The Boat Follows to NYC

Short tangent:

Today I helped my current roommate, who is a fashion designer (not obvious), with her photo shoot. Everyone there is very blase and over the whole thing. No one really wants to talk about how gorgeous the 19 (18?) year old Polish model is, or how strange that her job is actually kinda hard and seems totally boring but she is really good at it. Or how she looks like a terrifying and sick person in front of you, but is gorgeous in every photo. Or how the photos make her look like she has secrets and elegance and perfection, and the actual person made you think "are you bored?" and "do you wish more people talked to you?" and "are your feet bothering you?" She did very serious model poses and did not laugh and looked gorgeous. Like she pouted her lips and stood like Audrey Hepburn and stared into the distance. Also, I saw her underwear and nipples through her shirt. When she smiled for real, she looked kinda weird and like she was 9. A 50-ish older man met her and said "you should go to Paris. Go to Paris for the shows. Are you going to to go Paris?" immediately after she basically whispered that her name was Irina. That was a totally confusing morning. Maybe modeling plays perfectly into the character of an eastern european? I could never ever do that job. Which means part of me somewhere thought "I think I could be a model if I were ever really REALLY broke" which is insane.

I bring this up, because it is here that I met the hair and makeup woman, a fun, punk rock lady from Long Island named Teena. She wore silver Doc Martens and had fun tri-color hairdresser hair. People ask me where I'm from and I say "well, LA kinda" then explain the ship and the flapping around all over the place. People have various reactions, I did not expect her to get hugely excited and say "well, I'm part of the Cary Grant Fan Club." She took a 3 day cruise from Long Beach to Encenada on Royal Caribbean. This is usually a bachelorette/drinking run, but she didn't see any of that because she was "just with [her] fan club." 30 people, cruising together, and celebrating Cary Grant. I discovered he has 72 films (she has seen 71) and he was known for cruising on the Queen Mary. To the point that Teena spent a night on the Queen Mary in Long Beach and took a picture with the cut out of Cary Grant.

Boat!

Steve Carell? Okay.

In case you were wondering, Steve Carell now knows Second City is on 7 boats all over the world. He knows this because I told him. 

Right afterwards, I went to my room to calm down so I could pretend I don't care. I saw myself in the mirror and realized I looked like a drag queen librarian.

I went to our college improv group's reunion. I walked in, hugged some buddies, and sat down to watch the current group and a cronie said "Steve Carell's to your right." And I said, "yeah, yeah, hahaha." He is an alum of Denison University, which is a teeny school in the middle of Ohio. And he was a member of Burpee's Seedy Theatrical Company, our improv group that was like all of our religion, if we were honest. And before the reunion, we all said "Steve Carell's going to be there, yeah, yeah, hahaha." AND THEN HE WAS.

He and his wife came and his agent made sure he could just be part of the group. He was the oldest alum, but some of his buddies were there. And since we were college+11 years, we had more in common with the people in their 40's. For this reason, I found myself sitting next to Steve Carell and his wife, Nancy Walls and talking to them about Second City and working on the cruiseships. And they were fascinated. 

They were not fascinated. But we had a topic of small talk. I wanted to tell him all of my fears and aspirations and failures and successes. This is insane, so I didn't, and I bet it happens to him a great deal. wierrrd.

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 Ukraine. There is also a Croatian Igor who is 6’5” and looks just like my friend’s husband. So much like him that he gave her a pair of blue coveralls to give to her husband. Then I talked to him for a very long time and got the lowdown on hilarious items. Like working on a cargo ship (horrible. Igor “has 3 years. I dropped 20 kilos. I carry a picture of me from then, so when I want to complain, I look at that picture.”) and why you can’t work on cargo ships for too long (“you go crazy or you start to drink. Every one says ‘I’m not crazy [add twitch]!)’” Another engineer, Marius from Romania (we did not bring up gypsies) said he once spent 30 days solid at sea, with 20 other guys. Also, “I’ve seen most of the world, just not the places with cities.”

