abandoned for some time. The lawn has not been mowed since the beginning of spring, and weeds are growing up in the driveway and between the paving stones of the front walkway. The door, while closed, was not locked. The kitchen table was set for one, and there were the mummified remains of a chicken dinner moldering away on it.

The television was still on, and Cosgrove’s laptop was off, but in sleep mode.

“It all looked as though the guy had just, I don’t know—gone out for a minute and planned to come right back… And then, just… didn’t. It still gives me a cold chill,” said a source close to the investigation. This statement was made after the source emerged from the house, which has been officially ruled not to be a crime scene.

“There doesn’t appear to have been any foul play,” said Sheriff Andrew Eastman, “and there is no proof that anything at all has happened to Mr. Cosgrove. He may simply have gone on vacation without telling anyone.”

According to his neighbor, Ms. James, Ben was a very personable man who lived alone and who had no close relatives. “He always seemed rather shy to me. But whenever I needed help with yard work, he would come over and help me. He was such a nice young man.”

Benjamin worked from a home office as an online writing tutor for a large company based in Florida, and had no pets, friends, or discernable hobbies other than watching television on his flat screen(mostly sci-fi), and playing Mafia Wars and Farmville on Facebook.

To say that his disappearance is strange is simply stating the obvious, but even the authorities have not been able to come up with a plausible explanation of where Cosgrove went.

According to another source, when Deputy Norwich entered the house, he could hear the television, and though the house should have smelled of mildew and rancid food, he smelled nothing except a cool breeze, marked by a tang of salt in the air.

“He swore to me that for a second he felt like he had stepped out of Concord, and onto the Boardwalk of Hampton Beach.”

It should be noted that Concord is approximately 55 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean.

Deputy Norwich declined to comment on the matter, stating that the investigation had been officially closed.

It is a fact that the deputy never reported this mysterious breeze in his write up of the incident at the house, merely telling friends and family.

Still, all questions regarding the competence of our sheriff’s office aside, the riddle remains.

The real question is… Who is this mysterious Pirate Queen?

And what really happened to Benjamin Anders Cosgrove?

We may never know.

*The Text of Benjamin Anders Cosgrove’s final communication is included below, with no omissions, revisions, or additions of any kind. You must draw your own conclusions from its contents.

Harold Moffett

Staff Reporter

The Daily Union Leader –

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

June 14, 2010

From “Brisket” Cosgrove, to Whom it May Concern:

By the time anyone reads this letter, I will be long gone, having sailed off into the sunset to face whatever comes next. Please don’t worry about me; I look forward to this adventure in a way that I have never looked forward to anything else in my life. You see, my story begins (and ultimately ends) like this:

Once upon a time, a little over two weeks ago now, my car broke down in the middle of nowhere, and I was left stranded by the side of the road with 26 dollars in my pocket, no cell service, and a bad case of Poison Oak. One of my Nikes was only hanging on by sheer willpower. I was dressed in gym shorts and a ripped Bruins t-shirt, and I smelled like bug spray, old sweat, and dead leaves.

As you can probably gather from the above, it was not the conclusion of my best day ever.

After walking along the side of a state road in serious need of repair for a few hours, I at last reached a watering hole.

Seriously, it was a literal watering hole, or to be more specific, it was a well. Located in the exact center of a large quadrangle, it was bordered on each side by an old building. On the northern side was an ancient town hall; to the south was a small protestant church. To the east and west were houses that had reached such an extreme state of disrepair that they were barely identifiable as dwellings any longer. Each seemed to be leering at me, like the skulls of mummies, only instead of missing eyes, teeth and noses, they had lost their shingles, windows and doors. Just outside the square was a large green sign, welcoming me to “Scenic and historic Smallborotonville!” However, the condition of the sign made its very presence both disturbing and menacing.

At some point in the distant past, the sign had doubtless been equally as scenic as the town, but now the paint was cracked, chipped, and faded, and the wood from which it was made had been so chewed up by both insects and the weather, that I doubt if it would have continued to stand without the enormous pines growing up around it sheltering it from the breeze. In fact, those same sheltering trees crowded so closely around the sign that it was almost invisible from the road leading to the square.

Suffice to say, I didn’t feel that I had been particularly welcomed to the town. This forbidding place was more like a hidden castle in an enchanted forest, or a dead city in the heart of a jungle.

My hands actually started to sweat a little. Honestly, I wasn’t all that used to adventure. Actually, that’s a lie… I had never been on an adventure in my life, unless you counted getting lost in my back yard once when I was ten. Then, I cried like a baby. And now, here I was, stranded in the middle of nowhere, with no prospects, and apparently, no hope of assistance from any other human beings; I felt an unwilling lump rise in my throat, and I pushed it down as hard as I could.

How was this possible? I couldn’t be more than 10 or 20 miles from I-93 for crying out loud!

Bottom line? I had absolutely no idea where I was, how I had gotten there, or how the hell I would ever get home again. Somewhere along my staggering journey down the side of the road, I had actually begun to wonder if I might die before I saw anything but softwood forests, swamps, enchantingly picturesque abandoned farmhouses, and crumbling stone walls.

Even the center of town appeared to be deserted. In fact, it appeared as though no one had lived in this town since Abraham Lincoln was in middle-school.

Dejected, I approached the well, and pumped the handle several times. Luckily, this at least seemed operational. I suppose you might think that it was foolish of me to simply assume that the water was safe to drink. I mean, who knows what carcasses might have ended up down there in a spring flood or something, but by that time, I didn’t care if there was strychnine and a dead ‘possum in that well. It was wet and cool, and I intended to consume it and bathe my hot face and hands in it.

The water was as refreshing as possible under the circumstances, and I sat down in the grass of the town common in order to contemplate my immediate future.

This depressed me so much, that by the time I noticed approaching footsteps, I had simply given up and lain down on the grass like a deflated balloon. I even began to wonder if I wasn’t in a coma in a hospital somewhere… Did this place even exist? Did I exist?

And then I had the scariest thought ever… Perhaps I had died and gone to… New England?

Better than hell I supposed, though not by much.

And then a shadow landed on me. I looked up in shock, with a gasp of indrawn breath, and an intense full-body shudder. I rolled nimbly to my feet and said, “Oh my god! I thought I was never going to set eyes on another human being as long as I lived!”

Once I stood, I got my first really close look at a local.

To be honest, she wasn’t all that impressive, but I had no burning desire to complain, given that she was the first potential assistance I had seen in what felt like forever.

She was short and sturdily built, with brown hair and merry blue eyes ringed with nearly black pigment toward the outer edge of the irises. Her face was plain, but cheerful, with two small dimples and dark brows and lashes.

On a second perusal she began to really come into focus for me. She was statuesque, and wore black boots with spiky heels, which had sunk just a bit into the turf of the quadrangle. She wore black pants, and a black shirt made of some velvety material that flowed loosely. Her hair rioted in total excess about her round face. She seemed harmless… but also, oddly intimidating. There was something about the aura of confidence that she gave off that freaked me out a little.

She wore no adornments that I could see, save a delicate chain of white gold that held a single diamond, and a tiny charm of silver that was etched with a tiny heart. When she offered me her hand to shake, her shirt opened just a bit at the collar, and I could see the extreme edge of some tattoo on her chest above her right breast. As her body turned I saw that she carried on her hip, a scabbard, currently empty, and a holster in which she kept, not a pistol, but rather a … Multi-tool.

This was already the single strangest encounter I had ever had with anyone, not that I’d had many encounters, as a life-long geek and introvert, I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, and quite frankly, women as a species mystified me more than theoretical math.

I was shaking hands with an actual pirate, who must have some affiliation with Home Depot (considering the multi-tool anyway). Or, rather, I was shaking hands with a strange little woman who was dressed somewhat like a pirate.

This whole day had gone from weird to completely surreal with one handshake.

As we shook, she introduced herself. “Hi there, stranger. I’m called Virginia by those who know my family, Your Majesty by those who my reputation, and Verge by a select few. You look a bit—“

She was too polite to continue, and trailed off, leaving me holding the conversational reigns. It took me a second, but I climbed into the driver’s seat and took my turn at word craft.

I explained both who I was, and how I had arrived in Smallborotonville. Her eyes widened, and she listened to my tale with no hint of skepticism or disbelief whatsoever. When I finished, she looked down at her feet, took a deep breath, and said,

“You better come with me. I’ll help you get back home safely.”

And so she eventually did… Though the story is a long one, full of adventure, fantasy, and both people and creatures that even you would find difficult, if not impossible to believe.

In one day I saw and did things that I had previously thought impossible.

I battled a band of ninjas while a ship’s deck pitched beneath me; I ran through a dark Saltmine as though my life depended on it (which it did); I fought back a beast that took on a human shape made entirely of the muck from the bottom of a small pond.

Somehow, without even knowing it, I had fallen down some sort of rabbit hole in reality as a result of faulty wiring in my car.

It was the most amazing experience of my life, and at the end of the day, I wiped the blood off my cutlass, bowed low before the Queen, and thanked her for saving me from a fate worse than death…

Boredom.

Unfortunately, after returning me to my car approximately 12 hours later, Verge left me there alone, disappearing back into the woods with only a slight jingle of silver buckles. When I got in, my car started with absolutely no hint of its previous condition. Somewhat dazed, I drove back to my silent and empty house just outside of Concord. Fisk road had never seemed so safe and predictable as it did that night.

But I did not forget my adventure, or the charming and (to those who don’t know her well) mostly inconspicuous Pirate Queen with whom I had shared that adventure.

About 3 days later, when I could no longer stop thinking about it, I headed back in the direction of Smallborotonville, in order to see if I could replicate my amazing adventure again. I received a painful blow, as though disappointment were actually a physical weight on my shoulders.

The road I had been stranded on was gone. The entire turn-off had vanished as though it had never existed. Route 149 met met Route 77 innocently enough, but at the crossroads were only three possible choices… The fourth was simply not there.

I pulled over to the side of the road. The tightness in my chest was distinctly un-manly, or so my esteemed father would probably have said… but the thought that perhaps I had just dreamed up the queen’s existence was horribly depressing and I just didn’t care. I punched the steering wheel with both fists and swore obscenities I had never used before in my life. Other than that, there was no sound or movement anywhere around me. I sat in my still and by now hot car for over twenty minutes.

When I had finally collected myself, I restarted my car and began a u-turn that would return me to face my old life, turning my back on my one chance at adventure.

And then I saw it.

There was a brief flash of movement in the trees, and for the barest hint of an instant I saw what looked like a genuine pirate ship, moving silently and totally improbably through the woods, as though sailing through an ocean of leaves and branches.

On the deck of that sloop, there stood the Queen. As the ship rushed past and before it vanished back into the depths of the forest, she tossed something onto the ground beside my car.

When I had recovered myself, I opened the door to see what she had left behind… It was a clear glass bottle, of a kind that hasn’t been made in years, and contained within was a rolled up piece of paper.

I had to use a pen in order to remove the cork, and draw the paper clumsily out through the top. When I read the contents, I smiled, and I doubt that I have done much of anything else since, except perhaps to re-read the letter, and prepare for the journey to come.

This is what the note said:

To My Dear Friend,

Though we have only known each other a short time, I find that I am anxious to have you join with me to fight the forces of evil, which include but are not limited to: standardized testing, ninjas, and other assorted villains.

I think that you would be a valuable ally and friend.

If you would join my crew and I on our quest, simply return to this place during the next full moon. I make this offer knowing full well that you may reject it and me with it.

I will await you there, my friend.

If you do have second thoughts, do not be sad, instead simply remember me fondly, as your affectionate friend and servant,

The Pirate Queen, Virginia of the Salt Mines, Upon the hour of Twilight

I don’t remember the drive home, but I do know that all I thought about was going on line to find out the date of the next full moon. When I discovered that it was still two weeks away, I sobered a bit.

But since that day, I have thought about little else.

Tonight is the full moon, and the Unvanquished will be waiting, with the Queen and her crew on board.

Good bye to whoever may read these lines. I fondly hope that you are able to one day join the Queen on her adventures as well… They might just change your life.

That’s what they did for me.

Signed,

Benjamin “Brisket” Anders Cosgrove

Upon the dawn of Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Attachment: Last Will and Testament

______________________________________________________________________

Writer’s Final Note:

Inasmuch as Benjamin really had very little to leave, his possessions themselves are of little note. However, he did dedicate that all his goods as were found to have merit should be left entirely to fund the higher education of worthy and needy students, and thanks to the value of the house he owned, several potential students may find themselves very fortunate indeed, once seven years have passed and he may legally be declared to be deceased.

–Harold Moffett, Staff Reporter, The Daily Union Monitor

Article Submitted on June 14, 2010

____________________________________________________________

Editor’s Response: Harold, most of the information in this piece can hardly be credited or cited, much less believed. I am, on a personal note, disappointed that with all of your training you would even attempt to pass off such drivel as “news” to the citizens who read our paper.

Consider yourself on warning, and stick to the Korner Cupboard and captioning photos taken for real articles, since you are clearly incapable of writing an investigative article effectively.

–Editor-in-Chief, Erika Swenson, The Daily Union Monitor

Article Summarily Rejected, June 14, 2010

The Shoes Made Me Do It

2010-06-13T19:09:00.002-04:00

So... walking through my house today I found a pair of shoes that I haven't worn in ages. They are kick-ass black patent, with gold buckles gracing the open toes. Best of all? Four inch heels. When I stand in these things, it's like I already rule the whole world (as opposed to only NH, Vermont, and Half of South Dakota).

But they looked so sad. I could feel them staring at me accusingly, as though saying,

"Verge... You don't love us anymore. You never take us ANYWHERE."

I felt so guilty and ashamed. I had totally neglected those magnificent shoes. Surely they were deserving of better treatment from me. Neglect is not pretty, especially when you love someone/something.

So I decided that it was time to rectify this situation.

I got dressed up for a night (or rather, late afternoon) on the town. An hour later, there I was... Hair done, perfume lightly spritzed, pink lipstick applied, little black dress donned, and clad in those badass shoes. I even went the extra step and pulled out my black nylons with the seams that run up the back of the legs. I felt pretty good.

The next question was... Where do I go?

I settled on taking the shoes out to a nice dinner. Shimmying out to my car, I headed to Nonni's. It's an Italian restaurant located on scenic main street of Smallborotonville. It's a pretty decent place, dimly lit, with probably the best food you can get in this rural part of the great state of New Nowhereton. Most importantly of all, they make halfway decent Tiramisu, which I fell totally in lust with when I went to Paris four years ago. (No seriously, I really did go to Paris. Hard to believe, but true).

So when I entered this fine establishment, I sauntered in like a cat, and told the hostess that I would really like to sit at a table near the window, if it wasn't in use or reserved. She looked a bit lost for an instant, and then said,

"Wil you be waiting for someone?"

For a moment I was a bit lost. I could feel my brows draw together in confusion. I replied, "Um, no."

And apparently, she saw something crazy in my eyes, because she backed a step away and said, "Uh, right this way."

After seating me and informing me that my "server" would be right out, she left me in a large booth where I could see the foot and car traffic outside. I crossed my legs, admired my shoes for another moment, and then just enjoyed the atmosphere and sense of freedom. For a few minutes I spaced out, and thought how wonderful it felt to be able to just do whatever I wanted on a Sunday in June.

You see, for a long time I was accustomed to having no freedom at all... a very sheltered childhood turned into an early marriage that doesn't bear dwelling on (Hell, sometimes I even forget that I was once married). So being free, even after several years (seven to be exact), still feels pretty good.

Sometime later a uniformed gentleman appeared and offered to take my order. Once again, I was asked,

"Are you expecting someone? Should I put bring another water?"

Again I was a tad flabbergasted. I mean... was there something wrong with me being there alone? Was this, like, couple's night or something? If so, they really should have put a sign in the window, something like,

"No shirt, no shoes, no DATE, no service."

I sighed. I explained once again that NO, I was not anticipating a date, I simply wanted a really expensive dessert, and I felt like getting dressed up to go get it.

Perhaps I was too forceful. This venerable gentleman flew swiftly away on winged feet.

So there I was, dressed up and feeling good... and it seemed that the world was conspiring to make me feel like crap for being alone.

And then... The gods smiled on me.

In walked my former self.

Okay, so it wasn't actually me... but seriously, this woman could have been me seven years ago. She was young, and the spark of life was still newly minted on her face. But I could also see wear there... And it hurt even my non-existent heart a little bit. She came in with a man, clearly at least ten years older than she. While they waited to be seated, he slung his arm over her shoulders in a posture of ownership that was unmistakeable for anything but the territorial move it was. In fact, I was a little surprised that he didn't just whip out his dick and piss on her. It was pathetic.

He didn't ask for a table. He demanded one. At the top of his voice.

When the hostess turned to lead them to a table, he nearly shoved her out of the way when she didn't move fast enough for him. Once at the table, he didn't wait for his companion, but grabbed a chair as though it had done something to offend him, and dragged it, kicking and screaming, from under the table before he settled it beneath him.

I tried not to stare, but my eyes continued to be drawn toward the pair. After a few minutes, I did look away, and was rewarded with a very clear view of the two reflected in the plate glass of the window I sat by.

I settled down, somewhat uncomfortably, to watch the show.

I'm telling you... From the moment I saw this guy... I recognized him. Well, not HIM specifically, but if the girl was me, then the guy was definitely...

Let's just say, his manner was familiar.

When their server arrived, (this one was an attractive female) he hit on her.

Trust me, I can't make this shit up.

Every time she came to the table, he called her "Sweetheart." Interestingly, he never seemed to use any such endearment when talking to his tablemate. In fact, all through dinner, he didn't speak her name even once. Apparently, she was of such insignificance that she didn't even merit the acknowledgment of a name, let alone any term of affection.

All through their meal, she attempted to make conversation, and she had some charming and amusing things to say. In fact, she even made me laugh a couple of times, but of course, being a seasoned eavesdropper, I quickly turned my giggles into polite coughs, and covered my mouth with my napkin.

Every attempt she made was met with either derision or condescension. When she made fun of the salt and pepper shakers, he made a snarky comment about how it was great to be married to someone who was "so easily amused." When she said that she loved her entree, he snorted and spoke through a mouthful of veal, saying, "Are you kidding? This food is shit." What a fucking charmer he was.

I think he sprayed more food on her than anything else, given how disgustingly he ate.

But saddest of all, at least to me, was that the woman--well, girl, really--seemed so genuinely happy to be out having dinner with this pathetic troll.

Thank goodness I have a social filter... Or I might have walked over and dumped my Diet Coke over his head... and then spat a few lemon seeds in his face for good measure.

However, I did restrain myself.

Well, I lingered over my dinner and my Tiramisu, and calmed my ire by telling myself that this was exactly like watching Jerry Springer, or a car wreck... It's horrible, but you just can't look away.

Eventually I worked my way through a delicious chicken marsala and an equally tempting dish of the beloved dessert. All was right in my tiny little world.

When I got up to leave, it was at almost the same time as the Troll and the Happy Clueless Princess. On my way out the door, I was only a step or so behind them.

Just as they were about to walk out the door, the Happy Clueless Princess said that she needed to use the ladies room, and brushed past me. I slowed so that I wouldn't accidentally step on her. I paused, and then I attempted to exit. Unfortunately the doorway was half blocked by the Troll.

