Day 1 of the Cruise

Right now, there is a couple in front of me dancing in the atrium, probably both like 28 ish, somehow he looks meathead-ish and she looks like she’s done a lot of dancing. Directly in front of me is a table of 4 Chinese people talking in Chinese and laughing about something.

Next to me on the left is another Chinese woman with her feet on a chair, sitting next to her crutches. I can hear the lounge singer, who plays piano and a recorded accompaniment with flutes/drums/what is needed—ooh, that was just trumpets. He sings, currently we are hearing “Fly Me to the Moon.” He is great, sounds great. He looks nothing like his voice. Just saying.

In case you were curious if anywhere is quiet, the answer is no. I can see: 24 people in my line of vision. A bunch more have just entered. I am now leaving the vicinity. This is the night where 0 places are quiet. There are roving humans from New Jersey everywhere, most of them teenagers getting in fights. STIMUL-TRAP!

We met a delightful gentleman from Pennsylvania in the hottub who did not kill us. He is from a town very close to my parents and informed me that Camp Hill, PA is a “big trucking town” and named a bunch of road numbers, because clearly he drives all the time. He is a driver from UPS and has been for 16 years. Apparently, “they are rough on their people.” When asked how Day 1 of his cruise is going, he said “f*cking great.” (I bleep for you Michelle). He then proudly told us he had 2 quarts of rum and 3 [some impressive word] cigars, but that we better get there quick, because the first quart is already half gone (they got on board around 3 p.m., p.s.). He then corrected us on the proper prison recipe for vodka (“slice the potato and put in a little bread, so the yeast activates”). Then he mentioned his “6 f*cking years in the Navy” that taught him how to make bilge wine. I wanted to geek out and talk about bilge wine, but he was terrifying and he did not know he was in a hot tub with 4 actors, a musician, and the musician’s gay brother from San Francisco. We vaguely said “we work on the ship” so he didn’t catch on and skin us and just said “this is the life!” a ton of times.

Also, the visual present from today:
I have no idea what part of the country does this (probably New Jersey), but there is a thing amongst teenage boys to get a) incredibly ripped in the chest region, b) aggressively sculpt their eyebrows—I mean, clearly wax them, and wax them pretty far apart in the middle, and c) get weird, very short haircuts that look like they are from the 50’s or something—almost bald along the bottom hairline, then a very gradual fade. These two jokers had a bunch of designs carved into that gradual fade section. And diamond earrings. They did laps on the first floor with no shirts on and kept getting lost. We walked by and caught them talking about their reps, very concerned if they should do 12 or 16. Fascinating.

There is a lot of the very long wife beater over very baggy basketball shorts look here.

My parents came to visit and check out the ship.