 

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 Caspian Sea? Or the Adriatic Sea? Me neither. Norwegian Cruise Lines never goes to Norway. The Norwegians find this very interesting and a pickup line for the girls who work on a ship. The Norwegians also say there are only 4 million people in Norway and Oslo is a dump, and they got the hell out of there. One of them lives in Brazil, another lives in the UK. I am getting the idea that being an engineer on a ship is not a terrible job. They usually work 10 weeks on, 10 weeks off. Sometimes more time off. I mean, if you told someone from central Indiana “do you want to be a marine engineer?” I think they would say “what?” or “shutup homo” or similar. What are these jobs? Chief Refrigeration Engineer? 2^nd Engineer? We talked to the guy Ramie who is going on vacation and going to Thailand for a bit and then Carnivale in Brazil and then getting back on a ship.

 

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.”

 

 

St. Patty's

After two glasses of wine at a toga themed crew party last week, I made myself laugh really hard at the idea of a potato peeling contest for St. Patty's Day. I cornered the crew activities coordinator, an incredibly nice lady with a killer voice, and suddenly we were helping host the party. It did not get quite as OOC as planned, because we did not get full leprechaun costumes and we did not get the movie "Leprechaun in the Hood" to play on the tvs. Turns out, Cubans don't really care about St. Patty's Day. The Walgreen's in downtown Miami had only stuff for Easter. I did not understand this. This was unforseen. Mind melt. The people at a music and DVD place in downtown Miami had never heard of a Leprechaun. Further mind melt.

If you are Asian or from Central America, a random day where everyone wears green and there are weird green leaves everywhere and a green man on the wall and people pretending to be Irish is just weird. Two engineers said "what is this for?" and a random waitress said "party party!" One person said "birthday party!"

Ashley and I tended bar and put green food coloring in the beer and the Smirnoff Ice. People were totally grossed out. "Can I have a plain one?" or "Why is it green?" To be fair, you needed to mix the green to make it look good, and to mix it, you have to flip it and to flip it, you have to use your dirty mitt. 

I have a new camera, from Jason. It is wonderbomb. And enables me to show you Nerril, the regular operator of the crew bar. He saw us struggling to open and color enough beer for people. We are as efficient as anyone who works making sentences several hours a week. Unfortunately I could never understand anything he said. We'd say "what" a few times, then just go "hahaha okay." The result was, this guy is a machine. He can pull out a full 6 beers at once from a giant trashcan filled with beer and ice. So he can open a case of beer in under 5 minutes. Please notice his festive green St. Patty's Day beads.

Here is a cook, Eloy. He did not want green beer. Here is a good example of the dye results. We started stirring them with a knife later because it really does look like we are poisoning people. A castmate overheard a girl say to another girl, near the bathrooms "that dye made me sick." They are dramatic because it is just food coloring. Although...I thought I could taste it too.

Barbados Fotos

Here's a chattel house. You build the first one, then if you have a family, you add on another one. You can totally dismantle it if you undo the screws in the corners. Weird.

This is the 5,000 year old Mayan handprints on the walls.

Would you like to see sheep that are indigenous to Barbados that are one day old with their Barbadian shepard? Okay.

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 Guernica. HEY YOOOOH. The auctioneer’s reading of the legal fine print before the auction was fascinating. A performance. The Manufacture of Nonsense Rendered as Such By Tone of Voice and Delivery. At the end, he said “got it?!” and everyone said “yeaaaah.” “I saaaid, ‘got it?!’” “YEAAAAH!” I think he maybe was saying “the appraisers of the art are our appraisers and they are only checked and kept in line by our appraisers.” People were not bidding enough, so they did a practice bid with fake money using the other art auctioneer. This included dancing and jumping around and spanking of himself. Also a photo of him presenting his bottom. The girl who took the photo said “wait—“ and he had to pose again, and pose better. Fascinating.

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 University of Alabama. One castmate is already thinking of insults to arm himself. There are also screaming youngsters from IU. We are in the thick of Spring Break. Paris Hilton’s influence is far reaching.

 

 

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. 

Crash Allen Exhibits Tortola

Today was a hike up Sage Mountain National Park in Tortola. The tour dispatcher is a 55-ish white woman with blond dreads and black, painted on eyebrows.  I was removed from the tour because it was a mistake, then put back on the tour, then removed, then finally, officially put back on. I sat in the cab of a converted truck/taxi thingie. The truck bed was converted into bench seating for 25. I rode between our tour guide Allen (nicknamed Crash—who is also the maintenance man and isn’t paid enough, which he informed us) and a large sweet lady named Debbie from Alaska celebrating her birthday (sorta) with her sister and her sister’s husband.  She kept pointing things out and apologizing because I had been to the island before. The best part of Allen was that he was very funny and dry and would say “here’s another horrible view” at every gorgeous overlook. He also knew everybody we’d pass so he’d honk and wave at them. If you want someone to be humanized, like say, a huge frowning Island dude, watch him wave and walk towards his house, followed by a perky tabby kitten who is clearly his friend.