Did I mention that he was a muscle-head? Oh yea. Ladies, watch out! If he was only half as hot as he considered himself to be, he would have been awarded his own television show, probably on the topic of how far one can kick a puppy while wearing steel-toed boots. He made me feel sick inside, as though there was a nest of rabid rats living in my stomach and fighting each other to see who could be first to eat their way out of my intestines. (Try to sleep with that image in your head boys and girls).

As I brushed past him, he glanced down at me. Actually, that's not quite accurate. He actually leered down the front of my dress, which was easy enough given that he was easily a foot taller than me. I was a little afraid that I would have to wipe some of his DNA off my neck, as he seemed in danger of drooling on me.

He cocked a smoldering eyebrow at me and actually said, "Hey baby--lookin' good."

Uhh.. He HAD to be brain-damaged. I mean, really. Ick.

Oh, but that's not the worst. Not by a long shot.

As I looked away and rushed past him, completely unresponsive to his suave line, he "accidentally" lurched a bit closer, and for an instant that will now haunt my nightmares on a regular basis, his hand was actually placed squarely on my black velvet clad ass.

Oh yeah. He did it.

Unbefuckinglievable.

All I could think was, "Oh no you DIDN'T!"

I was shocked and appalled.

Now, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I greatly enjoy the companionship of the opposite sex, and I am no prude. But whilst I would have absolutely no problem having my posterior patted in certain situations... This was NOT one of them.

And under absolutely NO circumstances would he have been my companion of choice.

In fact, if the rest of the human population died in the coming zombie apocalypse, and his were the very last XY chromosomes on the face of this planet, I'd gather my father's Binelli shotgun lovingly to my chest and cheerfully paint the wall with the contents of my skull in a festive and Pollock-esque manner.

For once in my life, I actually responded without over-thinking. Since he felt within his rights to touch my person without permission, I figured that he deserved whatever he got, and I re-paid him by touching him in return.

Of course, by "touching" I mean that I stepped directly on his foot... Four inch heel and all. Sadly, he was wearing (of course) thick boots, so I doubt I did any lasting damage.

He let out a yelp and backed up, muttering, "Friggin' humorless whore."

Which just goes to show... Some people have no sense of humor at all.

"Oops, my bad." I mumbled, and serenely sauntered away, with a swing in my hips and a song in my heart.

As I did, I reflected on a saying that a very close friend of mine often makes whenever I am depressed about the lack of a current love interest of my own...(Thanks DopeHat).

"Verge... It's better to walk alone than to walk in bad company."

That woman is as wise as Yoda, and as kick-ass as, well... Kick Ass.

Lastly,

I looked down at my amazingly kick ass shoes, listened to the jaunty click they made with each step, and I smiled.

It's good to be Queen.

And someday... there will be a King.

I have spoken.

Pirates, and Arcades, and Skee-ball--Oh Wow

2010-06-13T18:02:00.003-04:00

When I finally flopped to the dank sand of the beach, I was completely drained. There was a huge part of me that just wanted to lay there and fall asleep.

I thought, 'If I lay here long enough... The tide will come in and just carry me away.'

It wasn't such a bad thought.

And that was scary as hell.

I mean... It's me! Think of all those lonely little geeks who would miss having me around to spaz out with! And what about the fellow saltminers who share my deeply rooted psychoses? They would be totally bereft! (Then again, they might just forget me completely... I'm so strange that most people pretty much don't even think I'm a real person, just a delusion).

"Suck it up you friggin' sally, get up and put your damn skirt on."

I actually muttered this out loud as a way of psyching myself up... And, as usual, it seemed to work fairly well.

Unfortunately the first time I tried to stand... I got nothin'. I tumbled back down to the sand like a slinky down a staircase, almost landing on a small brown dog that was walking along the beach with his family. His shrill bark, along with the extremely apprehensive stares of the couple trailing along behind him actually succeeded in making me laugh.

'Oh god, those people think I'm drunk!'

At this I laughed even louder. Thus forever and completely driving these particular bystanders away from Hampton Beach. (I've been told that I have "an evil cackle," which makes me a little sad sometimes, since I love to laugh... But then I figure, fuck it!) Of course, come to think of it... All I had eaten in the past day was a few stale biscuits and some rum, so being drunk was not entirely beyond belief.

I did feel a little woozy.

When I had recovered from my hysterical fit of laughter I struggled to my feet. One boot was gone, looking fabulous on the sea floor no doubt. Damn, I really liked that boot. Oh well, as a Buddhist I'm always looking for ways to learn how to let go of things, so I guess a boot was a good enough place to start.

I took off the other one, and my multi-tool fell out. I was ridiculously grateful. I clasped that stupid thing like a five year old with a security blanket for a moment, and then shoved it unto my waistband at the small of my back. (Note to self: Find out what happened to my blankie; and then possibly stop talking to myself... at least out loud... and in public).

Anyway, reaching deeply down into my small, dark soul, I called upon reserves that I wasn't even truly aware that I had; I jogged up the beach and toward bright lights.

I appeared to have landed just below the boardwalk of Hampton Beach. Even thought my sense of time was off, I knew it couldn't be that late.

There were lots of cars driving by, and still quite a few people on the beach. However, I didn't see any help from that direction. Most of those reclining on the sand were teenagers of the Lovebird variety, and they were far more interested in their mating rituals than in helping a bedraggled and waterlogged Pirate Queen.

So I simply staggered up the beach, and aimed myself in the direction of the loudest venue I could find.

I found a doozy.

Oh yeah, the happiest place on earth... Funspot.

God I love arcades. *sigh*

Anyway,

While still working my way up the beach, I had removed my shirt just for a minute in order to squeeze some of the excess sea water out. (Quit leering and/or retching, you perv). I figured, since my current undergarment was a corset, it probably contained more material than the average bikini, so I was safe from allegations of indecent exposure. Still, I continued to drip profusely. No one in the arcade seemed to mind overmuch.

And soon, any possible onlookers had something much more exciting to think about than plain old me, because at just that moment my charming friend and three of his crew came running into the arcade, waving cutlasses, and shouting, "There she is! Don't let her escape!"

Seriously? Seriously?

W. T. F.

Finally, I was able to summon an emotion other than exhaustion or angst.

Standing there... sopping wet... 5'2.5" tall...barefoot... hair hanging crazily around my head...

I was furious. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if I had actually gone through with the operation to replace my tear ducts with lasers, I would have shot blue fire from my eyes.

And then I heard it, one of the most beautiful sounds ever invented in this universe or any other by a benevolent force. It was a low rumble, followed by a wooden clacking.

It was the sound of skee-balls rolling into place.

I didn't even have to think about it twice.

I swooped down on the teenage boy who was about to start tossing those balls, and I shoved him out of the way. I knelt, scooped, turned, and tossed them with all my might, one at a time, directly at my pursuers.

One of the first scummy swabs that came through the door took my first throw right in the chin and went over backwards like a bowling pin.

It was as if my aim that night was blessed by the gods. (And by "the gods" I of course refer to Matsuzaka, Beckett, et. al.)

One after another, the hefty wooden balls left my hand and flew straight to their targets.

It was beautiful, and I felt the righteous fury explode out of hand with every single throw.

I got every one of those knaves... None were left standing. Or so I thought.

I hate it when I get my hopes up, only to have them dashed to the rocks, like a clam dropped by a seagull.

It was that evil, laughing, "normal-looking" bastard.

I had the last ball in my hand when he emerged from behind a Super Mario Kart game, with a sword in one hand and a flint-lock pistol in the other.

And he was smiling. There was a gleam in his eye, and even a hint of a dimple.

Dammit. Why wouldn't he just die already?

(Plus, on a side note, how fair was it that he still looked charming and decently groomed, whilst I was a complete wreck? There is absolutely no god-damned justice in this world).

I cocked my arm back, prayed to Carlos Santana, and let the last projectile fly...

The PQ Escapes... Almost

2010-06-11T22:11:00.002-04:00

So, there I was, stuck in the hold.

As quietly as possibly I suited up, wrapping the rope loosely in a chord over one shoulder after tying the grapnel hook to one end. I stuffed the multi-tool back in my boot, shoved The Catcher in the Rye into my back pocket, rolled up the Playboy into as tight a tube as I could (hey, stop your snickering, n00b), and tossed back a shot of rum by sticking my head under a spigot in the end of one of the casks.

I then took a deep breath and attempted to climb the ladder quietly. It was of stout construction, so this gave me little difficulty. The problem came when I reached the summit of my climb… How was I to open the door without calling attention to myself?

I settled down to wait for the coming darkness.

It felt like I was stuck to that ladder like a fly in amber… and the Jurassic Period was in no hurry to end.
Still, as I have found out for myself in life, if you wait long enough, eventually something good will happen (usually completely by “accident”).

Unfortunately... the "something good" generally happens after you have been buried under a mountain of shit for a few years.

But ANYWAYS...

Darkness dropped over the deck like a squirrel shot from a tree branch (which is to say, rather quickly and with a lot of squeaking). The squeaking was the result of various and sundry implements being worked on as crew members finished their assignments for the day and proceeded to the galley in order to obtain their daily ration of both vittles and pirate grog (AKA rum). Tense and with every muscle in my body clenched like a closed fist, I slowly began to raise the door open enough for the tiniest sliver of the deck to be visible. I saw a few last crew members disappearing from deck, and things seemed quiet enough. I very nearly flung the trap door open right then. (A.D.D. Strikes Again!!) But something I couldn't quite explain led me to be cautious for a few minutes longer.

I was hampered by being able to see only to one side of the trap door. For all I knew there was an enormous quartermaster standing directly behind the door, watching it move and waiting to reorganize my face into new and exciting shapes that would forever make me an outcast in polite society… Um, wait. Correction. It would make me MORE of an outcast in polite society than I had been hitherto.

Continuing very slowly, I raised the trap and ascended another step of the ladder. As of yet, there had been no cries of “Escaped Prisoner!!” or, “Look out below!!” So I was cautiously optimistic.

Naturally, at that very moment, disaster befell me.

Quite suddenly, I began to encounter resistance from the trap. Thinking that there must be something leaning on it from the other side, I pushed a bit harder… The force working against me was equal, and the trap again moved just a bit and then stopped.

I felt a single rivulet of flop sweat trickle down my spine.

The hand that clasped the rolled up magazine with all the naked ladies in it grew damp.

‘Oh great,’ I groaned internally, ‘I’m going to have a stamp of the Playboy bunny on my palm… You are one CLASS ACT, Your majesty.’

I’ll admit it… I broke.

I ended all attempts at subtlety and shoved with all my power against the force holding me down. This unexpectedly worked for a few moments, and the trap rose up and to the side. I then lleaped, as well as I could onto the deck of the ship, dragging the grapnel hook out of the hold as well. I hit the deck with a thump and a muttered curse, and I tried to roll swiftly to my feet without gouging myself on the hook’s several barbs.

As I rose, the trap slammed to the deck, and there was a low sound of laughter from a few feet away.

“Oh Holy Mother of Carlos,” I swore. I recognized that laughter... And I also recognized the faint aroma.

It was him… the very same scoundrel I’d doused earlier. All I could think was that he must’ve been set to guard me. And then it occurred to me that he must’ve been behind the trap the entire time… watching… toying with me… waiting to spring at me like some stupid Jack-in-the-Box. I shuddered inside... What kind of voyeuristic psycho was this guy?

As a wise man once said, "We be f**ked!"

I grew… Perturbed.

And by "perturbed" I mean that I fought off an enormous urge to leave a puddle on the deck of the ship. Psychos, I can handle. Murderous pirate thugs? No problemo. Serial killers? Pu-lease.

But having someone watch me, give me just a tiny ray of hope, and then spring to attack?

Well, that's just downright MEAN.

Clearly... He had to be punished. I graciously took this duty upon myself.

There was more deep laughter, I could actually feel it rumbling in my sternum like the base when you stand close to a speaker at a concert. It was disconcerting as hell.

And so was this guy...Seriously. I mean, I know you're expecting some kind of cross between Al Pacino and an enormous Pro-wrestler a la Triple H or The Rock... But that wasn't him at all. I think the scariest thing was that he looked so... Normal. To be honest, that freaked me out more than anything. He probably stood about 5'8", he had shortish brown hair and an (almost) neatly trimmed goatee. His face was somewhat angular, and he was dressed (again, almost) respectably... (For a pirate anyway).

He was... like... I don't know... Someone I might invite to join my own crew of scurvy knaves if he proved himself to be trustworthy.

And then I realized why I instinctively feared this guy...

1. He appeared normal, even, dare I say... Presentable. (Hell, if I were a normal woman instead of a raging Pirate Queen with a myriad of loyal subjects to protect and an even more vast array of enemies to fight, I might even take him bowling or something... I mean, I'm still a girl after all).
2. He clearly had a gift for intimidation and psychic terror.
3. He was getting a thrill out of besting me.
4. He thought that I was amusing.

DAMMIT! THAT BASTARD!

He was using my own SHTICK against... ME!!

I'M THE ONE PEOPLE ARE SUPPOSED TO UNDERESTIMATE!!

I had only a few good choices here... I had to either: kill him, run like hell, or talk him into joining my side in whatever the coming fight was going to be.

And then he took a swaggering step over the trapdoor and toward me. That decided the matter.

To hell with this pansy-ass whining, Verge.

I'm the freaking QUEEN!

So I charged him, lowering my head and aiming for the middle of his body. I was hoping that I’d manage to knock the wind out of him and leave him gasping on the deck.

The result was both good and bad… I heard the abrupt sound of wind leaving his lungs as my head made contact, and that was good. However, I hadn’t made my move quite quickly enough, and I’d managed to give him just a split second during which I had telegraphed my intention with very easily recognizable body language. In that instant he managed to tighten his stomach muscles just enough to avoid being totally disabled by my move.

Just hoping for a quick escape, I pushed him with both hands and let the momentum carry us both to the deck.

Now that did the trick. I hit him like an amadillo hits the grill of a semi… and I was NOT careful about where my knee happened to end up.

Sadly, he appeared to know how to take a hit. Oh well, you win some… you don’t… win some…

Still, before he could collect himself fully and attempt to slow my escape, I leaped up and ran for the ship’s railing… I intended to be over the side and away with no other crew members the wiser before he, or anyone else could stop me. I could hear him behind me, cursing and rolling to his feet.

With absolutely no thought whatsoever, I turned back, and pegged him with the Playboy just as hard as I could… It was a thick issue, and it hit him right in the face. I sure hoped he enjoyed the full-frontal of Miss June that hit him square in nose.

He wasn’t laughing anymore.

To be honest, the sound that emerged from his (now bruised, I hoped) mouth was more like a howl.

Oh shit.

I focused all my efforts on reaching the ship's rail, put my hand down on it, and threw myself over the side of the tub and into the rolling sea very far below.

As I sank into the briny depths I hoped for either a swift demise, or a kind soul to assist me in my escape. And I swam like a dolphin.

When I broke the surface just moments later, I heard the sound of yelling behind and above me, and I heard the clank and clatter of a small boat being lowered down the side of the ship.

And a splash, as someone landed in the water behind me.

The next words I heard would have chilled me to the bone if I hadn't already been as cold as a glacier in Antarctica...

The voice carried across the water with no hint of fear, surprise, or even malice.

He said,

"Don't make me come after you."

I actually considered just... sinking into the depths.

But then the moon emerged from behind a cloud... and I struck out for shore as silently as I could manage...

And I prayed for a shark to eat my pursuer.

So...About Being Captured...Yeaaah

2010-06-09T18:35:00.003-04:00

Well, I believe that I began telling you about a sparkling experience that I had when I was recently captured by some of my own kind. Naturally, being the evil wench that I am... I totally left you hanging.

I'd say I'm sorry, but it would be a total lie.

So anyway, there I was, bound in tight cording and lying on the floor of the ship's hold.

Some scurvy scoundrel had just attempted to water me like a horse at a trough and I showed my gratitude by spraying him in the face with a mouthful of the rancid stuff.

And he laughed.

Strangely, I anticipated something other than humor as a response, but what the hell did I know? I mean, seriously, my frigging head was still pounding from a blow to the head.

Anyway, when he finished his laughter with a good-natured snort, he knelt down again and said, "Happy? Shall we try this again, or do I leave you in the dark for a few more hours to think it over?"

His insistence on being friendly totally pissed me off.

I growled.

Though I still couldn't make out any specific features, I could see the outline of his head, and he shook it slowly to show his disappointment. The light coming from outside caught the curve of a hoop earring, and it momentarily blinded me.

I blinked, and then said in a slightly raspy voice, "Umm... Cliche much?"

He put his hands on his knees and pushed to his feet, saying "You'll come to your senses eventually Queenie... Or if not... There are some big rats down here..." And then proceeded to climb the ladder out like a monkey, thunking the trap door closed.

I listened closely. No sound of chains. No click of a key turning in a lock.

Best. News. Ever.

For a few moments, I simply lay still in an attempt to scan my body for any other signs of abuse, but other than the enormous pain in my throbbing head, I didn't feel particularly misused. Though of course, I was tied like a mummy. It was humiliating... and whoever had tied the knots hadn't been some pathetic landlubber, he or she had known exactly what they were doing.

Fiddle-dee-dee Batman.

They were pretty good... But as you of all people well know...

I'm better.

It was "the work of a moment" to extricate myself from bondage (Thank Carlos I always have that multi-tool stowed away in my boot for just such emergencies).

Soon I was rummaging through the supplies in the hold, and this is what I found:

-Lots of rope
-A grapnel hook
-3 stale biscuts
-Lots of barrels of rum
-A copy of The Catcher in the Rye
-A box of pirated (ha ha) DVDs
-A waterlogged June 1998 Playboy magazine

Well... it wasn't exactly an arsenal... But I had recovered my faith in myself, and I knew that I would make good my escape ASAP.

And although I didn't know exactly what time it was, I could tell that the light coming from the seal around the trapdoor was definitely weaker... all it would take was some guts and a little bit of good luck.

With a prayer that karma would be on my side in the coming battle, I geared up and prepared myself.

Let's see how it turns out, shall we?

A Pirate Queen Missive to "The Quiet Ones"

2010-06-08T20:07:00.001-04:00

It has been recently brought to my attention, that when I was myself but a wee kidlet, I was oppressed.

I don't mean by Tha Man, or by The System, or anything else... Nope. I was oppressed by good, old-fashioned love, with the best of intentions. Don't worry, this is not an anti-family diatribe. I love my family. I would not trade them under any circumstances.

However, I was most definitely oppressed.

Now on to the good stuff.

Here's what... I recently saw an old teacher of mine. She recognized me immediately, and we had a short conversation. When I mentioned that I was a bit surprised that she remembered me, she said,

"Oh, I think most teachers remember the quiet ones, especially when the other kids in class were absolute horrors on a daily basis."

Well... I think this pretty much sums it up.

Unfortunately, us "Quiet Ones" rarely get the recognition we deserve. The glory, and sadly, most of the attention seems to be dedicated to either the Superstars, or the Psychos.

That is so totally unfair. Seriously.

And frankly, it pisses me off.

