Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Boat Follows to NYC
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Steve Carell? Okay.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Names
The fact is, there are people who experience the miracle of birth, hold a tiny innocent newborn in their arms and say “let’s call him Igor.” There is an Igor who is the band master—he is a fratty, friendly looking guy from
Igor also had a friend who got very excited to go work on oil rigs in the middle of the ocean because you make “one hundred, one hundred fifty thousand dollars.” You work one month on, one month off. The only problem is that the people on the rigs are “crazy shitbags.”
The Eastern Europeans are generally rather frustrated with Americans not having any idea about their countries. Do you know what countries are on the
Ashley and I went down and the Norwegians made us their standard sandwich that is not a sandwich. I said “sandwich!” and they humored me, barely. The guy looked at me like I just said “parking lot!” for no reason and like he wanted to hit on my friend. I think it is called “Norwegian Dinner” and I humored them, barely, like they said “parking lot!” and wanted to hit on my friend. It consists of Norwegian Mayonnaise, which is amazing and intense and balklasfjas;lfjsd;fl if you are from Norway and just tastes a little bit richer if you are American. They peel a bunch of tiny shrimp first, then get French bread, slather it with mayo, put a bunch of shrimp on it, then cover it in lemon juice. They said “if you are sick tomorrow, don’t blame me!!” We had white wine and pulled off heads and got legs and everything everywhere. The sandwiches were delicious.
The Bulgarian Engineer told us all about Filipinos, that they always sing mournful, romantic karaoke and eat the heads of shrimp. His Filipino assistant did a dead-on great Billy Joel and Tom Jones. We were one of about 4 women there.
We met the chief electrical engineer named Bjarte. His friend Ramie got very annoyed when we said “what” about 600 times after Ramie said Bjarte’s name because “Bjarte” is pronounced like a joke about a Norwegian name. “Bee-YOR-tee”—but full on Swedish chef sing song. Ramie told us the American pronunciation, which was “Bee-YORr-tee” and rolled his eyes about how dumb Americans are. Ashley was polite and I didn’t say “buddy, that is a really weird name.” Maybe my name sounds like “Blkkeioorpcl.”
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
St. Patty's
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Barbados Fotos
Shopping Consultant
We are winding down the contract, so everyone is getting wistful and dramatic according to their personalities. We had breakfast today and saw dolphins jumping out of the water, heading towards the ship. One was swimming upside-down under water, just like they did for food, for us, in a tank. The ocean is incredibly weird.
A Story from the Shopping Consultant:
Ashley and I saw her after her talk. She was wearing two giant rings on each ring finger, a totally bling-ed out watch, an amolite necklace, a tennis bracelet, a weird bling-ed out grandma bracelet, and huge diamond earrings. The shopping consultants represent Diamonds International, which has a store in every port we visit. She told us a story about working for Carnival Cruises and generally in her presentation: people will steal anything and everything from her, including her display of a huge fake diamond. On Carnival, people got so crazy that they would injure each other, clawing for the freebies she’d throw out. It got so bad they stopped her from handing out freebies, although she said “but I have to keep their attention.” So. She was the only one allowed to hand out freebies, however, she has to say “listen to me. I am going to hand out freebies. Do not hurt each other. If any of you hurt each other, you are not to complain, because I warned you.”
Additionally, we viewed the art auction from a balcony. I have so little to say, except that if Picasso came and saw they were auctioning off his posters, he’s reenact
I am back in my room again in the crew hallway. Or my palace. Fortress of solitude. You can see sunsets from the window and wake up to sunshine and the sound of waves. It is so peaceful. You can do a lot of good staring.
In other news, Meatheads have joined us. There are terrifying meatheads from the football team of the
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Worshops!
I just lead the adult workshop. Frequently we have to co-lead them, or one person leads and another is the silent peon. It is hard to be the silent peon, but you just astral project yourself and think about how you are a beautiful martyr. It is not hard to lead them. Turns out I enjoy it immensely, although I may describe them as “a mess” when I am in charge. Insofar as I’m like “why are you acting weird” to my silent partner peon and then realize what I’ve said is “clear as mud!” as a passenger told me, which was accurate. They got the general idea and I had fun time 6000, which is important because they are going to ask these questions, which they did ask: “so what’s next for you” “how do you support yourself” “do you have a significant other or do you just kinda do whatever on the ship.”
We do a warm-up exercise where you stand in a circle and throw imaginary balls to people in the circle. The first ball is a red ball. You make eye contact with person, say “red ball.” Throw ball to person. Person catches it, says “thank you red ball” then does the whole sequence with someone else. Then we add another ball. What color is it? Blue. Hahaha. I am holding 2 balls in my hand. Hahaha. I know where your minds are. Hahaha. Blue balls blue balls blue balls blue balls blue balls blue balls blue balls, hahahahaha, I’m dead inside. I am currently resisting going on a 6,000 word diatribe about balls and people saying “balls” and intrinisic humor about balls and whether or not our civilization is broken at the foundation. ANYWAY. Normally we add another color, and then add a “monkey ball” and then have to laugh until we explode because the inherent humor of balls is exponentially improved with the addition of a monkey. However, we made it instead throwing a live monkey. Then we added another thing, which was pushing a large column. So people were saying “red ball,” “thank you red ball,” “blue ball,” “thank you blue ball,” “monkey ball,” “thank you monkey ball,” “column,” “thank you column.” The column made everyone confused because “where’s the column!” “did you push the column at me?” “I have the column and a ball I think.” I have a very vivid imagination, so I saw a 50’s-ish friendly African-American lady with a giant white column in front of her saying “how did this get here?”
My months of keeping my silence also meant I insisted on playing something called “documentary” (I think), where people sit in a line and you interview them. My roommate said “don’t you think that’s a little advanced?” and I informed her she didn’t know anything. My silent peon partner doubted me as well, to which I gently informed him he didn’t know anything either. I figured maybe 6 would want to participate. Instead, there were about 12. My silence and positive faith in the success of the exercise meant that I just said “so just like, pick a character and if you can’t think of anything, do your mom, hahaha” to a bunch of people who probably work construction or are retirees. This translated into the following characters: Scarlett O’Hara, Brittany Spears, Jimmy Conner, Carl Sagan, two guys swapping identities (“I’m Seth” “I’m Bryan Sanderson”) and others. The second to the last guy was in a wheelchair in real life and clearly had something wrong with his legs. Another person in the line chose the character of Dr. Bob Richards. The gentleman in the wheelchair said he was Scarlett O’Hara’s gardener until Dr. Bob Richards threw him from his tractor and ran it over his legs and “now look at me! Look at these legs! They’re useless!” which I would call Very Uncomfortable for everyone but the guy talking who was having a great time. Also, being Carl Sagan and just saying “billions and billions of stars” is technically wrong™ but thank God he did it, because otherwise it was Crick Ets.
After the workshop, a guy came up to Nate and his first words were “am I stupid?” because he didn’t get things from the show and wanted to find out why someone ate a brain and why people found that funny because “I thought it was a comedy show and that was…” He actually thought we made sense when he was just noticing the things we did that made no sense. And it turns out he’s from Hershey and will be delivering donuts to my mom’s college.
Then a hilarious woman insisted I go to Tampa Bay because she took a great improv class there and there is a really great gay, lesbian, transgendered community there with things like poetry readings. So.