 

Crash took us up horrible, scary switchbacks and one lane roads with drop offs that make you want to jump off them so you don’t have to worry about falling. The only time this was a problem was when he was looking for a number in his cellphone while he was also moving forward via the giant truck. He informed us that Johnny Depp purchased an Island and that Richard Branson, of Virgin (“he owns everytin virgin but the virgin myeeree”), owns a $55,000/night resort. Tortola has the common Caribbean policy of “you pay no property tax if your house isn’t done or painted” with the common result of nothing painted and/or finished but people living or conducting business very happily inside.

 

We trotted around the National Forest (owned by the Rockefellers) and Allen told us that he went to college for “economics and…one other ting. I can’t think of the word. Architecture, that’s it.” But that he “went to work every day. Every day. Sitting down and looking at numbers and lines. I hate it. So boring.” And everybody on the tour aggressively commiserated with him, which I decided is because that is their job. “Then one day I did this and I never went back.” He also told us about a wine that will make you drunk for 4 days.

 

Allen informed me that one guy he honked at was named “Tink de Worst.” This is because “he came to me telling me things his lady was doing and what should he do. I said, ‘think the worst’ and it stuck.”

 

We went to a rum factory for a 12:30 p.m. eye-watering vapor inhalation/taste.  When we left, about 6 little kids were standing near the exit of the factory, one was hitting a wall randomly with a stick, a few others were jumping around yelling. Allen pulled up to them and said an ice cold “don’t be rude.” Those kids froze and dropped their jaws and all looked sick, like he read their mind.

 

The truck has a PA system that you can hear in the street. Allen delighted himself by pointing out someone who loves his stock car too much. That someone got in his souped up mobile and revved the engine. Allen won and laughed very hard. In front of the high school, he informed us that morons go there. In front of the two story National Assembly (bottom floor) Supreme Court (top floor), he said “they make the rules on the bottom, break them on the top.” In front of the rough part of town, he said “this is the Ghe-Tto. You can get anything you want in here and I mean anything. No laws.” O Allen, you imp.

 

Tonight we are going to watch Slumdog Millionaire, but a bootleg copy. Someone watched part of it and said “do you think they will mind if the sound comes a little after the mouths?” So.

 

One gentleman in our crew does not let his bottom lip ever touch his top lip when speaking. So he’ll say “my mom” via his bottom lip touching his top teeth.

 

The Romanian cruise staff guy says “hell-LO-oh” like a sorority girl princess and “DEE-te-dee” which is the tagline from Carlos Mencia.

 

The two things a castmate said to me that made me laugh a great deal: both times completely sincerely: “are you making a generalization or are you talking about me.” And: “no seriously, I don’t date princesses. Because when I date women, I treat them like queens.”

 

Eating in the Bathroom

There is usually one woman who stands near the back entrance of the buffet. She holds a spray bottle and says “sanitize” in a sing-song way or “please sanitize your hands.” I think this is the beginner spot for this job because they are near a door they can’t see which constantly opens out to the back of the ship. If it’s kinda cold, they are hit by the gust of wind. These ladies are frequently wearing man-sized coats with rolled up sleeves. They are also outside the men’s and women’s bathrooms. Rough. Although, also, sometimes, hilarious and a test for chipperness.

 

One afternoon, I went to lunch and the lady was distracted by a man who came out of the men’s bathroom eating a soft serve ice cream cone. And pretty well into it. The sanitizing lady said “oh! You are… eating in the bathroom! Hahaha!” to which he said “yap!” and kept on licking and walking like nothing happened. About 3 people walked by her into the buffet and didn’t sanitize their hands. I think she was stunned. Also, the problem with GI starts when people go to the bathroom, don’t wash their hands, and eat, because they may eat a microscopic bit of feces. I’m sure her brain collapsed at the idea of eating in the bathroom.

