Notes from da Boat

[marquisdd]

…or…
"Tales from the Jersey (S/W)hore"

On Sunday, 13 June, Ben and I set sail on the Norwegian Dawn from the Hudson River in Manhattan to Bermuda and back.

Here are our observations and thoughts.

• In New York last week, many friends asked, "Y'know, I've never been on a cruise. Would I like it?"
  
  My response became a memorized manifesto:
  
  "It depends entirely on what you want out of it. If your desire is for meeting new and fascinating people and exploring some seldom-visited mini-countries and coming away with exhilarating tales of adventure and near-death experiences and life-reaffirming stories that border on the religious … then no - a cruise is not for you.
  
  "If, however, your goal is to read a book, cover-to-cover, uninterrupted, sleep till 2pm with the lull of the waves outside your open balcony window to keep you calm and meditative, have a lot of sex (with the person you brought aboard), and get in touch with your inner hermit, then by all means, go, go, GO on a cruise!"
  
  It is for the latter reasons that I love cruises.
• Text to Sue, my (British) BFF in Manhattan, 30 mins after boarding the boat: Americans are fat and loud. Luckily, I've heard a few Brit voices. They'll be my friends"
  
  She assured me there are fat, loud British people as well, and while I don't doubt they exist, I argue that the US/UK ratio is vehemently in her favo(u)r.
• It is imperative - IMPERATIVE - to have a balcony room on a cruise. If I couldn't get a balcony room, I would not deign to board in the first place. This is not the same snobbery that dictates you must have a first class seat on a airplane. Airplanes land within a finite number of hours. Cruises go on forever. If you have a safe, quiet, private balcony upon which to read your books, smoke your smokes, and listen to the sonorous crashing of waves against the ship's hull, it is heaven. If, on the other hand, your room was lit entirely with the 16 frames-per-second jaundiced yellow of fluorescents and your only chance of fresh air was in a (*GASP*!) Public Area, you'd be better off staying at home.
• Muster: a requisite "drill" where every passenger of the boat must make their way to their designated safety zone for a brief how-to about lifejackets, lifeboats, etc. I sat next to a nice-looking, well-behaved 30-something and we started chatting. When the conversation of "Where are you from?" inevitably cropped up, I was pleased to hear him report, "New York," instead of, "New Jersey." This one could be my friend, I thought.
  