To that end, I would like to dedicate this small missive to "the Quiet Ones."

Dear Students:

You, ladies and gentlemen, are the backbone of every teacher's life. You are the ones who get us through the days when we are positive that no one is listening, that everyone wants us to die horrible screaming deaths, and that all the kids we work with are determined to make us look foolish and show us up as clueless half-wits who shouldn't even be allowed to collect a check.

You know who you are. You sit in the back of the room. Usually, you have no desire to be there. Still, when I ask you for your homework, or I tell you to get started, you quietly follow directions, and try to give me what I ask for.

In every class, in every year, there are a few of you. You know who you are. You're the one who just wants to get the job done and get the hell out of school. You are the one who is dying NOT to be noticed by the teacher, let alone called on. You are the one who dodges insults in the hall and dreads every single syllable that is forced past your stammering lips. You smile, or don't, and just try to get by.

I want you to know this.

I remember you.

When you were in my classroom, I saw that you liked to read, and I loaded you down with every book I could find. I looked forward to having the chance to talk about those books with you when you came in early or were the last person out of the classroom. I admired you for all the talent that I could see and you could not. I got pissed off on your behalf when other kids either acted like you weren't there, or gave you even a minuscule hard time. I came up with lessons and projects that I was pretty sure that you would like, and I organized my classroom so that you didn't have to have attention called to you unless you wanted it. I have tried to find things to joke about with you, and you alone, so that you would know that someone knew you were there, and someone who was part of the system cared about you. Seeing you when you were happy or we had a good chat, even if it was quick, totally made my day; and when you were sad, depressed, or angry, I worried about you on my drive home.

I have tried to make myself look like an absolute n00b as often as possible, in order to give you a reason to smile, and to keep coming back to my class. I hung around after school in order to participate, organize, or just watch your activities. I thought you were so freaking cool... and I wished everyone else could see it too.

And I knew, one day, no matter how far away... They WOULD see it.

Greatness already had a foothold in your soul.

And I remember your victories.

I saw you grow and change, from someone who wouldn't say anything, to someone with something important and special to say. I saw you gradually shed fear like a butterfly sheds its cocoon.

I am very, very proud of you.

I hope you go on to live your dream, and I hope that you will look back on me fondly as someone who made school just a little less awful. I hope you felt that I was someone you could trust, or at least not hate.

I hope I wasn't one of the people who ever hurt or disappointed you.

If I was, please, please take pity on me and try to forgive me. I know that I really am a clueless half-wit at times, but I will keep doing my best. For you, and in your honor.

I think you are so freaking awesome and amazing that there really are no words.

But the most important thing for you to know is... I admire your courage. You are one tough human being. It was, and is, so hard to be you. But you are a true survivor. When you were in school, everyone else had control over what you could say and do... But you made it.

You.

I just hope that you know how I feel.

I would give you a kidney if you asked. Hell, I'd give you both.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Sincerely,

The Pirate Queen

The Pirate Queen Learns Humility

2010-06-07T22:28:00.002-04:00

People are always telling me... "Wow, you have some great stories, you should write a book."

Well, easy for them to say; most of them don't have 3 jobs.

But still, here's a story that I don't usually tell. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. It's deeply important to me.
2. I'm kind of a jerk in it.
3. It means more to me than I can possibly say.

Yeah, I know. I mean, sure, I'm all about kicking ass and taking names, but generally my violent crimes, whether physical, emotional, or verbal, are focused upon the deserving... In this case,

Not so much.

Anyway, if you haven't already turned your brain off... Here it goes.

Once upon a time there was a young Saltminer. She was only in her second year of teaching, and she had even more to learn then than she does now.

She was working in a small outpost in a hot building, toiling daily with some of the worst dregs of the dysfunctional system we here call "education." She was what was called a "Behavioral Program Director." This means that any kid who was a problem, any kid who pissed off a teacher or just hated school was sent to her. She did not have a clue how to help half of them.

She was 22 years old.

She was still quite idealistic and hard-working, but perhaps she should have been just a bit more humble... after all, she was at least 5 years away from being the ass-busting Pirate Queen she would one day become.

Then again, perhaps she never would have become that very person without this particular experience.

One day, into her quiet and lonely classroom tromped a very angry young inmate. Although only 15 years old, he was nearly 6 feet tall, looked like Vin Diesel (haircut and all), and had numerous cuts and abrasions all over his visible form. Most notably, each of his knuckles was the size of a very large marble. The look on his face didn't just scream anger... It also bespoke a world-weariness I hadn't seen on some 40 year olds.

I welcomed him effusively into the program, and told him all about what he would be required to do, as well as the myriad ways that I could potentially help him to fulfill his educational potential.

At which point, I simply stopped talking. During this entire recitation, he had remained stoically silent.

Our eyes met.

And the staring commenced.

For the next 37 minutes, neither of us said a thing.

Not one single word.

It was eerie.

When the bell rang, he pushed back his chair, and walked out of the room to the tune of me cheerfully stating, "See you tomorrow, Aidan!"

He stopped for a second, and seemed to shake his head. Shocked that I apparently hadn't been fazed by his complete failure to communicate with me.

After he left I went to my desk, took a slightly shaky sip of cold coffee, and laughed an equally shaky laugh.

I was positive I would never see him again.

I was wrong... and thank goodness for that, otherwise this story would be an even bigger dud than it appears to be.

The next day, Aidan once again appeared in my room. He stood in the doorway, seemingly afraid to cross the threshold until I once again welcomed him with a thundering, "Hi there!"

He stepped through, sat down, and again said nothing.

Sensing that this could go on forever, I grabbed a folder which contained some of his assignments, and said, "Hey, let's go next door."

I don't know where this inspiration came from, but it proved to be one of my best choices ever. Once we were in the room next door (a small cluttered office instead of a large brightly lit classroom) he actually started talking to me... of his own volition. I learned that he was a skater and cyclist, that he generally got beaten to shit by his feats of daring, and that he had three brothers he was responsible for. This last fact is particularly ironic, since he was the youngest of the four. I have met the others... and even at 15 he surpassed all of them in both drive and intellect. I gave him a slip to sign so that he could be in my "Anger Management" class. (Oh, and don't think that I don't appreciate the supreme ridiculousness of ME teaching a class like that).

He then informed me that it probably wouldn't get signed unless he himself did the signing. When I asked why, he very frankly told me that his father was illiterate, and he had no idea where his mother was or who she might be shacking up with.

I gave him a pen and said, "Meet me next door when the slip has been signed."

30 seconds later he was in my room, the slip was stowed in the appropriate folder, we talked a bit more about extreme sports, the bell rang, and he was gone.

Thus began a year long journey for me and Aidan. Though we did have several rough patches, he would always show up in my room, and in pure self defense, we bonded. He told me once with complete honesty and lack of any form of sucking up that I was the only teacher that he had ever trusted.

By the end of that year, he had been kicked out of almost every class he was enrolled in. Of course, in their infinite wisdom, the school had him transferred to me. Oh yes friends and neighbors, I was now basically the sole responsible party in charge of this angry young man's education. (Me, the shop teacher, and the PE teacher... Those were the only two classes he was still actually attending).

One 20-something year, celebrated and venerable veteran of the Saltmine (who to this day is still lauded as being the "best" teacher who ever worked at the Saltmine) told me in these exact words that he would no longer be teaching this young man:

"He's a hoodlum. I won't have him in my classroom. He's your problem now. Good-fucking-luck."

All I could think was, 'What a self important ass-face.'

For the most part, Aidan was fine with this situation. He told me several times, very clearly, that school was not important to him in any way, and that I was one of the only people there that he didn't consider to be a complete asshole.

And so it went.

I was able to work with him, and ultimately he passed social studies, English, and science. He also got a half a credit for Spanish. (Yes, I was teaching him that as well... Just imagine).

But the greatest struggle by far... was math.

Oh yeah. Me. Teaching math.

But, regardless... he and I began making slow progress.

Some time around March, I actually got him to take home some math work to complete. I was confident not only that he could do it, but that he would do it.

Naturally... Pride goeth before the fall, as the poet once said.

The next day, he came into school, back pack in hand. I greeted him at the door, just as happy as a stupid little lark, and asked how he had fared with his homework.

He stared straight through me and calmly said,

"I didn't do it."

There was a long moment of silence in which I could practically feel the world revolving under my feet.

And then came the disappointment.

It was closely followed by a white hot rage so intense that I could feel my whole body shaking. I mentally punched myself in the face. What the hell had I been thinking? What the hell had I been wasting my time for?

There was a moment at which I nearly chose to simply put my head down on my desk and sob.

Worthless.

I should have been a tire sales person. Fuck teaching.

Instead, I said, "Let's go out in the hall." (That was probably the one and only good decision I made for the next 10 minute span, as there were several other students in my room at the time).

I stalked out the door, and stood in an alcove next to the ancient saltmine elevator. I waited there for him to follow, which he did... very, very slowly.

Once he was standing within a few feet of me, I let go of my fury.

Generally, on the few occasions when I am truly pissed off and say so, I almost always completely forget what I say. This is, in fact, one reason why I control my temper so very tightly. Part of me lives in fear of truly wounding anyone with my words. However, on this occasion I remember with crystalline clarity the words I spoke. I said,

"You didn't do it. Umm... I realize that all of this is probably just a joke to you, but we both worked really hard, and you have learned a lot. You told me that you would finish that work, and like a complete moron, I trusted you. Tell me, Aidan... Should I even be bothering? Am I just wasting my time? Because if I am, please say so now."

Eternally long pause.

At this point I was nearly speechless with fury. But I finally ended with the following gem of ineptitude: "Can you at least explain why you didn't just finish? I know that you could have. Why didn't you just do it at home like I asked? Why?"

At this point, I had finally simmered down enough to actually look at Aidan. Up until then I had been furiously staring at the elevator doors, the floor, the wall... anything but him. I was so pissed, I couldn't even look at him. I very nearly hated him... but I hated myself more for actually believing that I was helping him.

But when I finally did look, this is what I saw. Here was this enormous kid who looked older than I did, shaved head and all. His shoulders were slumped; he was staring at the floor, and his fists were, for once, unclenched, and just hanging by his sides as though they weren't even attached to his body. He looked exactly the way I felt.

Completely and utterly defeated.

Finally, as I stared at him he raised his head. His eyes met mine for the barest instant, and he whispered something in a hoarse voice that I couldn't understand. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery.

"What?" I said in a somewhat louder voice than usual, in an attempt to re-summon my anger. That one quick glance, as short as it had been, had hit me like a punch in the kidney.

There was a shorter pause, and in a slightly louder voice he said,

"Because you're not there when I go home."

This time I really was stunned speechless. Plus, I was afraid I would actually start crying... Which is something I never do in front of anyone. Ever.

I looked him in the eye again, said, "Grab your jacket. We're going for a walk."

For the rest of the period we did nothing except circle the outside of the school building. After an initial 10 minutes of silence, he finally began talking.

I didn't say much.

In fact I said nothing. I only nodded a few times.

What I learned was that when he arrived home, he started doing the homework. Not long afterward, his father returned from "work" (AKA drinking with his friends). When he saw Aidan at the table working, he began to laugh, and said, "What the fuck are YOU doing?"

When Aidan explained that he was doing math homework, his father responded with this brilliant quip, "What the fuck are you wasting your time on that for? You're just as stupid as a rock! It don't matter what you do, you'll always be a loser."

And of course, he proceeded to kick the chair Aidan was sitting in, nearly knocking it to the floor.

I had absolutely no idea how to respond to this information.

None.

Nothing they teach you in "teacher school" can ever prepare you for that.

Instead, when the bell rang we went back to my classroom, he took out his math homework, finished it, and asked me if I would take it to the teacher for him.

I did.

We never spoke of the incident again, I never asked him to take his work home again, and he continued to come to my room 4 out of seven periods every day.

He passed math. With a D-.

On the last day of school that year, I told him that I was prouder of him that I could ever be of anyone if I lived to be 1,000 years old. He shrugged in a very embarrassed way and walked out of my room, only saying, "See you next year."

Later that day, as the bell rang for the end of school, I happened to see Aidan with one of his friends in the hallway. When I passed him, we high-fived wordlessly, and I kept walking the other way. My aide, who was walking just behind me in the hall informed me of the following interchange between Aidan and his friend "Chris."

Chris: "Who the hell was that? Is she a teacher here?"
Aidan: "She's the only real teacher in this school."

When we got back to my room, the aide shared this overheard bit of conversation with me.

I immediately left my room and went to the 2nd floor girls bathroom.

I calmly went inside, closed myself in a stall, and cried.

I Sense a Disturbance in the Force...

2010-06-07T18:47:00.004-04:00

So there I was, just quietly minding my own business, when out of the blue I was ambushed by several scurvy knaves.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Imagine, ME, taken prisoner by my own kind...

It all started innocently enough (as most good tales do). I was simply walking along the beach, wind in my hair and a song in my heart. Quite unexpectedly I heard from behind me the sound of several footfalls. I was just turning when the blow fell, taking me square on the back of the head, and then a sound of laughter.

When I awoke some time later, I had been unceremoniously (or so I assume) dumped in the hold of some smelly tub.

Okay, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration... The hold was actually fairly nice. There were casks and boxes stacked in orderly rows, and in the middle was your very own Pirate Queen, trussed up from stem to stern like the proverbial Christmas Pizza... Uh, simile failure, but still... you get the idea, right?

I could hear little except the drumming of my heart. The ship swayed around me, and the back of my head ached with a deep down anguish, like a bruised heart. Before I could even register the first waves of nausea as the real pain sunk in, I heard the clunk of the trap door above me rattle, and a beam of cruelest sunlight land on my upturned face. I could see little though my discomfort except a man sized shadow descending down the ladder into the hold.

I tried for anger... I tried for fury... but all I could summon on such short notice was a vague feeling of disgruntlement and a simmering irritation.

With a thump I could feel in my entire body, but most especially in my amigdala, the scoundrel's boots landed on the floor beside my head with a resounding crash. (Then again, perhaps it simply felt like one).

Moments later the dark form was completely blocking the light as it hovered above me, and though my agony I felt a hand go around to the back of my head, lifting me somewhat as a cup was lowered to my lips.

Thirsty as I was, very little of the precious liquid ever made it to my dusty throat, and what little succeeded merely made me more nauseated.

Polite and sweet as ever, I responded to this treatment in true pirate fashion, by slugging up a mouthful and then spitting it in the general direction of my "nurse" who by the way smelled of rum, sweat, and salt air.

How did this ministering angel respond?

He laughed at me.

Seriously? Seriously?

Why does it seem as though so many of my adventures begin in just this way?

Coincidence?

I think not.

The Greatest Job Ever!

2010-06-06T21:10:00.002-04:00

So yeah, there I was, stuck in Hell.

What do I mean by hell? Well of course I'm referring to the 10 items or less line at Shaw's.

Anyway, there were like, 16 little old ladies in front of me, paying for their purchases with coupons and checks. There was no where for me to go.

I was completely screwed--trapped--essentia

lly paying for most of my past life mistakes on a Saturday afternoon in June.

And naturally, the little old lady in front of me chose the moment when I was in the deepest depths of despair, pressing on an eyebrow twitch, to turn around and start talking to me.

Surprisingly, despite all my attempts to overcome it, I have a streak of natural politeness that just won't go away; so, short of stapling a "Please Don't Talk to Me" sign on my forehead, I have no way of avoiding the seemingly limitless numbers of people who want to talk to me. I mean, I know I'm nothing special to look at, so how do I end up having all these people want to talk to me? Do I look interesting? Or perhaps it's my very ordinary-ness... I have no clue.

Naturally, after a close examination of the items I was hoisting in my arms, she started with the basics.

"My my, those are a lot of school supplies. Are you taking a class?"

"Oh no, they're for my job."

"Really? What do you do?"

"I'm a teacher."

"Oh my goodness! What do you teach?"

"High and Middle School English."

At this point she stuttered a bit... The idea of me molding impressionable minds seems to have this effect on quite a few people actually. Go figure.

"Well dear, I would not have guessed that you were old enough to be a teacher."

Uh... at this point, I stuttered a bit myself. Seriously? Seriously? I mean, I like to think that I don't look SUPER old or anything... But the day is long past when anyone would have mistaken me for a high schooler... Hell, when I was IN high school most people thought I looked like a college student... No idea why.

She then hit me with the inevitable follow up comment:

"Well, I just don't know how you can do that. God bless you, honey."

At this point, I was dismissed from her mind as if I had never been there.

Which leads to my inevitable point...

Why DO I teach?

Well, in the spirit of the 10 items or less aisle, which began this random rant... I'll give you ten reasons.

10.) Kids will say whatever they are thinking... and since I do that as well, I seem to fit right in with them.

9.) I get to essentially tell stories, laugh, and play games all day. (AND I get PAID for it! SCORE!!!)

8.) I am not materialistic, so I'm not anxious to have a house or Maui or a Ferrari. Teacher pay works for me. Plus, I do love to shop for school supplies... Sick, I know.

7.) In what other job can you take off with kids for a day at the beach, and have it be totally legit? Umm... try... none, that I can think of.

6.) I love that moment when you are explaining/discussing something with a kid, and s/he "gets it." That totally rocks.

5.) I hated every minute of high school, with a few notable exceptions... Most notably, some very good teachers who I became friends with. When I took on this job my greatest hope was that I could do for a few kids what those teachers did for me... Basically, to give them a reason not to throw themselves down a set of stairs or drown themselves in a locker room toilet.

4.) I love to tell stories... Remember the one about how Kevin Dame has a glass eye? Yeah, that one was all mine BABY!

3.) I get a total thrill out of screwing with kids. Seriously... This is really the only reason to become a teacher and stick with it. It's at number three here, but if I had to choose, it would be the one and only reason. I know that some people just won't understand what I mean here, just trust me, I'm not talking about being mean or anything, I just love to mess with teenagers, and they really get a kick out of it.

2.) As much as I generally just want everyone to shut up and stop talking to me, ironically, I rarely get tired of conversing with teenagers... They do absolutely everything in their power to ensure that I never get too impressed with myself... Especially when they say things like this to me: (NOTE: This is a conversation that actually took place in one of my middle school classes last week with a student I will call "Short Stuff/Monkey Boy")

Short Stuff: I think _____________ needs a boyfriend, don't you?
Me: I have no idea; can we please change the subject?
Short Stuff: I think you need a boyfriend too.
Me: Uh... O-kay?
Monkey Boy: Do you already have a boyfriend?

(Now realizing that this has been the point of the entire discussion, I give up and figure if I answer his question we might be able to get back to the book we are reading/discussing. Basically, I caved.)

Me: (Sigh). No, Monkey Boy, I do not have a boyfriend, and PS, that's really none of your business, is it?

(pause--crickets chirp in the background)

Monkey Boy: Have you EVER had a boyfriend?
Me: ARGH!!! Yes, yes I have!! Can we get back to work now?
Monkey Boy: Sure. But I think you definitely need to find a boyfriend.

At which point we are finally able to finish discussing Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key.

And last of all...

1.) Knowing that I am attempting, although in a very small way, to help people and hopefully make the world a better and kinder place, helps me sleep at night. I work hard, and I try my best, and sometimes it works out.

