It's been a hectic week. I'm slipping on a bunch of things right now and need to clear my head so I can get a jump on them. This is for the head-clearing.

The day begins when you wake up. Tuesday started with a lazy hour - I'd been up working 'till 5am the night before (I, slow breakfast and a book, stretched out in the sun on a bare mattress on the floor.

Instead of eating lunch that day, I grabbed Abelian Newspaper*, rode to U-Haul, chucked my bike in the back of a gigantic white pickup, and drove (gingerly, at half the speed of normal traffic) through the tunnels to East Boston to move out of my apartment. It was like navigating a very small and agile whale through a 2nd grader's Marbleworks contraption. Boston: Where Streets Are Not Made For People (TM).

*what's black and grey and commutes?

They had, of course, decided to do utility work on the street directly outside my door that day. This made moving furniture (with help from Lincoln) lots of fun! (Discovery: when all else fails, dragging cheap particleboard furniture across a litter-ridden sidewalk isn't as bad for the furniture as one might think, so long as you are not concerned much with cosmetics.) I hauled the load to Newton to discover that (1) everyone was out of the house and (2) I had no key. I was (and am) out of shape, and if I were to wear boots and a coat and put all sorts of electronics in my pocket, clip keys on my belt, and jump into a river and emerge sopping wet (it, uh, tests the durability of the electronics), my bed would still weigh more than me. I looked at the pile in the truck and pondered for a bit.

20 minutes later, I was back on the road blasting classical music from the windows of a now-empty pickup truck. Behind me, my aunt's garage now held an L-shaped desk, two bookshelves, mattress, and a giant wooden bed with drawers. Physics: It Works. (I later learned at dinner that it had taken 5 people to move the bed inside the house.)

Marketing meeting, some more work, and then... it was time to go and retrieve Sondy's bike, which had a frozen lock down at the Longwood T stop. Previous attempts to cajole the lock to release (force and WD-40) had been fruitless. This time, I decided to use something different: threats.

Setting: The Longwood T stop, rush hour. Commuters mill around the platform. A large white pickup drives up, something rattling around in the bed. It is a GIANT BOLT CUTTER. In clear view of the frozen lock, I place the bolt cutter on the ground and stare at the bike meaningfully. Completely go to town with WD-40. I brace my foot inside the lock (now thoroughly dripping with solvent) and pull.

The lock creaks free. Commuters look at me strangely as I wheel the bike, GIANT BOLT CUTTER awkwardly slung over my shoulder, WD-40 can in pocket, to the truck.

More work. Bike to dinner, dinner, bike from dinner, head to the hotel where my family's staying, so I can spend my last night with them (we're all going to the airport in the morning anyway). 2 beds and a roll-out, 6 people. I get the roll-out. I subsequently learn, while everyone else sleeps, that washing t-shirts in the sink works marginally well, and washing blue jeans in the bathtub is a giant pain, and if I'm improvising laundry on the road I should Wear Pants That Dry Faster. Also, hair dryer != clothes dryer, because apparently this was not obvious to me. (Hey, it was an experiment.)

Sleep sometime between 1:30 and 2am. Wake up at 4am to say goodbye to first plane batch. Wake up at 6am to say goodbye to second plane batch. Wake up at 7am and check out and eat breakfast and go off to the airport. Proceed to sit on plane seat clearly made for someone a head shorter, which renders further sleep impossible. (Am too excited to sleep anyway, and don't really need to.)

And then... Raleigh! 3 of my 4 months as a Red Hat intern have involved a trip to Raleigh (June was the exception; I went to DC and NYC instead) and believe me I am not complaining. Every single time I've been here, my mind has been utterly blown - would that I could sit next to Greg or wander into Brand or talk with Marketing or discover Legal's bookshelf every day. (Westford is awesome too - it's just so far! Mostly because I have no car. However, the shuttlebus ensures I don't stay past 10pm every single day, which is probably Very Good.)

Okay. I think I'm decompressed now, and I can sleep, and then wake up and plow through slippage. Insights from the conversations I've had in the past two days aren't yet expressible in coherent English sentences; I'm working on that (and need to work on that in general, really; I need to practice live debate).

Right now, though, I can say this: I am incredibly fortunate. I am incredibly blessed. I hope to someday have the chance to pay this forward. This gratitude has been a common theme in my life lately, and I am doubly thankful for that - that this is life now, all these awesome things, and not just Isolated Really Cool Experiences - and I hope I never forget it.

Another thing I'm thankful for: North Carolina BBQ. OH MAN. Also today: fried {okra, green tomatoes}. Ahh. I still love Boston, but at some point, I need to spend more than a week here.

Okay, it's bedtime.