  (Alas, I never saw him again.)
• Man outside our cabin with a thick Jersey accent, emerging from one of the aforementioned jaundiced, windowless rooms, yelling after a receding housekeeper: "Hey! You!" (Does that mouth-whistle-with-two-fingers thing that I both hate and envy.) Housekeeper turns around, 100 feet in the distance. "Yah! You! C'mere! When does this TV turn off?" (Ben and I discussed both the dire circumstances that must present themselves for either of us to EVER call, "Yah! You! C'mere!". Also, the interesting fact that the Man from La Jersey did not know how to turn off a television set.)
• First day, upon touring the boat and reporting back to Ben: "Man, there is some serious beefcake on this boat! I might just have to spend some time in the Public Areas!" (A thing I rarely do, because I am a veteran cruise-shipper and I know better.)
• To Ben, a little bit later: "Man, there is some serious beefcake on this tub, but it's all Jersey Wigger. So nevermind."
• Friends of Dorothy: It's a nod to the queens on the boat, and almost every cruise has a designated meeting area/time for chinwagging between faggots. Tonight's was in the bar that happened to be simultaneously selling 2-for-1 martinis (nothing to sneeze at!). Thus, the bar was so crowded it was difficult to spot the fags. There was, however, a pianist doing a medley of Broadway showtunes. If anything would coax our the pillow biters in the crowd, that should do the trick. Problem: the only people singing along to "Hello Dolly" and Neil Diamond and "Cats" (loudly, badly) were drunk wiggers from the Jersey Shore. (See above.)
• For the last three or four days I've been experiencing late-afternoon eyeball-aches. Excruciating ones that make me wish I were dead. As a result, I've preemptively taken to popping a few of Paul's British codeine-laced Pro-Pains around 2pm and drinking lots of rehydrating fluids. The result is, of course, less severe eyeball-aches, but also a heightened sense of love/hate. e.g.: drunk Jersey frat boys singing Neil Diamond riles my deepest, darkest nerve of hatred. At the same time, a Coney Island yenta and her 50-something daughter singing along to "That's Amore!" beckons me to chase them out of the bar and bestow fanboy accolades of, "I LOVED your singing, honey!" ("You cawl DAT singing!? Bwah!") "oh-and-I-like-your-bubble-'do-too." (I have, for the uninformed, a serious blue-haired fetish. This goes beyond "cougar" country and into the "snow-leopard" realm.)
• Teenagers: I like to watch the social microcosmic dynamics between them. It's a small dosage version of the joys and hells of high school. Tonight's Kids of Note: A pack of three (they travel in packs, like wolves), clearly good friends, two boys (13 and 17?) and a girl (16?) Wandering the ship, looking for trouble in which the what to get into of. They sit at the closed martini bar. The 13 year old boy waggles, flexes, and fusses. The 17 year old boy stares longingly at the smooth, shapely legs of the 16 year old girl. That moment (I think, sipping my second middle-aged martini) will live in the boy's head forever, and I am happy for him - truly happy. I want to approach him and say, "Relish her legs and the way they make you feel!" but that would be übercreepy for everyone involved, so I quaff the rest of my drink and wander off.
• The Emo Boy: somewhere around 17 years old, shaggy hair to the point of dysfunctional head-tossing. Approaches hot tub filled with peers. Does not shuck his clothing to join them in the tub. Rather, he stands at the edge in his self-conscious baggy cargo pants and weird knitted Emo-cap and pretends to join in the conversation from outside the pool. His peers are not having it. I feel like inviting him back to my room to lend him a book or two on the subject. But again with the übercreepy thing, so, no.
• I love accents. With the following exceptions: (4 of the 5 boroughs of) New York, California female, (all of) New Jersey, and the (entire) Midwest. As such, I'm finding it safest to hide out in my stateroom. There just aren't enough Manhattanites nor Londoners to keep my delicate ears accustomed to what they desire.
• Despite my frequent trips on cruise ships, I still wish they were more Agatha Christie'ish. I long to meet the bespatted, behatted, bemustachoied man with his silve-lamé-encased "secretary" on the lam from some obscure vendetta-driven royalty. And I always desire one of my shipmates to be discovered dead under very mysterious circumstances.
• People from New Jersey walk like wind-up dolls. They swing their arms violently as they traverse "tricky" (read: in no way tricky) corridors at a snail's pace. They stop suddenly until someone (usually me, plowing into them from behind because of a sudden cessation in movement) nudges them, at which point they take off again, arms akimbo. Like a wind-up doll.
• Coming back to the room, there's a dumpy little man in front of the door opposite our stateroom. He is trying to manage his key while holding two piña coladas in plastic, curvy glasses, sad umbrellas mocking his lack of merriment. He bends over, large buttocks filling the hallway, to put the drinks on the ground for a moment. I smile at him as we pass, and open our door. He looks longingly into our room, through our room, to the balcony.
  
  "Oh," he says in slo-mo. "You have a little … porch …"
  
  He opens his door into his windowless, jaundiced room. We walk into ours and close the door, feeling the fresh breeze from outside. I stand in the small foyer - and almost cry for him.
• Rule #27a: Never Take the Lift, …or… L'Esprit d'Escalier. Walking is a great form of exercise, and climbing stairs is even better. Climbing stairs with a sloshing-full gin martini, however, is hazardous - especially when the first martini has already knocked you on your ass. So you think, screw Rule #27a. It's six flights to my room.
  