This is the best job ever.

Life is Funny and Strange

2010-06-06T19:36:00.003-04:00

So... There I was, google-lurking... and I found something that I most definitely did NOT want to see. I found the name and picture of one of the formative people in my life.

This person was without a residence. In fact, the address given for this person was "Concord, NH, - Tent - Homeless." He looked like he had aged 15 years since the last time I saw him.

Sometimes it seriously freaks me out just how much things can change.

I mean seriously... Five years ago I never would have seen myself where I am now, and I'm enjoying my life of piracy more than ever... but this guy... whoa.

On the bad side... I feel horrible for this former swashbuckler, and I wish things had turned out better for him, regardless of the fact that he once pulled out three of my fingernails, and stabbed me in the chest with a crude dagger.

On the up side... He doesn't know where I live.

Just sayin'.

Trust me... If you knew the details of the situation, you would realize that I'm not a completely heartless bitch.

Then again, If you knew me at all... you'd have no doubt that I am, in fact, a completely heartless bitch.

It's a Minty, Minty, Minty World Once Again! Or, How I Discovered That There are Still Superheroes Among Us

2008-10-15T15:36:00.008-04:00

Alright, alright... I know I said this was a four part story, but what can I say? Plans change.

Deal. The story will be concluded soon (possibly tomorrow). For now, this will have to do...

_________________________________________

Yes. I did this to myself... It was all a result of hubris. I underestimated the devious character of Monsieur Redneck and I paid the price.

Now it was time to pick up the pieces as best I could, so that I could live to fight the forces of darkness, entropy and standardized testing another day.

So I pulled myself together and did a mental once-over... My hands were bound behind me. The ropes chafed, but they weren't cutting off the circulation to my hands. My head pounded as though I were being hit in the head with a small, golden hammer. My feet were numb, the ropes there having been tied much tighter.

Still, the biggest problem facing me, was, quite literally, facing me.

Damn I hate spiders.

Yes, I'm a Buddhist.

Yes, I go out of my way not to kill them anymore.

That doesn't change the fact that their hairy, icky, bloated bodies and their evil eyes fill me with "a nameless dread," as the saying goes.

Task number one: Escape the spider.

After that, all other tasks would seem as enjoyable as that first cold, sweet spoonful of mint chocolate heaven.

Concentrating violently, I strove to ignore the pain in my head. Yes, I accepted that it was a pain I actually deserved in recompense for my stupidity of the previous day. Still, it was hard to ignore. I pushed past it and pictured the blood flowing back into my poor feet. After what seemed like forever, I started to feel that painful tickle that means circulation has been restored (Mother of Carlos, I love the power of my mind).

As soon as this occurred, I slowly moved my legs forward until they were touching the wall, and with a considerable amount of heavy breathing, pushed myself as far away from the wall and the dreadful arachnid as I was capable of maneuvering. Granted, it wasn't a perfect plan, but the farther I was away from that beast's baleful stare, the more clearly I would be able to think.

After what seemed like an eternity in a dentist's waiting room, but was in reality probably only 10 minutes or so, I felt that I was relatively safe. Yes, the horrible thing was still on the wall, but I could see him and I figured he wasn't close enough to leap off, land on my face and bite me on the eyeball... So I began to work loose the bonds on my wrists. I wasn't having much luck when I heard approaching footsteps on the ground outside the shed.

I stilled immediately, slumping as bonelessly as I could to the floor of my hovel. I hoped that when my captor came in I could successfully pretend to be asleep.

For the first time in what feels like a hell of a long stretch, luck was with me.

The door creaked open and one of Monsieur Redneck's two sheep-faced companions entered, carrying something. The something reeked like 3 day old sushi, and Sheep Boy #1 didn't smell a whole lot better. Even though my stomach was desperate for sustenance, it did a rolling leap through a spinning black hole at the smell now filling the cabin.

Sheep-Boy#1 took a quick step in my direction, leaned forward to examine me (presumably for signs of life), and then set down the bucket he carried with a thump. There was a second thump as something smaller hit the floor, probably a spoon.

Then, for about a minute, he just stood next to me. He didn't move. He didn't say anything.

I couldn't even hear him breathe. (Which was a miracle, because I'd identified him just the previous day as a definite mouth-breather).

Then, suddenly, as though he'd finally come to a decision about something and wasn't going to waste any more time, he got down on one knee and pulled on my shoulder to roll me over on to my face. I felt him pull my arms up, almost out of their sockets, and with a quick jerk (presumably from a knife) my hands were free falling to the floor.

Getting up to his feet with a small grunt, he walked out of the hut and closed the door. I heard a metallic sound that must have been a padlock snapping shut and then his receding footsteps. I strained to hear anything else, but all I could hear was the muffled sound of birds and the drone of a twin engine plane taking off from somewhere. This last was good news, as it meant that I was probably in Deering, relatively close to home.

I slowly stretched, checking to make sure that all parts were operating to regulation specifications, and then pushed myself up from the floor and onto my knees. I checked the bindings on my ankles and discovered that they were some kind of fancy looking plastic doohickey's that could be tricky to get out of... still, I could move my arms, so there was hope on the horizon...

It was then that I finally realized...

I was not alone in my little hovel.

There was a cat.

As I watched in surprise, it sauntered over to the bucket of fish slop, sniffed, sneezed, reached up to smooth a whisker that had gone astray, looked up at me, winked one eye shut, and turned pink. Yeah, I said it.

Actually, pink isn't really a good enough word to describe this cat's day-glo color. She was so brightly pink she seemed to burn with cold, neon fire.

She was so pink, they need to make up a new word for pink.

Squeezing both eyes shut, she made a face that is as close as any cat ever comes to a smile, and said, "I brought some help. Seymour sensed something was wrong. He's bringing some friends... There's more going on here than you think. See ya, Sensei."

So saying, she made a leap for the one window in the shed, shedding her cat form as she went and becoming a bright orange butterfly. She landed once on the sill, flapped her wings, and sailed off into the October day like a lively maple leaf.

Hope had arrived... and her name was Lizzard.

And Now... The Pirate Queen Minty Quest Leads Headfirst into Danger

2008-10-14T15:15:00.005-04:00

Okay, so here's the thing... you already know that it's been a rough couple of months... I've been adjusting to the new situation and it hasn't always been easy... Truthfully, it hasn't been easy even once.

Sadly the effect on my psyche has been to punch an SAU-sized hole into my formerly indefatiguable confidence and perkiness.

Naturally my charm, wit, beauty and modesty remain of course... but the confidence is lacking.

You are about to embark on the 3rd section of a 4 part story about how I got my cheerfully exuberant self back after learning a hard, painful lesson... and as all such stories go, the Nadir must occur before the Apotheosis. (If you don't know what those words mean, it's an indication that you never took my Myth and Symbols class...and now you never will. Oh well, sucks to be you).

My point is... just in case you are worried... I will prevail.

But it's going to get pretty dark first.

So be ready for it.

I'm just sayin'.

Now on to the story part of this thing...

Although my own curiosity and irritation with Monsieur Redneck had directed me to choose the road away from snack foods; as I followed the John Deere cap out into the parking lot of the convenience store, I found it simpler and more fulfilling to blame him.

It was all HIS fault I wasn't filling my gullet with minty-chocolate goodness.

He would pay for this outrage.

I filled my tank with 1.29 gallons of gas (Go me!), and ducked quickly into the driver's seat. Revving my engine, I scanned the lot quickly and saw my foe's truck (naturally) pulling out onto Rt-202/9.

I waited a beat for a car to pass and merged with traffic myself. Thanks to the ugly black smoke that belched from Monsieur Redneck's 4x4 beast of death, he was easy to follow. Also, he didn't really go far. After approximately 1.4 miles he pulled into the parking lot of a local redneck dive, The Gangsta Shack. I pulled in, parked at the opposite end of the lot, and waited to see what would happen next.

The answer is...

Not much.

*sigh*

He got out of his truck and pimp-rolled (NH redneck style) into the charming establishment.

Before I go further, let me just paint for you and illustration of this lovely venue.

The building itself was a marvel of architecture... The marvel being that it had remained standing as long as it had. Built in the late 70's, when the American Redneck Post-Modern Craftsman Style had been in high demand, it was entirely square in every way. Although there was a cinder block foundation, it was cracked and seemed to have grown tired of being in the same place, so it had begun to lean a bit to the left. The blocks themselves had been painted a bilious sea-green at some point in the 1980's by someone with a sense of humor.

The rest of the exterior was painted in a whimsical argyle pattern (oh yea, I said it). In places, the argyle appeared to be entirely plastered over by black trash bags, but on a second look it became apparent that the trash bags weren't simply plastered across the face of the building randomly; they were actually, a cheap and yet, not at all, disturbing substitute for windows.

I have often pondered, while passing this particular establishment, what the point was behind having window frames when one has no intention of ever filling said frames with glass, but I had never been able to answer the question to my satisfaction, since I was not at all interested in ever entering the establishment to assuage my curiosity.

The good news is, I learned the reason for trashbags instead of windows.

The bad news is, I learned that reason the hard way.

And here at last, we come to the action...

I walked through the doorway into the The Gangsta Shack about ten minutes after my prey. Scanning the room slowly I made my way to the bar and waited to be served. The barmaid, a depressed woman of about my age, was plunging dirty glasses into a tub of soapy water that smelled strongly of bleach and then quickly running the glasses under a stream of water. She managed to deal with each glass so quickly that I found watching her to be an almost Zen-like exercise; it wiped all other thought out of my mind. Thus, when she asked me, "What'll ya have?" It took me longer than usual to respond.

My brain stumbled and fell down a set of deep stairs into my stomach. By which I mean, I suddenly realized that I was in a bar, alone, tracking a red neck... and I had no money.

Not for the first time in my life, I thought, "What the hell is WRONG with me?"

It was then that a voice behind me spoke the words which will live on in infamy until the day I perish in a burst of flaming glory...

"I bet she'd like some tequila!"

Don't even pretend to be surprised... I know you were expecting this all along. Yup, it was my friend Monsieur Redneck. He had emerged from what was apparently a gentlemen's bathroom, where he had managed to find two other men who looked like they had been cloned from the same sheep. Now all three were standing just behind me, grinning. Their smiles did nothing at all to hide, or even disguise, the evil coldness in their eyes or the almost sulphurous stench of hell they carried with them.

Then again, perhaps the smell was just something they'd acquired from their sheep relations...

But that's all extraneous. The point is...

Before I entered their domain, I thought I was so smooth. I was so ready, thinking I could just slide back into my old, kick-ass, Pirate Queen persona.

I'd been so cocky.

The past three months of my life had completely disappeared momentarily, and I'd been convinced that my old confidence and fearlessness was back...

Instead, what I discovered was...

The confidence had been a momentary delusion... brought on by a sudden craving, lonliness, and a desire to have that old righteous anger back.

I wasn't tough.

I wasn't a Queen.

What was I?

Answer... very, very stupid.

I should have left the building right then, running if necessary...

But oh no, I didn't.

Two hours, 8 shots, and 6 games of pool later, I found myself flying head first out through one of the plastic covered windows and landing in the parking lot in a smelly, painful heap.

I learned a valuable lesson before passing out.

It's a bad idea to drink tequila, play pool, and bet on yourself.

It's an even worse idea, when you have absolutely NO money.

And it's a TERRIBLE idea to play pool under such circumstances with someone who has anger-management issues.

So here I am.

Tied up.

In a shed.

My head is pounding, my mouth tastes like something dead crawled into it while I was knocked out, I can't feel my feet, and there is an enormous spider on the wall 8 inches from my face.

So basically...

I'm in HELL.

What will I do next?

Well obviously,

I will prevail.

I Got a Craving and All I Have to Show for it are These Darn Rug Burns

2008-10-13T10:56:00.003-04:00

So there I was, innocently shopping for mint chocolate chip ice cream.

There was nothing on my mind except the embarrassment of paying for my purchase with four dollars in dimes and nickels.

Outside, it was quintessential fall day. Leaves were saying goodbye to the tree limbs where they'd lived for so long, and coating the ground like crunchy brown feathers. The wind was swirling their brightly colored corpses into irregular piles. The sun had a golden, tranquil quality that it only seems to get during the fall. If I tried really hard, I could smell pumpkin, cinnamon and wood smoke... though that may only have been my jacket, which usually hangs next to the mantelpiece...

Regardless, I was relatively calm and happy.

Well, I was... until HE came in.

You know the type. You've been out in the back woods, haven't you? If not, allow me to describe this phenomenal specimen of humanity. He was six feet of swaggering redneck. Chippewa boots, Carhartt jeans, a denim jacket, and a John Deere hat, crammed over a greasy buzz cut. The man was a walking cliche. He looked like he'd just stepped out of an LL Bean catalog from some other, less suave dimension, and he was not at all impressed by this world.

However, I don't want you to think that I judge solely by appearances.

The problem was not in the way he looked, but the way he carried himself. He had the affected slouch of a sullen teenager, though he was clearly my age or older. His feet clomped hard on the linoleum of the store, as though with every step he was showing it who was the biggest bad ass who'd ever sauntered across a floor. His upper lip seemed to be fixed in a permanent sneer, and when he paid for his gas, he called the cashier "Honey," though the woman was old enough to be his grandmother.

I found that his mere existence irritated the piss out of me. He reminded me of every bully I'd ever gone to school with, every skeezy construction worker who'd ever wolf whistled at a woman minding her own business; every snarky comment I'd ever heard from his type was as fresh in my mind as though it had just been uttered. I felt my stomach knot up with anxiety. Though uneaten and barely out of the freezer section, my ice cream seemed to be melting already from the heat of my sweaty grip on the carton.

I put the innocent cardboard box with the minty treat back in the cool, refreshing freezer, walked up to the counter, and asked to get 4 dollars in gas on pump three instead of snacking.

I had a premonition you see.

That Man was bound to do something... and I wanted to see it. Perhaps if I were lucky, I'd find an excuse for kicking his ass and making him cry like a little girl.

Ahh... hope springs eternal.

Well, fact is, he DID do something.

Unfortunately, the something he did was to turn the tables on me... Hence the rug burn or rather felt-burn.

I never should have followed him into that billiard place... My current psychic condition is not what it once was, and my Herculean self-confidence has been lacking of late.

Perhaps I should have eased back into my pirate persona by doing something less dangerous, such as punching a shark in the eye or eating four-day-old Chinese food out of a dumpster.

But no... but no.

By the way, these ropes are really starting to chafe. I wish I could rely on some superheroes to save me, but most of them are MIA. Guess I'll have to do this myself...

More updates to come.

The Mint Chocolate Chip Debacle

2008-10-11T14:50:00.004-04:00

I'm hot and sticky and I smell like a peppermint.

Everything was fine until I had that sudden craving... You know how it happens. Admit it. You've been there too haven't you?

You suddenly think of something you need, something that will make everything right in the world. It could be anything, but in that one moment, you just have to have that thing.

For me, it was mint chocolate chip ice cream.

So I made the trek to Smallborotonville and obtained the thing I sought.

I never thought it would end up like this... Hogtied in a shed in the back woods.

I just wanted some ice cream dammit...

Uh-oh, someone's coming...

I'll be back, hopefully.

Beware of 2am...or, Gotta Love Those Flying Monkeys

2008-10-11T01:50:00.005-04:00

It's 2:38am and I just realized that I've yet to tell you about the flying monkey I met the other day... Now the time has come.

Of course, my grandfather always says,

"Nothing good ever happens after 2am."

This was one of his favorite sayings to me as a child, along with, "It's always a mistake to educate women," and, "All good girls should be home and in bed by 10pm."

Ahh...what a progressive that man is.

Still, you've got to love him for being true to himself.

I just like to prove him wrong sometimes.

So here's what...

When I left off previously, I was hanging by my brightly colored fingernails from a ledge on the roof of Borders in Concord. Suffice to say, I survived.

This shouldn't be a shock to any of you, since I'm nothing if not a survivor.

The part that might surprise you is the flying monkey.

Yeah, I said it.

There was a monkey.

It flew.

No, I'm not tripping. The fact of the matter is, I have never consumed any illegal drugs by either choice or by a random act of chance. No judgment of anyone who for his or her own reasons chooses to partake, it's just... Illegal (and even most legal) drugs are not for me. My take on it is, if I'm going to do something stupid... I want to remember it. I always want to be in control of my own actions. I don't want my pain dulled...life IS pain, and I don't plan to miss out on it. Plus, I don't ever want to wake up and think...'Oh God, WTF did I do?' I'm not even a big drinker... in my entire 33 years I've only been seriously drunk 2 times...and one of them doesn't count, since it was anesthetic in nature after hearing that one of my most favorite people in the whole world had died a sudden and violent death.

Anyway, take it for what it's worth... Besides...

This is what I'm like awake, aware and stone cold sober... Can you imagine what I'd be like on illegal chemical/natural/stimulants/depressants?

Yeah, enough said.

So anyway, there I was, hanging by the tiniest thread...

I considered giving up.

In fact, in those few moments I thought long and hard about just... letting go. It would have been so easy... So... very, very easy...

But then I thought, 'Hell no! Why make it easy on the bad guys? I am here to answer the call of all those in distress, all people with spare time on their hands looking for some mindless entertainment! And what will all those uneaten cheesecakes do without me??'

I did not let go.

Nanoseconds later, I was glad that I'd chosen to hang on. If I hadn't, I would have missed out on the chance to fly by monkey.

Naturally, as I clung to the ledge my breathing was rapid, my feet scrabbled against the pebbled side of the building, my arms ached, my fingers were locked in claw position, and my eyes throbbed from the roof dust... I may even have sneezed on the dirt crusting my sinus cavities. As a result, I failed to hear anyone approach.

However, even I couldn't help but notice when the back of my shirt pulled taught, pinching my throat. There was a sharp tug. My fingers began to give way. Though I struggled with all that I had left, the acid build up in my muscles had become more than I could stand.

I finally let go.

But I didn't fall... I simply hung there in mid air, inches from the roof and a few feet away from a possibly painful, and certainly icky, death.

I raised my face to the sky above, certain I would see a fireman, or some sort of rescue professional.

Instead, I saw the brown eyes, hairy face and enormous teeth of a monkey--with gray wings... Huge gray wings.

It was grinning at me.

I blinked, certain that in my last moments on earth I had completely lost it...

Of course, there are some who would say I never had it to begin with, but what do they know?

This hairy, cheerfully smiling savior patted me on the head and then lifted me high into the air. Clutching the back of my shirt in his feet, the monkey carried me to safety and deposited me, dirty but none the worse for it, gently on the ground outside of Lowe's. While I was still bent over, catching my breath and becoming re-acquainted with the ground, he took off without a word, or even a grunt.

When I looked up into the sky, there were no clouds...and no monkey. Still, I hadn't flown over the roof of Borders and into a neighboring parking lot by myself.

I may be a rip-roaring pirate queen... but I do not have wings.

You could have knocked me over with a toothbrush... and I'm no light-weight.

Being a Zen Buddhist, I'm no great believer in angels or demons...

But I do believe in monkeys.

And flying ones are super cool.

I'm just sayin'.

Hey... thanks Monkey.

