A Happy Chinese July 4th

What it is to be irritable:
To be unable to escape from one’s own human companions:
To go like this: can I just have some time by myself and to have someone say “there you are!!!!” and insist upon telling one a story.
To be completely unable to find a tiny corner to just tuck away.
The complete unavailability of private corners.
Private corners!

Last night was spent discussing with castmate the exact nature of going crazy on a ship. It goes like this: as he reported: some of the doors in his mind got opened that didn’t need to be opened, like: “when did time begin” or “what is language” or “what was I before I was myself” and “when was my first thought” and things like this and “is it all meaningless” and items that you don’t actually need to think about because you will go crazy because there is no answer. This was good to hear about because this happens. This is what happens if you have no work and legions of servants. Then you start thinking “WHY AM I HERE” and feel like you are a trash pit that people throw food and amusement into. This must be part of what happens to incredibly rich entertainers or similar.

I am drinking 3 cups of coffee per morning. This is probably what is helping make me so irritable, along with the 50,000 people here. I should note that our room stewards, who work all day, are not irritable. They are pleasant and helpful. I should note that one of the guys who works in the buffet line had a fun time making up different sounds for a horn when he was trying to get through the masses of mooing humans, then went “hahaha.” Also, I should note that one of the women sings a song regularly and there is a general mood of laughing amongst that staff. This is nice x 1000.

The difficult thing about being a teenager is that you need a phone. I have seen the same girl twice in two days. She is a girl, so I have no idea if she is 23 or 16. I think she is probably 16. She asked me “is anybody sitting here?” about a chair that was about 15 feet away from me, in the middle of a completely empty mass of chairs. I said “no.” The day before I saw her and she desperately asked me if I got phone service. I said no and that maybe it was because we were in the Dominican Republic. She said she got phone service the other days. Both of these times I had my headphones in and was clearly on a computer. Well, today she got phone service and proceeded to loudly bawl on the phone. This is in the middle of a high traffic area. She didn’t want to sit in my line of sight, so she sat in traffic’s line of sight. I could hear her painfully sobbing and gulping air and saying “but noooooo” in a really high 4 year old’s type voice. And I think “I said I would call yoooou” and some other stuff. This is what happens when you have no privacy. Very upsetting. Also, she is going to be broke from that phone bill, if she is 23, or she is going to be grounded for life if she is 16.

There are a number of older Chinese folks on this cruise. They are frequently in the gym. I ran/walked on the treadmill next to an older lady who ran much faster than me and kept either staring at me or looking out the window right behind me.







Yesterday was the 4th of July. I should note that there are about 7 Americans on the crew, out of 1000. This results in a celebration of the 4th that is, in a word: crap. There were a bunch of red white and blue streamers that felt Chinese somehow and a fringie silver banner with cardboard letters that said PROUD (to be an) AMERICAN. The “to be an” was very small and on a silver cutout of the United States in the middle. Then there were identical cardboard American flags kind of haphazardly just around the ship at incorrect locations to the eye height. There was a $25 jazz brunch that they have every week that they called “Independence Day Brunch.” Like I said: Chinese. No fireworks, no sparklers, no face painting. I know blah blah blah Iraq blah blah blah SUVs blah blah blah, I don’t care. I am traditional. Very traditional apparently because I was VERY interested in getting in a fight all day. The best I could do was rant and rave about how terrible “Two Days in Paris” is as a movie. (It is terrible, just like how there is supposed to be a CLOTH AMERICAN FLAG SOMEWHERE AND ONE PICTURE OF UNCLE SAM AND OH I DON’T KNOW SOMETHING).

Our cruise director is Canadian, the captain is Swedish, everybody is Filipino or Peruvian, the Hotel Director is German and youth counselors are mainly Canadian and there are many of them. There are a ton of South Africans. For Canada Day (July 2nd) we had a big party and the Canadians wore red and white and put flags on their faces and got hammered. The passengers are all American, mainly from New Jersey physically or spiritually. Well, my cast had a lot of fun feeling very persecuted and ignored because there were no fireworks or BBQs and all of us tried to be alone and/or watch movies and/or read and/or write angry diatribes. Also, hello, we are people who make fun of things, so we wait for someone else to do something, then point out how stupid it is. This is hard when they are not doing the stupid thing you desire so you can rant about how pointless and jingoistic (maybe the word?) July 4th celebrations are. We finally went down to the crew bar for some conversation and Coronas, after our show, we could freely vent our hostility and wish each other a good 4th. I took the opportunity to plan a Labor Day Picnic and invite everyone. That is never to happen again! The end.