  Two Jersey Goils are waiting at the lift. How do you know they're from New Jersey? If the abrasive accents weren't enough of a clue, the knotted, Bedazzled t-shirts, the pegged, acid-washed jeans, the high, high hair, and the unlikely high heels should tip their hand.
  
  "C'mon, Jennuhfurrrr, let's take the stairs," says one to the other as she teeters precariously to the foot of the steps on her five-inch cork-soled shoes.
  
  "No WAY am I taking the stairs!" growls the other, almost tipping over on her high-rise stilettos.
  
  The lift arrives. We pile in with the two Jersey Goils, who hit the floor one above us. They disembark. The next floor is also a stop. More Jersey, this time merely obese, gets on, and hits the next floor up.
  
  I squeeze out in a panic before the doors close and walk the rest of the way. Never screw with Rule #27a.
• Bermuda Shorts: Man, they're not kidding about that. Formal gentlemen's business attire in Hamilton (the capitol of Bermuda, duh!) is like this: a bright, pastel button-down or polo-style shirt - for colors think Easter pageant; a cheery, busy tie; gaily-colored patchwork shorts (aka "Bermuda shorts"); and my favorite part, bright, springtime knee socks, worn to the knee, leaving about four inches of leg showing. Bankers, politicians, travel agents - all professional gentlemen are attired thusly. It's a jarring, yet somehow precious look - so much so that Ben and I bought gaily-colored knee socks at a local shop. And for me, much-coveted, and highly-elusive sock garters. HOT!
• Paging Cassandra Buttsack. The only announcements made within the cabins over the P.A. are those of calls to the muster stations or genuine emergencies. Or to Cassandra Buttsack.
  
  Ben and I stayed up till almost dawn (espresso after dinner - always smart). We had planned to sleep in today, but around 8:30, a piercing in-cabin announcement was made several times for Cassandra Buttsack to call the front desk immediately. Paging Cassandra Buttsack. Please call the front desk. Cassandra Buttsack, there is a message for you at the front desk Cassandra Buttsack.
  
  I can only imagine what horrible news Cassandra Buttsack must have received upon making that phone call. Your mother has keeled over. Your daughter has flown over the rail. Your house has burned down. Your stocks have plummeted. That knotted t-shirt does nothing to hide your Jersey gut.
  
  I felt pity and concern for Cassandra Buttsack.
  
  Until I realized I was wide awake, after three hours of sleep.
  
  Then I hated her and hoped for the worst.
• Tobacco Bay: Yesterday Ben and I took the ferry to St. George's, the furthermost point of the islands. We walked about this charming little 400 year old village and eventually stumbled upon Tobacco Bay, a tiny cove sheltered by volcanic rock suitable for swimming.
  
  This is how I pictured Bermuda. Floating about in a small cay amidst craggy, torture-shaped lava constructs. Warm sun, cool water, surrounded by lemon-yellow fish booping into your ankles. Roosters doodle-dooing on the beach. Cold beer. Small black children howling with glee in the water. Yesterday was my and Ben's seven year anniversary. I couldn't have planned a more perfect day if I tried.
  
  Well, maybe there could have been less Jersey in the water.
• Ben: "Why are you so hard on New Jersey? I prefer them to rednecks or wiggers from B-list towns."
  
  Me: "Yah, okay. But that's like saying you prefer brown recluse spiders to fire ants."
  
  If I seem irascible, remember this: I'm just saying what you are thinking.
  
  And one has to amuse oneself at all times, at all costs.
• It's not all Jersey Avoidance. Take yesterday evening, for example. The ship left Bermuda at 5:30pm. Ben and I had bought a bucket of iced beer and we were watching the islands drift by while sitting in the hot tub, the sun slowly descending over St. George's, turning the lapis water black from the sun's brilliance. A perfect moment.
  
  (Until large, Jersey-types displaced most of the water in our hot tub. Okay, okay, okay, I hear ya…)