 

I must also record my favorite compliment. Someone stopped Ashley and I and told Ashley “oh you are so funny! We LOVED the blow up doll!” Then they turned to me and said, post-blinking “the serious stuff is good too.”

Tulum

First of all, if you can have a delightful person come visit you, that makes like a 300% difference in things and makes you say “oh yeah, I could do these contracts for another 6 years solid, no problem” and become calm and understand jokes and that things are beautiful and that food tastes good and that coworkers are not demons or any other dramatic and hysterical thing, etc. Mark came to visit which was fun times 1000. We went to the ancient Mayan city Tulum and Playa del Carmen. If you want to get excited about Mexico and think to yourself “oh, the West side of Mexico is just different!” and by that I mean “a dump!” go to Playa del Carmen on the East side. O it is beautiful.

Tulum is insane. The Mayans are insane. The Mayan calendar is insane and the Aztec calendar is insane. The Mayans have calendar priests because they have 5 different calendars, and they needed a professional person to figure out the day. On December 21, 2012, all of their calendars end and start over. This is the first time in 26,000 years that they will all do this at once. This feels like a sci-fi lie.

In my continuing obsession and deep and abiding love of manuscripts, here’s one! So the Spaniards came to Mexico in the 1500’s. All of the Mayan cities (6,000 of them—all interconnected) were abandoned and overgrown and the only remaining Mayan people were living in a stone age manner in the jungle with stone age tools. These are people from a culture with mathematicians and astronomers so complex, people’s explanation for them is “they were visited by aliens.” No one understands the regression.

There were still some books left by the Mayans (fig bark covered in lime and then gesso and painted with vegetable dye paint—I am restraining myself). The Spanish bishops looked at them and thought “well, these are from the devil” and burned them. But thankfully, since people like stealing, 3 survived. One in Dresden, one in Paris, and one in Madrid. In my fantasy life, someone will ask me to study and then give comedic presentations for the general public about this kind of thing. Or mainly, let me touch it.

Nametag Show Down!

Last night at crew bar featured this lineup:

Large African-American Doctor, next to a young South African spa girl, next to me, next to the Romanian Gentleman. The Romanian gentleman and I have a little joke that he will marry me for a green card and divorce me, which I hate, etc. but now it is our joke. So he sat next to me, we did our joke, I told him to marry someone else, he said everyone is terrible because they are Canadian and he wants to go to America. He then said “where are you from?” and reached over and grabbed the nametag of the South African Spa Girl, to check her flag. The Large African-American Doctor said “what’re you doing! Get offa there!” and slapped his hand away, since name tags reside on boobs. The large doctor then said “you’d get shot for doing that in New York” in a particularly threatening, anti-friendly way.  The tension on our bench went to 100%, and the joker Romanian lost his smile completely and got totally still like something very violent was going to happen and stared down the large doctor and said “in my country, you’d get beheaded.”

 

Oh my.

 

 

Security Training

Our shows were slightly weird last night. Scenes ran long, I found good moments to do some serious thinking which was unfortunately the same time I was supposed to say a line. Upon saying a correct line which I have said approximately 3000 times before, I got convinced I made a mistake and got totally paralyzed and stared googlie eyed at my partner, when I am supposed to be squealing and jumping up and down. This is because someone drew a 9mm in the middle of a lecture and pointed it at a crew member.

We had ISPS training yesterday. This is security training. Now, most boring corporate training is boring and pointless and doesn’t apply to you. When we got in the boring room with boring PowerPoint on a screen, the very British officer running the training played some YouTube clips, one that was from “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” and featured a dingy cute blond from the south insisting that France is not a country and Europe IS a country and that she has never even heard of the country Hungary. The fifth grader was appalled.