Reality is Overrated

2008-10-10T08:09:00.002-04:00

So I was asked to write a short bio of myself for a job that I recently obtained...

I laughed.

I asked if it was okay for me to write about how I got a scar on my left butt cheek from running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

The person who requested the bio gave me a quelling look. She seemed to find my response lacking in seriousness.

Suitably chagrined (in appearance at least, if not in spirit) I said, "Okay, I'll write something appropriate."

I wrote an accurate, if slightly boring, biography of myself in 4 sentences.

It was so dull I almost fell asleep while completing sentence number two.

What is with people's obsession with "reality?"

No one seems to understand that I'm all about imagination... Why this insistence on "keeping it real?"

Here's what I really want to say about my own life...

Aikens is a twenty-eight year old Pirate Queen with a history of debauchery and pillaging that ranges as far afield as Montana. She carries a knife in her boot and a metal ruler in her car. She has been known to climb buildings and torture red necks for fun and profit. Aikens steals from the rich and gives their stuff to the needy (she frequently includes herself in the "needy" section). She once leaped from a moving train while traveling cross-country with MCShank on a mission for mental health (her own) and reads Kurt Vonnegut to maintain her dubious hold on sanity. This Pirate Queen's motto is, "do whatever you want, as long as you can live with the consequences."

What's wrong with that bio? It may not be strictly "true" but anyone reading it will certainly learn a hell of a lot more about me than would someone reading a dry recitation of my actual life and accomplishments...

Reality sucks. FIGHT ENTROPY!!!

How to Become a Pirate

2008-10-07T23:50:00.003-04:00

Well, I got a question this evening from a party interested in matriculating at Aikens' Subterranean University. This lovely young woman asked me,

"How do I become a pirate?"

Such a simple question... but oh-so-loaded.

I told her that it was simple enough... one merely chooses the pirate lifestyle and never looks back.

Oh, and there is a secret knock too.

But you don't learn about that until after initiation.

The initiation consists of a series of tests.

Keep in mind, the Pirate Lifestyle is not for the faint of heart. Don't commit to it unless you are fond of pain and suffering... most especially the pain and suffering of others (but also for yourself to a certain extent).

I mean, sure, once you're a Queen, like me, it's all cabin boys and treasure... But building a following? That takes cojones of steel my friends.

And then of course, there is the Pirate Pledge of Allegiance, an oath which all aspiring scurvy knaves must take before they can be admitted to the Society of Pillagers.

It's not to be taken lightly.

There's a whole process...

But just remember, becoming a pirate is a lot like anything else...

The first step is admitting that you have a problem.

Hi! My name is Virginia and I'm sick of life as it is! So I've decided to be a pirate! ARGH!! (Audience response: "Hi Virginia!")

See how simple, yet complex it is?

Any other questions? I'd be happy to clarify.

Too Short and Not Nearly Enough Cheesecake

2008-10-07T13:40:00.002-04:00

I have come to the realization that in my 33 short years (well, short given the entire span of human history that is) I have not eaten nearly enough cheesecake.

It goes something like this:

Given: To me, cheesecake equals love, happiness, fun, family, friends, etc. In other words, it is the edible equivalent of all the good things in life... A symbol, if you will, of all the best.

Given: Life is far too short. Over the past few months I've really come to appreciate this fact. (For the second time in my life).

Conclusion: Life should contain more cheesecake. Who cares about the fat and calories? I could get smashed to smithereens by a semi while driving to Merrimack today and end up in God's waiting room before you know it.

Bottom line here?

Less stress... MORE CHEESECAKE.

Fighting the Good Fight

2008-10-06T21:25:00.002-04:00

Well, tonight, as I hang from a ledge by my fuchsia pink fingernails, I find that I have a few moments of time on my hands (ha ha) to pause and contemplate how difficult it can often be to fight the good fight...

You see, it all began innocently enough...

There I was, at Borders in Concord, looking through the astrology section. I have never really given much credence to astrology but I have flirted with the idea of predestination to some extent.

Recently destiny appears to be rearing it's ugly head... you see, much as I attempt to deny and rage against fate, my career as a Saltminer of some sort, somewhere seems to be following me around like a bad smell...

Anyway, back to the story at hand.

There I was, perusing the in-stock offerings on destiny, when I heard a commotion from the back of the store.

Moments later, two men came rushing past me, shouting that someone was on the roof and threatening to jump.

This intrigued me. You see, though I have been depressed and disheartened, the real idea of just ending it all has never seemed like a viable option to me. Frankly, I consider suicide to be horribly selfish. But that's just me.

Anyway, curious as ever, I sauntered on my spiky red shoes to the back of the store. There was a large crowd of employees just standing there, wondering out loud what to do, other than to call the Concord PD. It only took about 24 seconds before I found myself growing irritated by the crowd's hesitation to act... So I spoke up,

"Hey, I can talk to him. Where is he?"

I must say, it's just like I've always thought...the majority of people are more than happy to let someone else take charge in a crisis... even someone like me, who clearly has no idea what they heck they are doing.

So I went up to the roof and there he was... it was Jericho, my old comrade from South Boston.

He was standing by the edge of the roof, hunched over slightly, peering down at the ground. When he heard me approach he turned. He appeared completely unsurprised by my appearance, which bowled me over because I was shocked as hell to see him.

As per usual, I opened the negotiations with some of my incredibly witty banter, saying,

"Hey."

He, seeming less than impressed, turned back to his search for a painful landing spot. He allowed me to come within about three feet of him before saying,

"Don't even bother PQ. It's over. Besides, I've heard all about your troubles from Seymour, you haven't got any more to live for than I do, so don't even try to tell me 'it's all gonna be alright' or any bull to that effect."

When I first arrived on the roof to see him, I'd been shocked, then sad...but now...

I was pissed.

I fought down the urge to just kick him in the ass with my red shoe by biting the inside of my mouth and taking a long, slow breath. Hoping that somehow inspiration would suddenly come to my rescue in the event that some higher power failed to speak through me, I opened my mouth and started to speak... what came out was a shock even to me... I said,

"I find your whining purile and self serving. If you're really ready to kill yourself and not just making a pathetic cry for attention, then you better do it now before the police get here and put themselves at risk trying to save your disease ridden hide. Honestly, you make me sick with your whining and complaining. Exactly what the hell are you waiting for?"

For a moment his spine straightened and he turned to look at me, considering me seriously for perhaps the first time of our entire acquaintence.

Now it was his turn to look shocked, and then furious.

Thankfully, at this point he was so pissed, he took a step toward me and away from the edge of the roof. Unfortunately, at this point, a siren sounded, startling me and Jericho both.

That would have been fine, if the roof hadn't chosen just that very moment to shift under our feet.

Oddly enough, the roof of Borders in Concord has been leaking for some time... actually that was the reason why Jericho had been allowed to get to the roof, someone thought he was a contractor... It must have been the steel-toed boots...

Anyway, the roof began to, well, slide. Small pebbles began rolling off the roof, as the metal listed to one side. The movement threw both of us flat down to our stomachs. Within seconds my nose was full of dirt and my eyes stung.

'Well, this is just freaking great,' I thought, as I felt myself sliding ever nearer to a painful death.

In another instant my feet were no longer touching anything solid, next went my legs, my torso, and eventually everything with the exception of my brightly polished fingernails. Somehow, I'd managed to find some sort of purchase on the edge of the slipping, sliding section of roof (Mother of Carlos I love aliteration).

This, as I stated at the beginning of this story, gave me just the time I needed to ponder fighting the good fight...

I suddenly realized, that I've somehow been fighting all my life... usually for other people.

This time I was fighting for me.

I don't know how I did it... how I'm doing it...

But I'm holding on with all my might...

Damn.

I hope rescue arrives pretty damn quick.

Greg Chase and the Smallness of Life, the Universe and Everything

2008-10-05T22:06:00.002-04:00

I have always firmly held the opinion that the world is essentially a tiny, tiny place.

Tonight confirms that belief.

You see... another one of my opinions is, that if I stand still long enough in one public place, I will eventually see at least one person that I need to see for my own sanity.

Ever heard of psychic magnetism?

The idea has been around for a long time but was most recently written about in a book by one of my favorite fiction writers... The theory goes like this... if you focus on a person, maybe not even anyone specific, and then you just kind of wander without thinking too much, eventually you will inevitably find the person you are subconsciously seeking.

It's true. It happens to me all the time.

If I'm feeling depressed and unloved (as I was earlier this evening, prior to meeting MCShank for Earl Grey) I will go to some public place, clear my mind, and wander as aimlessly as possible.

Eventually I will run in to just the person I need to see.

Tonight, that person was Greg Chase.

Have I ever mentioned that I love Greg Chase?

So there I was, in the parking lot at Borders, getting ready to get in my car and slog back home, when from across the acres of blacktop, a guy on a bike shouts my name at the top of his lungs. He pedals madly across the intervening distance, and just before he runs headlong into my car, he LEAPS off his bike and throws his arms around me for the best hug this side of the Merrimack River.

We ended up talking for almost an hour while freezing our butts off outside the closed bookstore.

You know me... I generally tell outrageous stories here with just a grain of truth, but the reality of this one was so surreal, I just don't think it needs dressing up.

Greg Chase is the very same man who once told me the inevitable truth of the Tilton paradox. He said,

"Aikens... Tilton is like Las Vegas... Whatever happens in Tilton, stays in Tilton. The only problem is, unlike Vegas, no one ever LEAVES Tilton."

Oh, how right you are my friend.

I love Greg Chase.

I'm just sayin'.

New Course Offerings at Aikens' Subterranean University

2008-10-05T14:49:00.004-04:00

Well, it appears that there are indeed people who long for the good life of the pirate and here at ASU we strive to please... and also to take your money.

Is that spare change rattling around in your pockets? We can hear a doubloon drop from 500 paces...

We are PIRATES after all.

So, in the interest of staying current and offering a selection of courses that will appeal to one and all and after consulting with specialists in their fields, the staff here at ASU have developed some courses which will please the multitudes and continue to prepare our matriculating students for life out there in the big, bad world. They are as follows:

The Pirate to English Dictionary, or Swearing 311
This advanced language course will prepare you for whatever quirks of fortune life may send your way. Are you sick of the old standbys? (Fiddle-dee-dee, dang, crap...they've all been done to death). Here at ASU, we're all about creativity and no self respecting pirate can be expected to lack the necessary accoutrement of a good swear. After successful completion, you need never be speechless again.

Rage, Friend or Foe? 278
Ignore those pathetic whiners who say that rage is hazardous to your health. The truth is, rage is just good clean fun. Learn the benefits of a rage-filled lifestyle. In this course you will learn to transcend the boundaries of good taste, "cleanliness" of speech and good form. Take your inner pit bull and run those weak-willed pacifists into the ground!

Swearing 604
This graduate level course will continue to expand on the pirate-to-English dictionary. By the time you finish, your vocabulary will have grown to encompass not just the swears of 12 different languages but will also include all the newest Pirate idioms. There is no final exam; the course will culminate in a competition in which all students will go up against that linguistic genius, The Pirate Queen, in a battle royal for supremacy in swearing. The PQ currently holds the record for most swears without a breath... do you have what it takes to stand against her?

First Mates, Cabin Boys and Native Lackeys 708
For all those who have grown tired of serving themselves, this advanced course will instruct you in the finer points of getting others to do your dirty work. Whether you aspire to own a small island nation or become president of the United States, this valuable course offering will prepare you to subjugate anyone who looks like they might have the tiniest smidgen of leadership ability or intelligence, placing them forever under your thumb and at your mercy.

"I Curse Your Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal!" or, Famous Last Words---802
AS any successful (and many highly UN-successful) pirates know, mutiny is pretty much inevitable. This graduate level course will teach you how to "go out in style." After all... they can take you livelihood, your eye patch and your peg-leg but NEVER allow them to take your dignity. Guest speakers will include famous people who went down in a blaze of glory and will be channeled by The Pirate Queen herself. Tuition will include the cost of enough rum to enable the PQ to "reach out to the forces of the beyond." (Warning: This one could be expensive).

"Don't'cha Hate it When that Happens?" or, Sailing Basics 100-- After a disastrous class of '08 shipwreck on the shoals of Emerald Lake last spring, ASU has discovered the need for a remedial sailing course for all the scurvy swabs admitted to our institution... In a world populated by weak-willed nancys who've never been without electricity, it's time to toughen you up and teach you what it's really like to be a pirate. Tuition is free. The course will culminate in a 1 month sailing voyage along the eastern seaboard in January '09. Includes all the weevil-infested hard-tack and salt pork you can shake a peg-leg at. This course will fill quickly, so act now and register soon.

__________________________________________________

As you can see... Here at ASU, it's all about what YOU need.

Unlike other higher learning institutions, the staff at Aikens' Subterranean University keeps its ear to the ground and listens for the hoof beats of progress... or rather, the lack thereof.

Don't hesitate!

Haven't you always wanted to be a pirate? Well now, you can be.

And remember, here at ASU...

We never spare the rum.

Yo-ho, y0-ho MATEY!

For a Good Time, Call...

2008-10-05T06:31:00.002-04:00

The Pirate Queen.

Oh yeah, I said it.

As you may already know, I am currently footloose and fancy free... Well, not really. Mostly, I'm just under-employed.

The bad news is... I have $1.83 in my bank account and my gas tank is almost always on "E."

The good news is... I have had some incredible adventures and I'm going to share them with you.

For the past three days I have been subbing a newspaper route for the Daily Union Monitor in Concord, NH.

Concord is kind of like vanilla yogurt... only it lacks culture.

Don't get me wrong... I like doing paper routes. It's easy, I can drive like a crazy person, play my music at MAX VOL and talk to myself with no one around to judge me.

Plus, I'm desperate for money.

But I also have to admit... Concord is a looney bin, and it is a damn good time at 3am.

So here they are for your perusal... some honest-to-Carlos moments in the life of the Pirate Queen as a paper girl... (Even I can't make this crap up).

______________________________________________________

1:30am --Friday-- I show up at the dock. I am wearing a red velvet bustier, a black zip-up hoodie (not zipped), black patent heels and low-rise blue jeans. I have a serious case of classic Pirate Queen bedhead...and I look like I just left a club. (It's laundry day and my flats have gone AWOL...quit judging me).

The guy on the dock looks at me and says,

"Uhhhh...hel--lo there."

I ask him when I can load my car up. He replies,

"Uhhh...he-re" (He manages to give the word "here" at least two syllables...what a charmer).

I tell him, "I'm going to back up now." He says,

"Uhhh...you can do whatever you want."

I can't manage to avoid feeling his eyes crawl down my body like the coils of a large snake. I shudder and turn away.

When I back up, I almost (accidentally of course) hit him with the door of my car.

He finally wipes the drool off his chin and steps back.

______

2:00am --Friday-- Just as I finish loading my car chock full of newsy goodness, I overhear the following snippet of conversation from the car next to me, which is occupied by two people of dubious moral fiber (and this is ME talking) wearing flannel. One is male and one is female... only I can't actually tell which is which.

"I just don't get it." (man/woman #1)

"You don't get what?" (man/woman #2)

"My cat." (man/woman #1)

"What about her?" (man/woman #2)

"She hates me. She scratched the shit out of my hand today... I just don't get it. I mean, I give her a bath EVERY day... Doesn't she know I love her?" (man/woman #1)

"That's weird. Maybe she just doesn't like the soap you're using..." (man/woman #2)

I can't manage to pull out before I let out a snort of derisive laughter.

I almost feel superior, until I realize... I'm unemployed, broke, over-educated...and doing exactly the same job these two clueless half-wits are doing.

At the nearest stop sign I pull over and bang my head against the steering wheel as hard as I can until the world makes sense again.

____

3:47am --Friday-- On Fisherville Rd I drive at my usual sedate pace... 45mph, slowing down enough to just barely pull into the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot without taking out the stop sign at the drive entrance.

I am getting out to fill the paper box with D.U.M.s (heh heh) when I see blue lights...

Police Officer: "Having fun ma'am?"

P.Queen: "Umm... yes?"

Police Officer: *sigh* "Please slow it down, I've been following you for a mile... you hit the speed limit once and never looked back."

P.Queen: "I'm... uh, sorry..."

Police Officer: (looking unconvinced) "O--kay."

_____

4:54am --Friday -- On Jennings Drive in Concord, just before I stop for the newspaper box, a middle aged man runs out into the road and lays down directly in the path of my car.

I slam on my breaks, get out, step over him, fill the paperbox, get back into my car, put it in reverse, cut the wheel hard, put it in drive and slowly go around him.

When I look in the rear view mirror, he is standing in the middle of the road, giving me the finger.
_____

1:30am --Saturday -- On the dock, picking up my papers, I hear this little bit of conversation:

"Oh yea? Well, I don't really have to work... I get $2,000 dollars a month for my disability. I'm just working here for fun."

"Really? Me too! I started working here a month ago... I still haven't cashed my first paycheck."

Once again, I leave the parking lot, stop at the stop sign, put the car in park and bang my head against the steering wheel until the pain in my forehead drives away my desire to go buy a gun.

Besides, I wouldn't know who to shoot first--them? Or myself?
_____

2:08am --Saturday -- Once again, I'm in Penacook.

Once again, I'm going 45 in a 30.

Only this time, I run a red light outside of 30 Pines Convenience Store... and make an illegal left turn in to the car wash parking lot.

Blue lights...

Heavy footsteps...

P.Queen: "Oh, hello officer."

Police Officer: "Do you know you just---"

P.Queen: "Ran a red light?"

Police Officer: "And you also--"

P.Queen: "Made an illegal turn?"

By this time he's taken out his flashlight and is shining it in my eyes, making them water. There is a long silence while I blink back tears...

Police Officer: "Oh, it's you... again." (pained sigh)

P.Queen: "Umm... sorry?" (queasy smile)

Police Officer: "Oh nevermind."

He gets back into his car and peels out.
____

2:36am --Saturday -- I'm in the parking lot of the Taco Bell on Loudon Rd. (aka The Stoner Cafe)... When out of the shadow of the overhang of the chain restaurant comes a teenage boy, wandering in slow motion across the parking lot, no doubt from the effects of one too many puffs of something illegal...and maybe a few too many Chalupas (I nearly got a contact high from being in his general vicinity).

He sees me.

He stops.

He reaches far down into a pocket of his jeans...

I just have time to wonder if I should have brought my mace, when he pulls out a packet of Domino's Sugar, rips it open and proceeds to sprinkle both me and my car with the white crystals.

Now it's my turn to drool in confusion.

He turns to me and says,

"Now you'll have good luck... Oh, nice butterfly by the way," and staggers back off into the night.

I still can't figure out if he was referring to my tattoo or the sticker on my car.

____

5:17am-- Saturday-- I'm in the 7-11 on Loudon Road in Concord.

There is a new guy working behind the counter. He takes my $7.50 in quarters and okays me to pump gas on #5.

He got off the plane from Pakistan about 3 weeks ago. (I'm not being racist, it's the truth, he told me that in exactly those words 4 days ago).

Before I can grab my Big Gulp and leave, he cocks his head to the side and says to me,

"You are married?"

Totally dumbfounded by his temerity, I reply, "Nope," and again, turn to leave.

