Pirate parties and the creative stimulation of building a costume

I went to a pirate-themed birthday party last night. I haven't dressed up in costume in a long time. It was fun. As I ripped the top I had been planning to take to Goodwill, teased and mussed my hair to make it look slightly dredded up (but not so much that it would cause me trouble when I next washed it,) and decided I wanted to be surly for the evening, I giggled. What fun.

The creativity of playing a part is refreshing. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at playing a pirate. I can play subtle parts wherein I have to be slightly more or less of this or that characteristic than I really do possess, (more sophisticated, more rural, less "chick with an English degree," less artsy-type, more computer enthusiast...you know, stuff about which I already have a little bit of experience,) but I never was kidnapped by pirates and forced to sail the seas with a bunch of swarthy men. My party character - the one I practiced while I applied bronze eyeshadow as blush and here and there on my face to create the illusion of less-washed-than-you - was fun in my head. And so I had a good time.

But just as those days in high school when I chose to work props backstage while others remembered their lines for You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Little Women, I still do better in roles that are the different versions of me. "Slightly Surly" I can do when provoked, I suppose. But not so much as a hard-core, high-seas-sailing, unsophisticated piratess. Oh well. We can't have it all.

(Fun party, though. Thanks ya'll!)