We signed in right next to replicas of a time bomb, and several replicas of explosive plastique. Interesting. We sat in the back with a bunch of cooks and room stewards and random people from the crew. The officer started the training and said, modestly, shyly “Oh, Second City’s here, well, I’ll try to improvise myself.” Then we proceeded to have a torture session for obsessive, overdramatic, sensitive people with too much time on their hands who also like to make jokes. We were trained on both the reality of an attack, what would happen in the event of a terrorist attack and why we are a likely delicious target for terrorism. The security officer showed a hilarious PowerPoint presentation that he clearly made himself, because it had too many animations and featured sound effects. Which sound effects? Oh, gunshots, ricochet sounds, and my favorite, a bomb explosion. When we got to the slide explaining 9/11, the slide swept left with a huge bomb sound and showed 2 photos of the twin towers, side by side. We also saw several al-Jezeera images and were explained how terrorist cells work and why they would bomb a ship. This was totally terrifying and also hilarious, because one of the al-Jezeera images was Osama spinning the earth on one finger. He would always ask us if we were okay. I did not say “I would like to be sick.”

Then he showed us all sorts of photos of mangled bodies and blown up ships and the idea that there was a pirate attack attempt on the Norwegian Star (my first contract) and a bomb threat on the Norwegian Spirit (my second contract), so that was awesome. The Star now enters Mexican waters with the assistance of a gunship escort. The PowerPoint would say “gory photo coming up” and then we’d have a person sans arms head or legs. So that was delightful and completely terrifying.

The security manager also told us “this is what it will be like if a terrorist comes on board” and from his music stand that he was using as a podium, he pulled a completely realistic looking 9mm and pointed it at someone in the room. Ever had that happen? Well it’s totally terrifying and takes several days to recover from.

random fun thing:

someone told me this with all wide-eyed sincerity:
“I like guys who are tall, older than me and with a nice set of teeth.”

A Stingray Tour

In case you are wondering, the ocean is still totally bizarre. I did a tour with stingrays. This is me holding a 60 lb. female and being pretty sure she was going to flip out and eat my face: 

Here we are again:

Here's the normal sized male: So relaxed!!!

Here's me calmly patting the female and not being afraid of the tail:

And here's us in a line, waiting for the tour to start. As soon as the stingrays noticed us, they knew they were going to eat. It was very hard not to let go of the fish and freak out when the sting ray came towards you. I succeeded on my third try. 

And here is a personal ad that I would write if I was a female stingray:

Hieee!!! I’m a really fun female, about 8 feet wide on my disk. I’m looking for a guy who’s smaller than me (obvious!!!) and looking to mate a night. But only in the winter. I don’t have any teeth—well, I mean technically I do, but they are like sandpaper nub things, so not really teeth. I hope that is not a problem!!! I am NOT a shark and I can join you on the surface of the water for like a second but I can’t really let my eyes come out of the water (I hope that is not a big deal!!!!) because I will choke to death etc. (hahaha!!!).  Anyway, I have separate breathing and eating holes.  One for eating (my mouth!) and two for breathing (behind my eyes!!!) which I hope makes me interesting and you don’t find creepy!!!! I prefer guys with two visible genital prongs that they don’t hide (I think it’s important). I used to have like a foot long-ish (I bet it is shorter) prong on my tail that was (WAS!!! J ) covered in venom. Um, a) I never used it and b) fyi I would only have used it if I was EXTREMELY SCARED meaning—I had REASON—because I am delicious to eat! Or so I hear (not that I’ve ever been like a cannibal or whatever, ew gross!!!). I have to be honest and say I DO prefer to stay near the bottom and flap around in the sand (this is a deal breaker if you are not into it). People sometimes scream and go “EW GROSS!” when I touch them (this is if those people are stupid). I must say I DO get mad if you step on me (just being honest). Most people think I give velvety soft kisses with my body (just the underside!!!!). Some people think I feel like a soggy huge pancake with a pushy weight of a golden retriever behind me. I…well, I hope that’s not true. But I am a stingray. So. I hope that’s okay.

If I were the ocean, I would be very annoyed about being called a weirdo alien with weirdo alien residents.

I Have Seen the Concorde

The cockpit of the Concorde may be one of the most fascinating things I have seen in I don’t know how long. I could have stared at it for about 30 minutes and talked about it all day. Probably staring could have lasted 2 hours and talking: 1 month. A guy and his girlfriend stared at it for about 3 minutes before me and took a million photos, and the museum guide had to kick them out. I had a Pentecostal trio stand behind me (favorite quote: very defensive: from the very large man: “I LIKE caviar. It’s good.” Somehow, the 35-40-ish daughter had never heard of caviar?) trying to ruin my life and then Reggie, our tour guide, officially ruined my life by saying “the bus is leaving.” Imagine 4 seats packed into a place as small as 2 airplane bathrooms with half the head room. Then imagine the whole thing covered in tiny dials, switches and meters. It is the cockpit of a fighter jet. O Lord in heaven, it was fascinating.