He says, "You have boyfriend?"

Blink, blink. "Nope."

His eyes grow wide. He continues, "Why? You no like boys?"

Once again, my mouth is hanging open in surprise. I manage to say (having briefly lost the power to utter a complete sentence that doesn't sound like it came from a 6 year old on helium) "Uh, yes, I like. I like boys very much."

Once again he cocks his head, "Then why you have no boyfriend?"

I let loose a sigh, look deeply into his eyes and reply,

"You know... I ask myself that same question... every... single... day."

He shakes his head, looks me up and down... twice, shakes his head and says,

"American men... so stupid."

For the first time since prices hit $3.00/gal. I smile while pumping my gas.

____

In three nights I spot no fewer than 16 skunks, 2 foxes, 4 opossums and a hedgehog.

I manage to avoid hitting any of them.

Go me.

Ahh.

Who wouldn't love this job?

Aikens Subterranean University

2008-09-27T19:49:00.003-04:00

Are you tired of the college application process?

I know I am.

And let's face facts... English 101, International Business and Finance, Calculus 102...

These are things you are never going to need.

When and how often will you actually use them?

Try... NEVER.

So here is the perfect solution for you...

My friends, I am starting my own university... ASU, Aikens Subterranean University. I got the idea from some old friends who once joked about starting their own school, but I am in deadly earnest.

At my school (soon to receive it's accreditation from the NEASC, aka New England Association of Schools and Colleges) you will learn everything you REALLY need to know... Things that they don't teach at other, inferior, schools of higher learning.

Here is my mission statement:

At ASU we strive to offer a superior curriculum which will give you the tools you need to be successful out there in the "real world." The knowledge you accumulate whilst matriculating in our hallowed hall (Aikens' basement--hence the Subterranean designation) will be of use to you no matter where you end up, or what you wind up doing once you get there. We offer a varied selection of courses all geared toward one goal: WORLD DOMINATION! (And all for a nominal fee, which makes us a good buy as well as a smart place to launch you on your path to success).

Course Offerings:

Pillaging 101--Whether you are on a small Caribbean island or in NYC, pillaging is a skill useful in any career path. Here you will learn the basics of intimidation, stealth and escape when it seems all hope is lost. Instructor: The Pirate Queen

Pillaging 102--Here you will learn more advanced pillaging skills, useful to more specific career paths such as: intellectual property law, corporate take-overs, middle management and internet piracy. Instructor: The Pirate Queen

World Domination 101--It doesn't matter if you are just starting out, or trying to overthrow the peaceful government of Lichtenstein, this course will give you all the basic tools you need to start whisper campaigns, bloody coups, and full-blown Sam Adams style revolutions. Not for the faint of heart. Instructor: The Pirate Queen

Piracy, The Path to Greatness 202--This basic course will provide you with the skills and expertise you need, not only to look the part of a great pirate but also to teach you the basics. Topics covered are: eye patches, parrot grooming and domestication, swearing, balancing on a peg leg, and managing a crew of 20+ scurvy knaves, all from the relative discomfort of our dank basement location. Instructor: The Pirate Queen

Revolutions, Hard and Soft 203--A more advanced course than World Domination, this seminar will delve into the specifics of fomenting revolution, starting from the work place and working our way up to the entire Eastern Seaboard. Controlling everyone and everything has never been this easy! Look out Wal-Mart and Microsoft--THE PIRATES ARE COMING!!! Instructor: The Pirate Queen

Leadership: Make Them Love AND Fear You 302--This course will cover the basics as well as advanced tactics for mental manipulation of underlings and foes alike. By the time you have finished this course, all those around you will be willing to die in your service if called upon to do so... After all, every pirate queen needs a loyal crew and frightened enemies. Instructor: The Pirate Queen

Mutiny: Sound Idea or Pathway to Death? 405--This seminar will not only include several hours of instruction, it will culminate with a simulated mutiny. Those who survive and avoid having to walk the plank or be left tied to the mizzenmast will graduate successfully, prepared to go out and conquer the world!

__________________________________________________________________

As you can see, the Aikens Subterranean University is the ONLY choice for those willing and able to conquer the world... It's a dirty job but someone has to do it!

Courses are commencing soon and tuition is negotiable (as is everything when you aspire to the Pirate Life).

Don't allow this golden opportunity to pass you by... There is gold in other people's pockets, and soon it will be yours!!!*

*The Aikens Subterranean University is not responsible for any acts of violence and piracy that its matriculating students may perform. If you get caught, we will deny all knowledge of your existance and your record of ever having been a student will be barbecued and eaten by the pygmy residents of a small island nation.

AHOY MATEYS!!

The Cool Kids Table

2008-09-23T01:01:00.000-04:00

My friend the Papergrrl and I have a long running joke in which we constantly attempt to come up with the coolest ways to go out in a blaze of glory.

Why?

I'll tell you.

You see... I long ago realized, thanks to the tremendous load of guilt heaped on me by my Christian forebears (cult members, one and all) that if there is indeed such a place as hell... the chances are pretty good that I'm going to end up there.

Of course, I'm a Buddhist now... but that's a whole other kettle of Yorkshire Terriers.

Anyway, the point is... to make the idea of hell seem just a little less scary, we concocted the idea that, if there is such a place, surely it can't be all that different from high school. And let's face it, where, in high schools every day, does one see that most esteemed of all gatherings? You know the one I'm talking about, that group of kids who are just soooo much cooler than everyone else. The kids who never end up with milk coming out of their noses... The ones who laugh at geeks and nerds like me... The ones who seem to breeze through public education with a modicum of dignity...

Yeah, you've seen them too.

Admit it.

Anyway, my idea goes something like this... someday, I am going to die.

Yes, hard to believe, I know. Still, let's face facts.

Also, if there is indeed a hell... I'm far more likely to end up there than in the "good place."

My plan is this... if high school is hell, then why shouldn't hell be just like high school?

So I fully intend to die in some spectacularly cool fashion which will earn me the right to sit "at the cool kids table" in hell.

No car accident... no heart attack in bed at 67... no getting run over by a bus.

OH no my friends, this death...will be cool.

So far my favorites are: (drumroll please)

1. Getting mauled by a tiger.

2. Getting chomped on by a shark.

3. Going out in a blaze of glory while rescuing quadraplegic kittens from a burning rescue shelter.

4. Taking a bullet for someone (or some other sort of nasty flying projectile)

5. Being forced to walk the plank of my pirate ship after a mutinous uprising over shares of loot.

Yup. That's my plan. Don't knock it.

After all... if you die after me... don't you want to get to sit at the cool kids table with me?

That would be sweeeet.

Ahh...Life's Little Jokes...One of Which, ...is ME.

2008-08-31T02:17:00.005-04:00

WARNING: I am posting this at 2:43am on Sunday morning. As you probably already know... It's been a rough summer. The worst of my life. Worse even than that time when I got bitten by that shark. Worse than when I ran out of peanut butter. Worse than CRAMPS.

And then today, as if the Universe hadn't made it clear enough that it despises me and thinks I deserve to die a horrible fiery death, after a long, painful wasting disease... I was blown off by two different friends who were supposed to meet me at different times and in different places. People who I thought would keep in touch with me. Even on AIM tonight, (see my post about how AIM is the DEVIL) the few people I wanted to talk to either blew me off, ignored me, or simply made it pretty clear that they had no interest in talking to me (you know...long pauses, cursory answers, not bothering to say goodbye...shit that I would normally allow to roll off me without hurting my feelings). It all finally caught up with me.

I actually cried.

Me.

Can you believe it?

I can't.

I am broken.

Please don't get me wrong, I don't want your damn pity. I'm sure your life is every bit as miserable in it's own way to you as mine is to me. So why would you bother reading more of this drivel?

Please don't.

What you are about to read is my form of a primal scream.

Think... Vanna.

Please, don't read any further and expose yourself to my misery.

Alright, fine...I realize I'm being all...Lemony Snicket about this... but I'm serious.There's nothing to see here people.

And besides the fact that this post is miserable... it's also embarrassing.

But what does it matter?

The point is...

Don't bother reading it.

But if you do... just have a little laugh at my expense. I mean, why not? Apparently my life, everything I stood for, everything I tried to do for 11 years meant nothing. It was a joke.

I am a joke.

And not a funny one.

I'm roughly the equivalent of the "why did the chicken cross the road?" school of humor. In other words, humor that doesn't deserve the moniker.

I'm just sayin'.

Turn back now. Here...there be dragons.

______________________________________________________________

You may have noticed that the Pirate Queen has not been prolific of late.

There are a number of reasons for that.

One in particular.

As a famous Jane Austen character once said to her sister (I am about to paraphrase, and poorly too, but the emotion is there)...

"What do you know of my heart? My suffering? For months I've had this thing pressing on me, not at liberty to speak of it to a single creature! ...Believe me, if I had wanted to, I could have produced evidence enough of a broken heart... Even for you."

The Pirate Queen is at a loss. Naturally, I will give you all the details...

You knew I would.

Eventually.

After all... I never could keep anything from you, could I?

I'm almost there. I'm almost ready to tell all about it. Not just now...but soon.

You see...

It hit me just an hour or so ago...

I was there...

on-line...

and I suddenly realized...

No one is talking to me.

Even the people I thought truly cared.

The couple that I attempted to reach out to, either barely responded or simply ignored me. Bear in mind, these were people who are important to me, and whom I consider friends.

That is not a good sign.

Ever.

And I finally got it.

I no longer exist.

I have been defeated.

Deleted.

And what is much, much worse... I am pathetic and depressing. I hate that.

I would be better off disappearing completely. Eventually I will. (As will we all...don't you know?)

That's not what I want to believe.

I want to believe the following:

...that I will fight another day.
...that the people I care about also care about me.
...that I will be happy again.
...that I made a difference to someone.

...that the fact that I cared about people wasn't a complete waste.

That's what I want to believe.

But I'm afraid it's not true.

If it were true... I really doubt that I'd be alone right now.

Someone would be here, wouldn't they?

And I ask myself...

Why am I always so easy to cast aside?
Why am I so forgettable?
Why am I so god damned REPLACEABLE?

I wish I were special.

Doesn't everyone?

See?

Pathetic. I hate what's happened.

But not as much as I hate myself for feeling like this.

For caring.

They never paid me to care. But I did.

How do I make myself stop?

I'm incredibly sorry for unloading like this. If you've read my other stuff, I hope you realize that I'm not usually like this...

But being brushed off, ignored and left alone, after everything that's happened...

I'm exhausted and my heart hurts.

The Queen is out.

My Spiritual Home...Room 106

2008-06-30T09:51:00.000-04:00

Yeah, so I would like to point out that school has been officially over for over a week now.

With the exception of Friday and Saturday... I have been in school EVERY DAY.

Why?

Well... part of the time I was getting paid to be here ($375 for 15 hours BABY!) and part of the time I was getting crap done that was supposed to be done by the last day of school (Oopsie...guess I'm a little late with that... I'm such a bad example for the children...).

And today?

I'm finishing up some stuff for an on-line class.

Yeah, notice, I said ONLINE class. Meaning of course... I could be doing it from HOME.

Yet I'm not.

Instead... I'm here.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm actually not complaining. I think the true fact of the matter is... I like it here.

You see...if I'm at home...although I really love my house, I'm away from everyone. It's very secluded, which is great and all...but slightly depressing. If, on the other hand, I make the hike up to Tilton, there's always the chance that I might see people...

In fact...case in point... Just about an hour ago, someone (The Aviator) noticed me on line, called to find out if I were in town, bought muffins and then stopped in to hang out for a while (and incidentally he fixed the stereo in my room).

You see?

This is why I keep coming here.

Because dammit... I miss you people during the summer... How sick is that?

Clearly I have issues.

...and I'm not much good at not doing anything...

And also, I can not afford real road trips, thanks to the cost of gas.

Have I mentioned that I also have three jobs, yet again, this summer? w00t w00t.

Yet...

I'm still broke...

I don't get it.

Peace out.

And oh yeah, feel free to stop by... I'll open the side door for ya. LOL

A Bedtime Story

2008-06-29T22:46:00.000-04:00

Have you ever fallen asleep on a couch?

Yeah, dumb question...of course you have. We all have at some point.

So the real question is, have you ever fallen asleep on a couch and woken up in so much pain that you quite literally had to throw yourself on the floor in order to get off?

Seriously, it was like attempted suicide...only in a very small way...

So on to the bedtime story...

But it's not what you think. This is no pink, happy tale of hopping bunnies and fuzzy puppies... This is a bedtime story with EDGE.

Just warning you...

Okay...here goes nothin'.

Once upon a time there was a person living in a house in the woods. The house was somewhat small, somewhat cozy, and highly secluded.

Mostly, this was a good thing.

Where it went horribly awry was the night of the moth.

I know, I know...you don't believe it... but it's true.

Last night, as I was about to pass out (much earlier than I expected, I might add), I heard a sound of loud bumping against the sliding glass doors of my bedroom. Thinking that Poe probably wanted to come in from off my balcony and curl up on the bed, I set my laptop down on my pillow and crawled out of bed myself to open the door...

That's when I got the biggest shock of my recent life.

There was a moth banging on the window.

I am not exaggerating here people.

IT WAS BANGING.

And it could actually do so, because it had a wingspan of somewhere between four and five inches at its widest point.

I COULD SEE ITS EYES.

It was staring at me.

Of course, I could have just turned off the light, and it might've gone away... unfortunately, I would no longer be able to see it as it attempted to drill a hole through my wall and get in my bedroom to suck my brain out through my nose.

So I went downstairs and slept on the couch.

The end.

To conclude...

My couch FUCKING sucks... Please remind me NEVER to sleep on it again. It's fine for lounging...but sleeping for longer than a 20 min nap?

No thank you.

That is all.

Over and out.

Let Me Tell You a Story...

2008-06-15T22:03:00.002-04:00

Hey buddy.

It's been a long time since we traveled this road together...

I missed you.

So come on, cop a squat and listen while I tell you about this one time when I was hanging out in a bar in South Boston with a guy named Jericho.

You see, Jericho was a rabid Irishman.

By which I naturally mean that he had green beer instead of blood in his veins, he had a shamrock tattooed over his heart and no day was complete unless he had a chance to beat the hell out of someone for a imagined insult to his "homeland."

You see, I put "homeland" in quotes because Jericho had never set so much as his pinky toe on the soil of Ireland.

In fact, I think he was from Hoboken.

But that's beside the point.

When I met him, he was drunk... as per usual.

He was also singing... again, as per usual.

I however, was not drunk. Nor did I plan to be.

I had stumbled into the dank and musty tavern intending merely to use the no doubt spotless facilities and then race back out to the GB, when he spotted me in the crowd, jumped off the stage where he'd been leading the other bar patrons in singing a rather raucous tune, and grabbed me by the arm. He insisted that I come up on stage and do a jig with him.

Since I was already jigging from the need to empty my bladder, I figured, 'what could it hurt?'

And I did it.

Thus, an instant bond was forged.

I discovered that Jericho, while incredibly spontaneous and fun, was also most definitely NOT in his right mind... Hell, he wasn't even in his LEFT mind.

Sanity had seen him coming... and made a break for points North.

So that's how I ended up making 300 bucks in tips from the patrons.

Amazing what a good jig will get you in South Boston.

I'd tell you more about the amazing adventures of Jericho and the Pirate Queen...

But then I'd have to kill you.

Until later my friend... I'll see you around.

Peace.

Too Smart for My Own Damn Good

2008-06-15T21:40:00.003-04:00

I don't know about you but when I was little my mother used to tell me...

"Be careful what you go looking for...You might find it."

For most of my pirate life, I have found this to be true... Painfully true. Mostly because, in addition to being a kick-ass pirate queen, I am also incredibly goddamn nosey. I mean, the last time I stuck my nose in where it wasn't wanted, I ended up in the back seat of a '65 Buick, suspended from an overhead crane with my arms and legs bound with electrician's tape. I mean, sure... I escaped, but even still...

You think I would've learned my lesson and stopped my never ending quest for information that won't do anything but hurt and upset me... But if you think that... You just don't know who you're dealing with.

I thrive on emotional pain.

It's a gift... and a curse.

Plus, the truth is, my powers of research have left me with a great many sources... (I do teach journalism remember). Basically, if you need to get information on something, I am a pretty good source. If I don't know how to find something out...I know someone else who does know.

I am quite literally too damn smart for my own good.

Now here's where the problem comes in...

I sometimes find myself backed into a corner... I don't necessarily WANT to know things... But I find myself irresistibly attracted to information. Most of the time, this is just harmless fun... but there are other times when it comes back to bite me in the ass.

Do you see how this sort of thing can go horribly, horribly awry?

Then of course, there is the other problem...

People are always telling me things that I don't want to hear. Things for which I have absolutely no answer or response beyond..."Uhh..."

Yet, I am drawn in. And of course, though some people might find it difficult to believe... I can keep a secret. Maybe better than anyone else you know. Yes, I talk...but when it comes down to the important stuff,

Information goes in... but it doesn't come out.

If you've noticed that this posting is more than unusually vague... Make of it what you will. It's been a long FUCKING two weeks.

I have been exhausted.
I have been used.
I have been elated.
I have been appreciated.
I have been blown off.
I have been cheered up.
I have been ignored.
I have been admired.
I have been crushed.

Basically, it's been a freaking emotional rollercoaster...and pardon the language but I have to say,

I'm fucking DONE for the day.

The Ordeal is Over

2008-06-15T21:03:00.001-04:00

...And I survived.

At last...new blogs can be posted...

Stay tuned.

Yeah, I Know...

2008-06-14T09:52:00.002-04:00

I've been AWOL a long time now. In fact, this is the longest I've gone without writing in over 8 months...I just couldn't help it.

Things around the Saltmine have been crazy and when I don't get home at a ridiculous hour, I simply crash.

There's also the fact that I was avoiding the whole SPEECH thing.

Well, I finally wrote it, for better or for worse. Personally, I'm afraid it's worse. I'm going to be delivering it this afternoon.

I'll let you know how it goes.

For those of you who won't be in attendance... Here it is in case you feel like being totally bored for a while (Yeah, I wanted to make it funny, but thanks to some trouble a few years back, not only did I have to get it approved by the powers that be, but there was also a moratorium on FUNNY).

So here it is...

____________________________________________________________

Students, friends, family members, community members school board members and esteemed faculty, thank you for attending the commencement exercises today for the class of 2008…

Wassup?

Calm down… please.

When I was first approached by the Director of this year’s graduating class, Mr. R, and asked to speak here today, my first feeling was one of humility…closely followed by complete shock...

I wonder if that’s what a doe feels like when staring into headlights…

But honestly…

When I was at last able to summon a coherent thought, I stammered out something profound…something meaningful…it went something like this…

“What were they THINKING?”

Of course, Mr. R kindly told me I could take a while to think about it… But there was nothing to think about. There was no question in my mind. I said yes before the request had barely left his lips...

Naturally…the second thought I had after saying yes was…

“What am I thinking?”

Then I took a few deep breaths, stilled my shaking knees and soon enough my ADD kicked in when something shiny caught my eye…so I was okay for a little while…

Umm…just kidding…sort of.

