Saturday, September 17, 2005

Down to the wire

The packing continues, and it is getting messy. Behold:

Chaos!
But it is progressing. I may have to stay up until the wee hours of the morning, but it will get done. And I still have tomorrow night for last minute stuff.

I'm bummed that I have to relinquish my cable boxes tomorrow morning. I have a ton of stuff saved on the DVR (which is like a Tivo) that I simply won't have time to watch. My packrat tendencies are reflected in how I accumulate hours of television. Multiple episodes of Ellen, Daily Show, $40 a Day, 30-Minute Meals, South Park, and Queer Eye. Not to mention the charity concert for the Gulf Coast that aired the night I saw a taping of Joey. I really wanted to see that. Oh well. Now if only I could be forced to part with all my other packrat junk as easily.

Even though I'm pressed for time I felt I needed to take the time to post because when I return my cable boxes, I will also be returning my cable modem...thus, no more internet. I do have the wireless laptop, and there are several signals in my building, but they're all encrypted. Phooey. So I don't know when I'll be able to post again...probably not until Monday. I will be experiencing serious ISW (information superhighway withdrawal)!

What's been on my mind lately is the odd phenomenon I'll call "finale courage." How many classes did you have in college where you didn't get to know your classmates well until the very end of the term? I doubt I'm the only one who noticed that toward the end of the quarter or semester, everyone in class got friendlier and more outspoken. Or how on a plane ride (if you're lucky) your neighbor has been quiet for the past 5 hours--but suddenly during the last 10 minutes becomes a chatterbox? In both cases, I think it's because we know the end is near, so to speak, and therefore the potential for being judged is also ending. Subconsciously (or perhaps consciously) we are aware that even if we say or do something stupid, we won't have to suffer through the resulting awkwardness because, "We're outta here!" This basically frees people up to be themselves, for better or worse.

Well, last night I experienced finale courage of a more personal nature. I won't go into the sordid details, but let's just say I asked a friend a question I would never normally ask because of the high potential for a disastrous answer. But I will probably never see this person again, so I figured what have I got to lose? The answer ended up being less disastrous than I feared, but also less encouraging than I'd hoped. Please forgive me if this is incredibly vague and enigmatic. But I think that if you've ever experienced what I'm talking about, you'll know exactly what I mean.

I'll leave you this evening with this: I've been seeing tons out-of-state license plates so I decided to take pictures of them and try to collect all 50 states. I'm proud of this latest "score" because I think it's probably pretty rare out here.

Maine

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