 

When you are in the Concorde, you fly in the stratosphere. This means you are so high in the atmosphere that if you looked up, you would see black because it is SPACE. When you look out your window, you would see the view that ASTRONAUTS get, which is the curvature of the earth. Like those pictures of continents and oceans and clouds with a little haze over it and then black, i.e. SPACE.

 

The engineering was explained in one of the best multimedia presentations I have seen to date, and I am a hideous, judgmental snob about that. They did the sonic boom (and all of the little kids in the airplane hanger scream in unison, every single time), they explained the engines and that the pilot can move jet fuel around the plane to alter the aircraft’s center of gravity. When they talked about something, they would highlight it on the plane. They also projected the film: on the plane.

 

The wheels are filled with liquid nitrogen, because it gets so high in the atmosphere that it needs to be able to freeze.

 

I laughed very hard at the stewardess uniforms.

 

We then had a drink at a bar. 

Tortola Snorkeling

I escorted a snorkeling tour in Tortola. It was run by a couple who sold their house in Florida last year, bought a boat, and now live in Tortola. The guy, Bill, loves snorkeling to the point that he does it on his days off. I asked his wife, Ginger, if she likes living in Tortola. She had a huge smile and looked like an aged, very happy, tanned movie star. She said, with a gentle accent, “it’s kinda like livin’ in a 3^rd world country? I mean, there is NOTHIN’ to do. They’ve been building a movie theater for FIVE years. And it’s exPENsive. I mean, a gallon of milk is 11 dollars.” I had to make sure I understood that for a while, as in “you don’t mean $11 US, right.” And she had to say “yes! Yes! $11! And I like milk! Bill drinks milk all the time! I mean you can get the boxed milk but that’s not homogenized and…no.”  She said it’s made her really appreciate the US. Especially “things like, you know, TARGET” because Target is crack to women.

 

She later offered to spray sunscreen on my back, which I found condescending, so I condescended back and informed her I have been pale my whole life, and now I have a burn on my back so bad that it hurts to lean back in chairs and take showers. HUBRIS!

 

Bill showed us all sorts of coral and wildlife. He looked like a chiseled, tan star from old movies and he’d free dive all over the place. I thought “hm, I can do that” and took my head down probably…8 feet…and the rest of the day my nose would randomly drip water about once an hour.

 

We snorkeled around Norman Island and went to the famous cave from Treasure Island lore—the only cave where they actually found a treasure chest. This cave is probably 15 feet by 6 feet. And no historical markers or anything.

 

We also went to 3 rocks called “the Indians,” named that by Christopher Columbus. They had an insane wall of coral with neon colors and growths that looked like they were from a cartoon. It felt completely fake. If you told me all the fish were fake and they were planted there and drawn by someone at Disney, I would say “I know.”

 

Bill made it clear he finds Global Warming a bunch of crap. He said the Caribbean coral is healthier than he’s ever seen it, and the reason everything is dying off the coast of Key West is because the Army Corps of Engineers is pouring fresh water into the ocean, which kills the coral. Then he’d say “clean your mask” or “they need to move their anchor, because it’s in sea grass and that’s what the turtles eat—but this guy’s a real local-local, so he does whatever he wants.” He also pulled up a sea cucumber which looked like plastic sheeting on the end of a gas pump nozzle.

Crew Show and the Fascination with Defecation

For those of you who would DARE to say that say, people who work on ships have their minds warped and are only interested in the lowest common denominator, I give you: for an example: Our Crew Show. We did Dr. Know-It-All, with 4 officers. The hotel director, the food and beverage director, the head of security (a terrifying guy from Muldova) and the cruise director. They form a line, field questions, answer them one word at a time. We asked approximately 6. Every single answer dealt with shitting. When did they decide to become naval officers? While shitting. What are they proud of? Shitting. Who will win the (soccer term)? Manchester/Chelsea, which has big fat hairy balls. Also; shitting. What is the meaning of life? Shitting. I’m sure we could get very philosophical about why this is true. Or we could say “awesome, every single answer involved poop.” The hotel director at least threw in the word “curly” which was more colorful but if you hooked him to a lie detector, I’m sure he would be forced to indicate he heard this from another joke at some point. Did the audience love it? Obviously. Is it kind of not fair to expect a terrifying human tank Muldovan, a Frenchman, a gentle Canadian and a (foreign Caucasian)man to do semi decent jokes? Or just maybe not talk about shitting? Sages! Answer!