Now what was my point? Oh yeah…I agreed to speak here today.

Of course, the next step in my quest was to craft what I hoped would be an acceptable, respectful and with any luck at all, entertaining speech…Naturally, I went to that bottomless fountain of useful knowledge…GOOGLE.

Unfortunately, after I got done watching YouTube, playing World of Warcraft, and instant messaging everyone I had ever met, I found that I had nearly lost the will to live… But still, I persevered and dove headfirst in to my research… exhausting the possibilities of several search engines.

The results left me skeptical at best...

What I discovered was that most speakers at commencement exercises spend their time sharing advice and words of wisdom…craftily imparting valuable life lessons and witty stories, attempting to share with their captive audience a glowing picture of what the future may one day be like…

I have to be honest… That sort of thing is not for me.

After all our time spent together, I believe that the time for me to advise you has passed…

So instead, I’d like to share something else, something those other speeches don’t seem to spend enough time on in my opinion…

I’d like to tell you what you’ve taught me.

After all… I think these lovely people who’ve come here to see you deserve to know the truth…Don’t you agree?

And… I’ll tell you why…

Because this day is all about you, class of 2008. You asked me to be here and share this day with you…How could I ever say no?

Saying no was not a viable option.

After all…as you know… *stage whisper*…You’re my favorite.

So…here it is honored guests… the real reason why I could never turn down such a tremendous honor…

The people you see here, wearing those caps and gowns… They may look like just another group of soon to be former students… But really, they are more than just that…

They are heroes.

Seriously.

I know, I know…you think you know what I’m saying here… but there are some things you may not know about these students. Personally, I’ve been privy to this information for about 4 years now…In fact, there are young people in those chairs over there who have had the dubious honor of having me as a teacher for most of their high school careers… Scary thought, isn’t it?

But true.

So here’s what I’ve learned from you class of 2008…

There really are heroes in this world.

Of course, this means you.

For years you’ve struggled against enormous odds, given of yourselves, worked your tails off and continued to show up to school… even when the thought of facing yet another test made you want to curl up in a ball…

You’ve been athletic champions… as Montanna said, your team unity has shown in your performance at the local, state and regional level…

You’ve been in the spotlight…the incredible performance you gave as actors in the musical Little Shop of Horrors will no doubt become the stuff of legend…

You’ve been across the globe…some of you have seen a wider world…and know how small that world really is… Nick, Kathrine, Kristy…”We’ll always have Paris”

You’ve been on television…

You’ve been conducting Transcendentalist meditations…

You’ve been working nights and weekends…

You’ve been pirates of the best kind…Like Robin hood…champions of the under dog

You’ve been trekking off to L. to learn to craft amazing food, build houses, and make films…

You’ve been making our school a better place for everyone else…

Heck, some of you have even been nursing sick plants and performing surgery on trees… (The FFA may have changed the meaning of their acronym…but it still spells “Cult” to me…I don’t care WHAT Colton, Riley, or the Amandas say…

Uhhh…just kidding…don’t stop planting flowers in front of my room please, you do great work)

You’ve been committing yourselves to serve your country…

You’ve been serving your school and your community…I can’t count the number of times the Student Council has come to our rescue as a school, designing clever games and team building activities to enrich our days here… Thank you Robert, Kier…etc.

Many of you have even taken several college courses… While still in our building!

And most of all…you’ve never given up. That’s why you’re here today, proud…and of course…squirming in your seats…wondering if I’ll ever stop so you can get your diploma and make a break for it with your family…

Dang.

I wish I could do all that. Generally, all I do is drink a Red Bull, drive to work, and then pass the buck to you… See? You’re the ones who deserve all the credit and all the reward…

In fact, if I ever grow up… I want to be just like you, class of 2008…

Would that be alright?

And please don’t ever forget this:

Everything I know about real heroes…I’ve learned from you.

So, once again, thank you for allowing me to share this wonderful day with you…and pardon any omissions, offenses or faults on my part… As Puck said in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,”

“If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumbered here

While these visions did appear

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream…”

I’ve done my best … And in the end, all I really wanted to do was to honor your request, and hopefully make you laugh a little.

Plus, I wanted you to see yourselves as I see you…

As Heroes.

This world is a better place with you in it. Don’t be afraid… you’ll be great.

Now go out and prove me right.

Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in a round of applause for these heroes… The graduating class of 2008.

Thank you.

Friendship and Cookies

2008-06-01T22:30:00.003-04:00

Okay, so here's the deal... I don't bake anymore.

I am a Pirate Queen and as such, I am far too busy kicking ninja ass to put on an apron and pre-heat an oven to 350.

However, I used to love to cook.

Sometimes, I even miss it.

And sometimes there are people who I find to be particularly special, who move me.

Then, I work in mysterious ways my wonders to perform.

I've actually baked cookies twice in the past week...

Somebody must be pretty special... That's all I'm sayin'.

And Speaking of Crazy...

2008-05-26T17:14:00.002-04:00

Runners are freaks.

No, really.

I mean, my personal belief has always been that the only time one should run is when being chased either by the cops or by some large, hairy animal with sharp teeth (I'm referring to Rednecks of course).

Yet somehow, through no fault of my own (I blame DanskoGirl76) I have become one of them.

In fact, about three hours ago I set off on an adventure which will most likely live on in infamy (at least as far as my hips are concerned...

It started innocently enough...It was just going to be a short jog through the outlying environs of Smallborotonville... Yet somehow it turned into a jog of epic proportions...

I "ran" 6 miles in about an hour and a half.

I place "ran" in quotation marks because I'm fairly sure that no objective observer would call what I did Running. (Seriously, at times I was certain that any self respecting blind person with a really good seeing eye dog could have walked the equivalent distance in about half the time).

It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't all UPHILL.

I swear to Carlos...Smallborotonville has more curves and hills than Scarlett Johansen.

I'm just sayin'.

Really, the only question now is, how long is it going to take before I start walking like a little old woman in need of a walker?

I'm Never Gonna Survive...Unless I Get a Little Bit Crazy

2008-05-25T16:25:00.002-04:00

Do you know when the best time is to have an adventure?

I do.

9:42am on a Sunday.

Preferably the Sunday of a long weekend...

After all, that way you still have time to recover from the bruises and abrasions before you go back to work on Tuesday...

So let's face facts. I've been huddled in the Batcave for far too long and it was time for an adventure.

The minute I woke up (4:15am to be precise) I knew that it was time to head out in my never ending search for trouble... Wait, make that Trouble.

Done and done.

I set out to start the day off with a Red Bull and a scrumptious breakfast at a local pirate establishment. With those necessities out of the way, I could safely be about my business...

WORLD DOMINATION, that is.

I began my sojourn innocently enough by buying some cheap hair dye and a shovel.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

You see, the snow shovel was just sitting by the door of Rite-Aid, looking so sad and forlorn that I just felt bad for it.

I mean...who buys a snow shovel in May? In New England?

I'll tell you who... NO ONE. Well, no one except me...

The hair dye was a spur of the moment purchase which I hoped that I would live to regret...

And regret it I did.

After digging that grave, I was far too tired to dye my hair... That's all I'm sayin'.

You see... I wasn't intending to steal a corpse originally... but he, much like the shovel, seemed very lonely all by himself on that park bench... And having experienced a bit of loneliness myself the past few years, I just couldn't bring myself to leave him like that.

So that's how I ended up, at 9:42 on a Sunday, driving into the White Mountains to bury a guy I didn't know with a snow shovel.

As for the dye... I'll let you know how it turns out.

Adventures in Grooming

2008-05-25T11:59:00.002-04:00

Well... The Pirate Queen chopped her hair off today.

It was about time for me to stumble into the bathroom, look at my reflection, shudder, and start clipping away.

So I did it.

When I was done, you could've made an Aikens voodoo doll out of what was lying on the floor of the bathroom.

Damn. I have too much hair.

Seriously.

If anyone ever decided to kill me by dropping me off a tall building, I'd drift to the ground like a dandelion gone to seed and land harmlessly on my spiky pirate shoes with nary a scratch.

I suppose I should be grateful...

Random Thoughts and Windless Nights

2008-05-24T23:22:00.002-04:00

"The wise man said just walk this way
To the dawn of the light
The wind will blow into your face
As the years pass you by..."

I was roller blading through the dark with these words floating through my head...

"Hear this voice from deep inside
It's the call of your heart
Close your eyes and you will find
The passage out of the dark..."

The darkness was all around, pressing on me like a gloved hand. It was around me like a blanket. It was around me and inside me, freeing and holding me back...

Where are the heroes now?

It's just me.

Like I planned this all along...

Like this is how it was always meant to be...

I can see the future stretching out in front of me like a dark road on a windless night.

Will there ever be a bend in the road?

Or will things go on this way forever?

I'm not sure... but I know something has got to give... eventually...

"Here I am (here I am)
Will you send me an angel?
Here I am (here I am)
In the land of the morning star..."

All I can say for sure is...

There are no stars tonight my friend...

The Importance of Being First...

2008-05-23T12:43:00.002-04:00

I have always believed that secretly every person has a list.

The list is never written down anywhere and it changes day by day, week by week... Sometimes even hour by hour.

It is a list you carry in your mind/heart of all the people who are truly important to you.

Or is it just me?

I freely admit that I have such a list. It is long, somewhat like my memory. Anyone who knows me well can tell you that I remember details... Things most people forget.

Of course, being socially retarded, I frequently find that my list of who is important to me causes me pain.

Pain is caused by unfullfilled wants.

You see, I always make the rookie mistake of assuming that simply because someone is important to me, that the reverse is also true and I must be important to them.

Yes, I know... I am a silly silly girl.

I think that this same thing is probably true of everyone to a greater or lesser degree... At least, I certainly hope so...

And that's all I have to say about that.

And Now, After a Long Hiatus...

2008-05-22T19:29:00.002-04:00

...We retreated back into the woods to regroup...

When last I left our Superhero tale, Shaggy, The Aviator, Lizzard and I were in the woods of Canterbury, contemplating our next move. The others were trapped inside a burning church, surrounded by an acre or so of enemies...both of the cultmember variety and ninja persuasion.

After a moment of discussion, the Aviator and Lizzard rushed back through the woods to get our vehicle and make a fly by, hoping that we could possibly just swoop down out of the sky and load our friends on board...

Shaggy, however, was not satisfied with this plan... He had every intention of taking as many evil-doers as possible down...

I intended to assist in his plan.

As bait.

The minute Lizzard and the Aviator were headed back through the woods and out of earshot, I took off running back to the church. I burst through the tree-line and into a group of Cultmembers, shouting and waving my arms, demanding that they surrender before I did something... really... bad...

They stopped what they were doing. Momentarily they recoiled and a few of them even took a step backward.

Then they realized that I was alone... and they laughed.

As they rushed me, en masse, I took a moment to revel in their stupidity...

It was then that Shaggy burst through the woods behind me and began shooting.

I put my head down, closed my eyes and rushed forward, fully prepared to take out anyone who stood in my way, with nothing for protection but my extreme solar flare-do (my hair can withstand nearly any assault by man or beast).

Luckily, this was unnecessary... within moments an entire group of the villains had been incapacitated with shots of bone from Shaggy's fists... not to mention a succession of quick kicks to the head (the taller members of the group had been so distracted by my seemingly suicidal rush that they had completely failed to make any attempt to dodge my quick friend).

I felt a flush of joy and endorphins... Any fear I had that we might not kick ass and save the day was now completely gone and I reached my hand out and jumped in the air for a quick "super" high-five before rushing forward, closer to the church itself...

The question now was... How would we get inside to save our friends?

The answer was obvious, thanks to an enormous ladder leaning against the side of the burning structure.

Unfortunately, the ladder and the side of the old church, were hot to the touch. The second my skin met the metal of the climbing device, I felt a sizzle and drew my hand back with a yelp of pain...

What to do?

And then I felt it... The charm around my neck began to grow cold... Reaching up, I touched it.

As per usual... at this point, something strange began to happen...

I looked up, searching the vicinity to see what Shaggy was doing and also looking for villains in my immediate area... There were none yet.

Shaggy however, seemed to have increased in size... and he was looking at me very strangely...

I wanted to ask why he was staring at me, when the ground began to rush toward me.

And then I began to comprehend... The ground wasn't rushing at me... I was rushing toward it...

I was shrinking.

As soon as I took my hand away from the charm, I ceased to become any smaller...

(And it was a good thing too...I really can't afford to get any shorter...)

I rocked a little on my heels and looked down...I was only about two feet tall now. I hadn't just gotten shorter, I was actually like... a mini-me...

After the look of shock left his face, Shaggy actually began laughing so hard, I thought he might fall out of the sky himself...

And then another band of ninjas came rushing around the corner of the burning edifice...

Luckily, laughter hadn't dulled my friend's sense of fury over his own suffering, or that of our friends, and he barrelled forward, a furious torpedo of flying bone splinters, fists and feet. As he dove through the air and directly into the chest of the largest ninja, the air seemed to crackle around him, sending the hapless ninjas flying. In no time at all, there was a pile of them with Shaggy hovering in the air above their bodies, cracking his knuckles and smiling a devious smile.

Before I had time to say anything (or do anything for that matter), he bounded through the air back toward me, said, "Uhh... I think we can rescue those feebs sometime today, don't you?"

Reaching down, he grabbed me by my upper arm and took off up the side of the church.

As I was hoisted unceremoniously into the stratosphere by my friend, I could only think one thing...

'HOLY SHIT, WHERE'S THE OFF BUTTON?"

I must have been so shocked that I actually screeched a little, because Shaggy laughed again and then said, "No balls! I bet you wouldn't trust me to drop you through that hole in the belfrey roof to Seymour and Boe..."

Closing my eyes against the sight of the church, which seemed to be growing smaller and farther away the higher we got, I mumbled a quiet 'Holy Mother of Carlos' to myself and then yelled,

"Yeah yeah, I trust you... Just do it!"

The next thing I knew, I was rocketing downward, back toward the church, falling through space toward a hole in the roof... Screaming in my head all the way...

...What a rush!

"Go Home and Polish Your Twig!"

2008-05-20T19:23:00.003-04:00

Earlier today I was headed to my usual Pirate locale for the last part of the day and unobtrusively clip-clopping my way down the Saltmine hall in my spiky pirate shoes when I was suddenly and without any warning at all, nearly knocked flat on my cute little pirate heiny by a large, ugly and somewhat angry inmate.

This particular inmate has been a problem for a long time.

He glowered at me from beneath his protruding brow and shoved me out of what he clearly considered to be his own personal space with nary a word of apology, though, just as clearly, I had done absolutely nothing to deserve this rough treatment.

I was dumb-founded...Shocked.

Without even a backward glance he proceeded down the hall, making a thump-clop sound. One foot was clad in a large boot of the shit-kicking variety and the other was absent (he has a wooden leg).

Loathe as I was to allow such treatment to pass without a word or even a sour look, the fact that this particular inmate is short one body part gave me a moment's pause... For once I was at a total loss...

Luckily, a trusty lieutenant of mine came to the proverbial rescue.

Apparently, whilst I was in the midst of my dilemma, Shaggy had come up behind and seen the whole thing from a distance of about 15 feet or so. As I stared after the rude and scurvy knave, Lt. Shaggy took the initiative, shouting, "You! Hey you!"

When the oafish lout turned our way Shaggy looked him full in the hideous face and jeered at him with glee,

"You pathetic jacanape! Yeah, I'm talking to you!"

At this, the general look of stupidity on the lout's face gave way to surprise...then a bit of rage. It was obvious from the look of utter cluelessness on his face that he hadn't decided what exactly he was going to do about this verbal assault on his person, when Lt. Shaggy fired the final shot of the altercation, "Your face makes my skin crawl, your foul odor makes me violently ill and your stupidity makes me want to read a book... Why don't you go home and POLISH YOUR TWIG!!!"

The cluelessness on the scoundrel's face was finally replaced by such a look of rage that I felt momentarily weak at the knees on my lieutenant's behalf... This could end very, very badly...

And then,

Inspiration struck me about the head and shoulders with the force of a newspaper on a naughty puppy...

The answer was right there at my elbow.

So I grabbed on for dear life and pulled...

The alarm sounded.

Thank goodness for the promptness of the local fire department...

By the time they arrived, the lieutenant and myself had positioned ourselves innocently in a classroom as though we'd been there all along...

The best part was that I finally made my childhood dream of pulling a fire alarm come true... and better still...

...Nothing was caught on tape.

HOORAY!!!

The End of an Era

2008-05-18T20:03:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm deleting my myspace page.

For those of you who don't know, I've been blogging on there for over three years now and in that time I managed to accumulate quite a few writings (over three hundred in fact).

I also made some really good friends, who, ironically, I've never met.

I will miss going on there but the fact is, I was on there WAAAAY too much.

One of my greatest phobias is making a pest of myself and I was afraid that was exactly what I was doing...so I quit. Cold turkey.

Well, not exactly... I have "rss"-ed some of my favorite bloggers and bookmarked a few pages that I tend to check entirely too much. However, the move I made will keep it from being way too easy to send lots of messages and make unwarranted comments.

So anyway... I am hoping that this complete change of venue will result in the burst of creativity that has been lacking for about a month...

We shall see together...Shall we?

The Year that Passed...

2008-05-18T16:39:00.002-04:00

Well, it's 4:16 on a Sunday afternoon, it's raining and I just got home from the Saltmine.

I met some Saltmine inmates for a breakfast meeting (they are awesome and humbled me by offering me money to show up... How sad is it that I'm the teacher and can't afford gas so four juniors pooled their resources to make sure I could attend a meeting with them? I love those guys, I'm going to miss them next year).

Then I went up to Saltmine Central and inputted my grades for three hours (for once I'm done with them early...they're due tomorrow).

Next, I roller bladed for an hour in the Saltmine environs...tank top, black jeans, pig tails, loud music and all...

And while I was doing that, my mind was racing faster than my feet... Moving me backward and forward from past to present...

Every year about this time I start to become more and more withdrawn. I feel the need to pull back inside my sea-urchin-like shell so that when it's time to say goodbye in June I will be protected by my tough exoskeleton.

It's hard.

The greatest thing about teaching is getting to know so many fabulous people.

The worst thing about teaching is having to say goodbye to those fabulous people, knowing that if I've done my job, most of them will go away forever...

It's harder to say goodbye to some of them more than others.

The absolute toughest part is never knowing if I've really taught them something, if I've done my job as best I can... I've always believed that for me personally, teaching is more a function of who I am than the material I impart. I think that the connection is what ensures that Inmates will actually listen...

But then someone will say, in a fit of pique..."I haven't learned anything."

And I beat myself up about it.

Still...I continue to put on the armor, wade in, do my best and hope every day for a good result...

I hope it's enough.

I already miss the Inmates.

How could I ever do anything else with my life but this job?

It has me by the short hairs.

I am the Saltmine's wench.

But I kind of like it. Does that make me weird?

I'm just sayin'.

Four Girls and a Movie

2008-05-17T18:06:00.001-04:00

The drive-in was packed and since I had no money, I had my three friends hop in the trunk.

They said it was pretty cozy back there but it was worth it only having to pay 8 dollars instead of 24.

