I'm not a nautical kitty. All I (think I) know about what I'm going to talk about comes from books and movies and the odd conversation with someone who's into boats.

Ballast. A fancy word for dead weight. Keeps a ship from being too vulnerable to rough waters.

Keel. A fancy word for huge hunk of metal, at least on sailboats. Think of a metal sail, underwater. That's a keel.

Sometimes weighing down something is necessary. But, there's another term: Plimsoll line. That's the max load a ship can bear before going under.

On smaller vessels, there's no formal ballast hold or tank. They use 'live ballast,' i.e. the weight of the crew. On some racers, the crew have arrays to hang over the the edge of the craft to increase leverage. Quite dramatic, that.

If I were a ship, I may be overweighted. (On a scale, I'm certainly overweight.) I'm not near my load line, I don't think. But I am definitely riding low in the water. I'm not in any danger of being lightly tossed in moderate waters.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about some jargon from my workplace: "lifeboat drills" and "triage." But that's enough for today.