 

Usually we bow after an answer. Hilariously, no one except the improvisers would do it. So, a nervous gentleman improviser was to the left of the giant human tank

 

Someone else on stage (Ken-doll singer) was pimped to declare his unrequited love for a girl in the audience (beautiful, Barbie doll Ukrainian dancer).

 

We have a famous beatboxer on the ship with the acapella singers (“the most famous acapella singing group in the world”). I have now met 3 professional beatboxers. He uses a very sensitive hand mic and two mics taped to his neck, right over his vocal cords. It actually looks like he has a medical condition and the mics keep him alive.

 

If you need someone to butcher a blackout, who is too bored by something to explain it properly and therefore sets it up to fail after 20 minutes of amusing (for her) pontification on comedy and the k-word heavy inner monologue resulting in a terrible performance, my rates are high.

 

 

Improv Jam and Butts

We did an improv jam last night with a dancer, the standup, the lighting tech, a YC, all of the second city people, one of the a cappella singers, and the cruise director. It was, of course, totally delightful and totally fun and we went from around 11 p.m., when we all pretended we didn’t care about it and were too cool, until 2 a.m. when everyone was geeking out and yapping and laughing very hard that the cruise director was the funniest and made us all laugh until we were crying. The cruise director is an ex-gymnast and an impeccably polite ex-Connecticut, current Canadian with a tasteful haircut. Not the person you’d expect to play a stoner whose rock bottom moment was: “I spent a week in a dumpster once. It was all right.” Everything makes sense again.

 

I would very happily get all of the dancers in a circle and make them all get quiet and say, “now, I want you to be honest with me. In a place of total acceptance, really,” and we’d all make eye contact “WHY DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS.” And if they said “well, I love it.” I’d say, “yes, fine I understand, but WHY. WHYYY. ISN’T IT BORING????? AREN’T YOU BORED OUT OF YOUR MIND?????” Every time I see those shows, I can only imagine being in the show, ending it, finding my boss, and saying “I will never, ever do this again. I hate this, it is so boring, I can’t ever do this again or I will die. I made the wrong decision when I said this would be fun. Everyone is just looking at my butt. I’ll be in my room until you drive me out with dogs. I’m going to eat until I explode.”

 

Or I would say “can we talk about your butts? Now you two, I really like your butts. You, DANCER 443, I have noticed you have a scar on one of your buttcheeks. How did you get it and does it bother you that I notice? And you 4, when you are underlit, I have noticed that it is not flattering to your butts, and they look rippled, which seems unfair, because generally your butts are great. Now gentlemen, when you are in your Elvis costumes, I have noticed that I can tell what kind of underwear you have on your butts, and you, SINGER, have kind of a low butt and your belt looks too tight.”

 

Things I learned about today:

There is glow-in-the-dark mini-golf in Canada. People enjoy getting very stoned and playing.

 

 

Clash of Nations/Races

Crew bar ended last night with a large, 40-ish frowning mustachioed gentlemen of color (Honduras? Nicaragua? St. Lucia? South Africa? Dominican Republic?) informing myself and my Canadian roommate: “I hate white people.” I said “haha” and figured he was joking and my roommate said “what?” and he said, angrier, “I hate white people.” He said this a few more times and my roommate, who is a sweetheart and a liberal said “My name’s Ashley, what’s yours?” To which he replied “Fork you” but without the fork and a much stronger and scarier word. To which she replied, “no sorry, what’s your name?” to which he replied “FORK YOU” again with no fork. No one died, we slipped into the passenger hallway. Perhaps we shall not close down crew bar again. Also, the next morning I recognized him as the man serving my roommate an omelette. Maybe he did not recognize us because we all look the same. Fingers crossed!!