During the movie we decided to honk at other people and do lots of Chinese fire drills.

The other movie goers hated us, until we held the consession stand up with water pistols and pirate guns and distributed our booty to everyone else in the lot.

We were afraid we might get arrested...

But no such luck.

The movie was pretty good... Though Reifsnyder the pink missed the last 5 minutes because she was rescuing a kitten from a tree...

Oh wait, it wasn't a tree, it was someone's back seat.

This was not intended to make sense... I've been reading a lot of Edward Albee and Luigi Pirandello.

I'm just sayin'.

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS...DOWN WITH PLAID!! (aka...I’m Gonna Get You Mr. Chemistry)

2008-05-12T19:17:00.001-04:00

... After all that I've said and done, why would ANYONE think they could mess with me and get away with it?

You see...here's yet another reason why I've been incommunicado recently...

Dear friends...

The Pirate Queen is at WAR.

Oh no, I am NOT kidding.

You see...it all started when this guy... this BillNye guy decided to emotionally torture me.

How?

With fashion of course.

You see, I've never claimed to be fashion conscious. In fact, I have admitted on more than one occasion that I am in fact "fashion roadkill."

But this guy...

He makes me look like Yves St. Lauren with a little bit of Chanel thrown into the mix.

Let me just tell you about MrBillNye...

He is a geek. Now, being an admitted geekgirl myself, I can't fault him for that... But you have to picture this guy... He looks like a stick figure with a bobblehead. He has a voice that's a dead ringer for Kermit the Frog and he wears pocket protectors every day.

But that's not the worst of it... He also wears...

*shudder*

Sweater vests. OH THE HUMANITY!!

The war began, not with the "shot heard 'round the world" or even a crash-bang-clatter as so many other altercations... It was much more like T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" in which he said,

"This is how the world ends...
Not with a bang but a whimper."

The whimper, good reader, came from me.

It was brought on by the sight of this human preying mantis in a pair of blue shortpants with little green boats on them.

Alright, I can hear you over there saying, "Hey, that's not so bad... What's the problem?"

Well, okay fine. Maybe it's not a problem for YOU, but that's because you didn't have to sit next to him for 6 hours whilst he regaled you with stories of his wife-in-laws-roof-AP Chemistry stuff... Even the stories wouldn't have been so bad, if he hadn't repeated the same ones...Over...and over...and over...in his muppet voice... with a shark-like smile on his face... Taking great pleasure in my ignoring him.

The more I ignored him... The worse he got.

Finally, just to shut him up, I responded by giving him the hardest of hard times I'd ever given anyone in my life.

I mocked his clothing.

I mocked his repetitious stories.

I mocked CHEMISTRY for Carlos' sake...

I even went so far as to give him my dissertation about how the laws of Thermodynamics are completely made up.

But in the end... I lost.

Yes, ME.

How so? I'll tell you how.

He loved my diatribe so much, that he began to LOOK for me, to actively SEEK ME OUT.

He adored being the object of my mockery.

I kid you not.

If there was a meeting, he sat next to me. If I was in my room attempting to "work," he stopped by to show me his latest fashion disaster. If I was given an obnoxious new duty, he offered to help me out with it.

Clearly, his masochism has reached a level to which all other masochists one day aspire.

The more I abuse and mock him... The more he loves me.

It would be the perfect friendship...If only I were a sadist instead of the closet masochist that I am.

At some points, I've even felt bad about giving him so much crap... but when I'm nice, he gets this disappointed look on his geekboy face and says things like,

"But aren't you going to make fun of my new sweatervest? Are...you... okay?"

At which point, I ACTUALLY FEEL BADLY FOR BEING NICE TO HIM!

The man is SICK.

And recently I've been forced to "step it up" since, in order to REALLY freak me out, he wore a pair of hideous PLAID PANTS to an all day meeting...

Just for me. I know you think I'm kidding... but I'm not.

So I recently put my artistic acumen to the test... making him a couple of posters which I ever so indiscreetly placed in his room... on his board... while he was teaching. These stated in blatant terms my complete disgust with both his subject and his plaid pants.

As you can probably guess... He loved it.

And now... he thinks he's going to get me back. He has actually been attempting to call converts to his side... The self-same scurvy inmates who have learned to love and serve the Pirate Queen so diligently in the past... Strangely, it's the inmates I least suspected to be on my side who ratted him out to me.

And ironically enough... he has managed to convert one of my trusted lieutenants.

That's right... he has usurped my place and the loyalty of one of my most favored crew-mates.

For this... more than anything else he's done... HE MUST PAY!

Oh boy... he's going to be soooo disappointed tomorrow... Not only have I formulated a clever diversion which will distract him from his own evil scheme, I have another plan for the following day which will cause him no end of amusement.

Don't worry...It's a bloodless plan...

In fact, if I didn't know what a thrill he's going to get out of how I am going to upstage his evil plans, I'd almost feel bad for him. Almost.

Of course... I have a sneaking suspicion that my victory will be short-lived at best.

My friends... This war is FAR from over.

The worst part is... I'm enjoying it more than I think I should...

What can I say?

I'm a pirate queen... I LOVE WAR.

I'm just sayin'.

I Just Love Monday Mornings

2008-05-12T19:16:00.001-04:00

Ahhh...there's nothing like waking up on a Monday morning and freezing your butt off.

I made the rookie mistake of leaving a downstairs window open and it's a bit...brisk in here right now.

Plus, I fell asleep wearing a tank top and (of all things) a skirt.

My soul feels like smouldering embers but my skin is like ice. I refuse to move from this bed.

There are three cats on the bed, one sleeping on my feet, one on my back and one my pillow. Apparently they don't like the cold either.

Plus, there's a text message on my phone about Starbucks, which gives me an excuse to lay here for a while, since they don't open until 6:30. Good news for me, since that allows me to avoid exercising this morning.

I'm such a backslider.

But at least I'll be a backslider with good coffee.

Go me.

I had strange dreams last night filled with people I don't know very well and talking trees...

And I woke up with this haiku in my head...

"The tree stretched
lay on the garage roof
You have your heaven it said,
Go to it."

(That's a paraphrase by the way).

I really should get up but my theory is, as long as I'm philosophizing I have an excuse to remain right where I am.

That's my story... and I'm sticking to it.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho.

Is it bad that I woke myself up this morning humming my profile song?

These ramblings are disjointed...much like my sleep pattern...Just a coincidence?

Dang. Cat on the pillow is biting my hair...Time to get up.

I still haven't come up with anything impressively funny and moving to say in my speech and I can feel the deadline sneaking up behind me like a freshman with a squirtgun full of fake blood...

Ug. Coffee... bye.

Humour, Hotness and a Long Absense

2008-05-11T19:47:00.000-04:00

Yeah, sorry 'bout that...I've been mentally away for a while. Too much going on around here between Saltmine Central and the noise inside my head... The stress of the end of the year is taking its toll...

And then there's this...

I would like to rant for a few moments (I know how much you love it when I go off on a roaring tangent, so if you like that kind of thing, please enjoy).

You see, as I've mentioned a few times, I've recently gotten all healthy and crap (NOT!)... Actually, I'm just getting progressively smaller and smaller.

The point is, according to a small minority of the population, somehow I've gone from being just me to being some new and improved "hot" me...*snicker snicker*

Anyway, I had an experience which nearly sent me over the edge into screaming insanity last week and after ruminating on it for a few days...

I need to rant.

Here's what happened...

I had arrived at a local pirate hangout to spend some time with PaperGrrl. We have been hanging out at this establishment on a regular basis (trans: 2-3 times per week) for the past 4 years...

Let me just say that one more time...

4 years.

When I arrived PaperGrrl was already there waiting for me. She passed me a carbonated beverage of the Dr. Pepper variety and I settled in to decompress. She then informed me that the owner of the establishment had been asking her about me just before I arrived. Keep in mind, this gentleman has seen/spoken to me on a regular basis for FOUR YEARS. He said the following,

"Hey, is your friend single?"

She replied, "Yep." He then said,

"Really? I'm surprised... She's hot! Is she straight?"

Again PaperGrrl replied, "Yes, yes she is." He responded with this,

"What's her name? She seems really nice... smart and funny too."

PaperGrrl agreed with his assessment and told him my first name.

End of conversation.

Okay, fine. I'll be the first to admit, anyone who thinks I'm hot is okay in my book, regardless of whether or not I'm interested, so that was pretty cool.

After that information had a minute to get settled in my consciousness and the appreciative glow of knowing that there is at least one person in the free world who thinks I am "hot" made its way into my schema... I suddenly began to get pissed.

REALLY pissed.

Why?

I'll tell you why.

You see, as I say... I have been coming to this establishment for FOUR YEARS.

This was a very enlightening experience for me. I have always known that living in this time and place, that appearance is important to people.

Fair enough.

However, I always believed that it wasn't the ONLY thing that was important.

Sadly however, I was wrong.

Appearance is indeed the ONLY thing that is important. I could be the biggest, meanest, cruelest BI-CH in the free world...but as long as I look good, that's all that matters... How disappointing for me. You see,

I have always been "funny" (at least, I think so...but I'm a sarcastic wench, so what do I know?). I have pretty much always been "nice" also...(Quiet Shaggy, I can hear you laughing out there somewhere). Also, I am actually pretty darn smart too.

But clearly, these qualities mean absolutely nothing. All that matters about me is the way I fill out a pair of low rise jeans and a tight sweater.

Boy, it's good to know that I've wasted my entire life getting educated, developing self-esteem, and living life to its fullest, when all I really had to do was starve myself in order for members of the opposite sex to express interest in me.

DAMN YOU COLLEGE!!

I spent all that money, yet all I really had to do was force myself to barf on a daily basis...

Dang. If only someone had told me that when I was an impressionable young girl.

*sigh*

Alright, fine...for those of you who are sarcasm-challenged, I'm just kidding. I'm not starving myself.

But I am annoyed. It's good to know that people currently find me attractive... But I do wonder... Was I worthless before?

And this has made me appreciate all the more those people who knew me before and thought I was pretty great BEFORE I lost weight.

*deep breath*

I'm okay now.

I'm just sayin'.

Why I Need a Night Light

2008-05-05T22:26:00.001-04:00

As you are well aware by now, the Pirate Queen has a myriad of hidden talents and skills...aka kicking ninja behind, bending the law of gravity and, of course, bellydancing (shhh...It's a secret).

But there's one talent I have that I'm not so proud of.

I am able to freak myself out like nobody's business.

Case in point... I currently live alone in a house that resembles the Gingerbread House from Hanzel and Gretel.

It's a good little house.

Just one problem... My bedroom is on the second floor. This has many positive attributes, however, there is one major drawback...

No easy escape route handy for when the whacked out pyscho killer emerges from the trees that separate me from the rest of civilization.

Not that I think a psycho killer is coming for me or anything (I'm not THAT paranoid... YET).

Unfortunately, there are times when I'm lying in bed, staring out of the skylight or the sliding glass doors and I'll suddenly hear a strange noise from downstairs...

I have no closets to hide in.

The bed is too low to the floor for me to get under it.

And the cats, though fierce, will most likely COMPLETELY FAIL to protect me from a large man weilding a 6' stiletto...

Uhh...

I think I hear a noise down stairs...

Cold chills are racing down my spine, up my neck and making my hair react unpleasantly...

Oh Mother of Carlos... I'm gonna die...

Please...someone call 9-1-1...

I'm just sayin'.

The Beauty of the World--The Pirate Queen Turns Contemplative

2008-05-04T22:14:00.000-04:00

I just recently got home from yet another long, mind clearing jaunt in my car (with a brief stop to do some roller blading as well) and had some interesting thoughts...

I was parked near a mountain, watching the sunset through the trees... The clouds were turning the color of flaming embers and I wondered...

What exactly is beauty? I mean, sure, the poets have been talking about it since the dawn of language... but really... what is it?

I came to the following "conclusions" on Beauty...

1. Beauty is in struggle... it's anticipation, not acquisition...it's in the moment of creation, the "I've almost got it" not in the solution.

2. Beauty is what you see in the eyes of a "friend"... Someone who "gets it."

3. Beauty is in follow-through... promises that are kept, not just given out with a casual word... when people do what they say they will.

4. Beauty is in generosity of spirit and selflessness... Caring, even when you know chances are "fair to middlin'" that no one will notice.

Sorry for the semi-crappy-philosophical-wanna-be musings... The Pirate Queen is in a contemplative mood this fine evening.

But I will say this...for once the ride really did actually calm me down... And every now and again, philosophical musings please me...

In fact, I frequently force both my scurvy pirate lackeys and my cabin boys to listen to my ramblings... Mostly they stare blankly at me but once in a while I see a flash of recognition that pleases me immensely.

That's real beauty baby.

I'm just sayin'.

What follows is a poem I personally love by Gerard Manly Hopkins... Though I am not a Christian, I have always found his sentiment to be particularly beautiful... The idea that beauty is not just about celebrities and women on magazine covers with perfect skin... Beautiful. (NOTE: G.M. Hopkins was writing in the Victorian Era in England...so he wouldn't have had any idea who Paris Hilton or Britany Spears are... LUCKY HIM).

See what I mean? Do you get it?

If so, and you actually read this far...

I love you... You're beautiful. :)

P.Q.

"Pied Beauty"

GLORY be to God for dappled things-
For skies fo couple-colour as a brinded cow:
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and piece-fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Yet Another Formal Event Sucks My Soul Out Through My Ears

2008-05-04T10:02:00.001-04:00

Last night I arrived home at 2am after attending yet another formal event...

For the fourth year I was invited to attend the Saltmine Prom.

Yes, the PROM.

And I tell ya, there is absolutely NOTHING like being 33 years old, getting all dressed up, attending a Saltmine dance... ALONE... To make you feel like a complete and utter WINNER at LIFE.

Let me just set the scene for you...

The room was on the 3rd floor of a place I'll call... The BrickMill.

The floors were hardwood. The walls were made of brick. The room was tiny, decorated in christmas lights and lovely blue and white bouquets. The food was quite good actually.

It was cold.

Until the dancing began.

At which point, it took less than 30 minutes for the room to become so packed with pheromones that you could practically body surf on them. Hell... you could practically SEE them.

And let me tell you... The only thing better than being a 33 year old single woman at a Saltmine Formal Event, is being a 33 year old single woman who knows that she is virtually the ONLY person in a room who will be going home to her CATS at the end of an evening of music, dancing, food and raging hormones.

Ahhh...Youth.

Anyway, I will admit that the evening had its high points. Everyone looked beautiful, I got to buy some sexy new shoes and a dress that was pretty damn fabulous (if I do say so myself), and I got to hang out with some of my favorite people.

Naturally, a couple of the other Saltmine workers gave me crap... "Why aren't you sitting with us? Are you trying to say that you'd rather hang out with Inmates?"

Uhh, actually... Yes, yes I am.

Plus... what do I have in common with people who teach mythological subjects like... Chemistry? Physics?

Let's face it, you and I both know that Chemistry and Physics do not exist.

I am proof that there is no such thing as gravity or the laws of thermodynamics.

All you have to do to know that is take a look at my shoes to know that.

I'm just sayin'.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, Or, With a Great Honor, Comes Great Anxiety

2008-05-04T10:01:00.000-04:00

I got some news at the Saltmine yesterday but I haven't really told many people about it yet. Apparently, some of the Inmates voted for me to speak at an event being held at the end of the year (June 14th I believe).

Actually, enough of them voted for me to speak that I actually won.

Dude...You could have knocked me over with a crayon. (I'm trying some new analogies on for size).

But honestly, when MrStrangeHairdo came and told me...or rather, asked me, "They voted for you...will you do it? You don't have to answer right away..."

I answered right away.

I mean, who would say no? Who could say no? (Seriously, the day in question is all about them and what they want...It would be selfish to refuse, even if I had wanted to refuse, which I didn't).

Of course, now the bigger question remains...

What the heck to say?

I am well and truly freaked out.

I'm thinking the same thing I did when the Saltmine hired me...

"What were they THINKING?"

This is going to require a great deal of thought...

I'll get back to you on that.

The Worst Field Trip EVER!!!

2008-05-04T10:00:00.001-04:00

Today at the Saltmine I took some of my inmates on a field trip.

The fact that this was yet another example of my truly evil side never even crossed my mind until Shaggy pointed it out to me...

Yet another of the small ironies in life.

There I was, in the library during the last period of the day, when Shaggy came in...

He said, "What are you doing in here?"

I responded, "Field trip."

He asked, "What are you doing?"

I answered, "They're taking a practice test."

He looked at me for a long moment, his face slathered in a mask of incredulity.

Slowly, he began to laugh, shook his head and said, "They've been in the library all day...Taking...a...test?"

I didn't get it. I said, "Yeah, so?"

At this point, he began to laugh. I asked why.

He shook his head. Then he said, "Only you would tell your students...Hey guys, I'm taking you on a field trip! Then when they got all excited and asked, 'where are we going?' You'd say, 'the library.' And then, when they asked, 'what are we gonna do?' You'd say, 'Take a test!!' And then laugh maniacally..."

He added, "You really are evil...You do realize that this is the WORST FIELD TRIP EVER, don't you?"

At that point, I did in fact laugh maniacally, until I began coughing.

After he left, I told a group of kids what he said.

They agreed that it really was damn funny.

I'm still laughing about it.

The best part of the whole thing was, even TheBeardedOne had to say something that went a bit like this...

"I have to admit...He's funny...No wonder you like him.(In reference to Shaggy)" (If you knew TheBeardedOne, you'd know...That's high praise indeed).

Ha ha ha...worst field trip ever...That kills me.

A Sad, Sad Little Woman? You Be the Judge!

2008-04-27T15:58:00.002-04:00

Well, tomorrow will be back to the Saltmine day for your favorite grammarian-superheroine-ninja-slaying-recovering-cult-member...

Uh...that would be me in case you are wondering to whom I refer.

And I have been experiencing a weird feeling. One that only comes over me at this, most festive time of the year...

You see...there are really only a very few short weeks left at Saltmine Central and I find myself thinking frequently about how much I will be missing my inmates soon. This of course makes me quite eager to get back into those shark-infested waters.

Naturally, I realize that to most people, this makes me a complete freak.

Still...May and June really are the best of times at the Saltmine...

There is a ton of stuff to do, lots of celebrations and awards ceremonies, the weather is nice so I frequently find excuses for my Saltminers to go outside to do work, and although stressful, the oldest Saltminers love this time of year since they have really begun to appreciate just how close they are to leaving forever.

The leaving part makes me feel pretty hollow inside sometimes. Although I am very happy for the inmates and want to see them move on to be happy, successful and have great adventures of their very own... I get really attached.

I think that's why this job of Saltmining is truly for me. I am forced to appreciate everything and live in the moment, since I am always aware that my time with each of the inmates really is extremely limited. They each change my life in some small way and frequently "teach" me as much, if not more, than I "teach" them.

And this group of flyers will definitely be one of my toughest yet... Some of them have been with me for all four years! (Yes, you must pity those poor souls...4 years of the Pirate Queen can be a bit much, even for the strongest of Inmates).

Anyway, the truth is...I'm looking forward to going back.

And I will cherish every moment I get with the inmates... That's a promise.