 

I had a long talk with a Romanian cruise staff guy who is just back on the ship. He is 25, and has a degree in Journalism, Fitness and one other thing. He is an ex-pro soccer player. He told me at length how Romania is so boring because everyone knows his dad and then he told me about his dad, who runs a monestary and the Patriarch there will probably be the next Patriarch if the current Patriarch (eastern orthodox pope) dies. He was fun to talk to until he said all the gypsies should be rounded up in a stadium and shot, to which I said “that’s terrible” to which he said “no, no, only the bad ones.” I was told earlier this week that all the Romanians on the ship are gypsies and they had to be taken away from jobs that required interaction with passengers. The waiters would say things like “are you finished” in a very direct and straightforward way (or rude and pushy) that made passengers complain. So Romanians run the show, but they are not the soft face for the passengers. Also, for a while the Romanians “got smart.” Instead of “just dating stripes” (officers) “they got smart and said ‘I don’t just want dinner, I want money.’” So the officers started: paying. Now it is apparently much better and the crazy underbelly prostitution section of the ship is all located on Deck 2. This is where you can get anything. We’ve been doing our laundry on Deck 2. Maybe we are taking a chance. It is usually a deserted laundry room. Maybe this is why.

I’m reading a ton of P.G. Wodehouse, because he makes me laugh so much. He has a perfect way of describing people. I shall now attempt to do same. There is one girl whose face is incredibly animated during the dancing shows. She’s a great dancer and a beautiful woman and very thin, but she has 3 main expressions.

1)      An orgiastic mother 1 second before a standing ovation for her daughter’s first and perfect piano recital. Or maybe: someone encountering a long awaited God in the flesh, holding her favorite food, dripping and steaming.

2)      A bull aiming for the toreodor’s cape, smiling because when it ate the toreodor’s brother it caused a sensation and a party with all the other bulls and that same party is going to happen tonight.

3)      Spastic, laser staring glee.

This is partially because I cannot imagine being constructed with an innate desire to dance, smiling the whole time like everything is incredible. I could only do their job as a punishment or a penance or a hostage trade. People are different.

 

 

A Ballroom Workshop

Visual present:

There is a woman reading in the library, 60-ish with short hair and glasses, who is reading via holding her lips like she wants to show you her 4 central top teeth, but is too shy to make eye contact.

 

Yesterday was the workshop. I was the peon slave who was there to simply help illustrate various concepts, so I got to do some of the exercises with people. A very laughie-lady next to me said “I NEED A PARTNER!” and I discovered she is 81, although she looked no older than 70. We do 3 exercises to show how improv works, first showing how it doesn’t, then showing how it does. Not working: you start every sentence with “no” and you go back and forth. Well, when you are 81 and are doing something just for fun, you have no need to follow rules and, frankly, what do you care about doing improv correctly. So we did the “no” sentences for about 2 rounds at which point it downgraded into “you sound like my husband. He is so negative. He never wants to do anything, he always says ‘nooooo.’ But I don’t mind. I’m 81, yes, and he’s 83. I’m here and he’s in bed (although he does have a heart condition). And really, we have a lot of fun, we love to dance.”

 

Round 2 was saying “yes, but” at the beginning of every sentence. This went well for 2 rounds and then downgraded into “I mean it, my granddaughter said ‘you’re 71?! How come you don’t have a walker or a wheelchair!’ and I’m not 71, I’m EIGHTY one. Yes but.”

 

Round 3 is saying “yes, and” at the beginning of every sentence, which went better, although she’d just throw “yes” and “and” wherever, even after starting her sentences with “no because.” Pretty great.

Animal Preserve: Barbadosh

We took a tour and got there for the afternoon feeding. The monkeys get there first and pick through the sweet potatoes and sunflower seeds. These monkeys are descendants of pet monkeys from Robert Blight of the Mutiny on the Bounty fame which is a story all should read. Sometimes the turtles don't move fast enough, which means they will be stools:

But sometimes it is more comfortable to have your potato in a tree. You know, more natural:

Here is a monkey bored, annoyed, waiting for lunch to be brought out. 

These are tortoises underfoot, which looked like paving stones. One woman accidentally stood on one. She felt terrible. 

This is proof that the world still has mystery. What the hell is this alien? That is the size of a small german shepard, and so out of proportion that it looks smaller in a photo? Why, it is half rat, half deer! Sure! Cross those! Ladies and gentlemen, a (creepy) mara: