Floating
Our sole day in which we don’t make landfall was marked by a howling storm. There’s a constant low, throbbing growl as the ship’s stabilisers compensate for the rise and fall of the ocean, but nobody minds as the stabilisers prevent us from being tossed around like peanuts in a can. Even with them, the ship rolls and dips slightly between the waves. I can hear coat hangers thudding against the wardrobe doors, and the creak of cabinet frames flexing. Occasionally the entire room shudders and drops in a way that would be sickening if it happened for more than a second or two.
The most difficult thing is actually climbing stairs. Having the stair treads either move slightly towards you or slightly away from you means that you feel as if you’re climbing in higher or lower gravity. Staircases that I’d normally ascend without a thought now take noticeable effort.
I woke late, partly due to laziness and partly due to the fact that we’d moved east into a new timezone and thus lost an hour overnight. After enduring the neverending chaos of the buffet (does that greedy fat kid really need those dozen sausages, or is the little bastard going to eat three then throw the remaining nine away?), I took a shower, did what we’ve come to call “Ghetto Laundry” (ie washing small items in the bathroom sink then hanging them to dry around the cabin like it’s a share room in Hong Kong with ten migrant workers living in it), made up the Lego set I bought in the ship’s toy store at 11.30 last night, listened to some podcasts, had lunch in the restaurant which normally isn’t chaotic but is today because the storm has chased everyone inside, and went up to Deck 12, the highest on the ship, to take photos and nearly get blasted off my feet by the screaming gale. Then I did some blogging, went to the gym, saw the evening show in the theatre, had “elegant” dinner in the restaurant, then inelegant cocktails in one of the bars. Or rather, I bought the cocktails in one of the bars, then carried them down a floor and into a separate lounge area where "Aldo LeVar with Svetlana" weren’t massacring some pop tune from the 80s.
I also found time to undertake one of my favourite passtimes on a cruise: encapsulating the passengers and crew in prose.
Slightly Brad Pitt: an officer who bears a passing resemblance to a certain famous actor, who spends all of his time standing on the buffet patio, speaking tersely into his phone and looking tired and worried. I’d be concerned if he was in the engine room or on the bridge, but it’s the buffet – how dire an emergency could it possibly be? The ketchup dispenser is clogged again?
Low Rent Jacqui Weaver: a passenger who bears a passing, rather haggard resemblance to a different certain famous actor, only this one wears so much smoky eye makeup that her eyes look like they’ve fallen through a wormhole and retreated to another dimension. Paired with pearl-augmented denim, sequin-augmented cotton and fringe-augmented leather, she cuts quite the figure in the buffet line.
Homeless Man: I saw one old man in the buffet who I swear was homeless – clothes badly fastened, unwashed and shambling about with a vacant look on his face. I suspect the only reasons he wasn’t begging were because nobody carries cash on a cruise liner, and because it’s hard to convince generous strangers that you need money for food when there are trays of free mushroom omelets and chocolate croissants right behind you.
The Aspirational Couple: a husband and wife in their 40s, both ridiculously good looking, lean and fit, poised and beautifully dressed. He has immaculate dark hair and stubble with a hint of grey. She has a tumble of chestnut hair and flawless makeup. They look like they came onto the ship directly from an Audi commercial. Their stylish outfits – always elegant and beautifully pressed, by some sort of black magic – are coordinated. Not matching, which would be tacky; coordinated, in subtle nods to the colours, patterns and textures of the others clothes. They are completely out of place on this ship of fat Kazakstani businessmen in stretched polo shirts and chubby Italian housewives in bad dye jobs and zebra print nylon blouses… and they know it. They drift about the ship, looking perfect, with smiles of barely contained superiority.
The most difficult thing is actually climbing stairs. Having the stair treads either move slightly towards you or slightly away from you means that you feel as if you’re climbing in higher or lower gravity. Staircases that I’d normally ascend without a thought now take noticeable effort.
I woke late, partly due to laziness and partly due to the fact that we’d moved east into a new timezone and thus lost an hour overnight. After enduring the neverending chaos of the buffet (does that greedy fat kid really need those dozen sausages, or is the little bastard going to eat three then throw the remaining nine away?), I took a shower, did what we’ve come to call “Ghetto Laundry” (ie washing small items in the bathroom sink then hanging them to dry around the cabin like it’s a share room in Hong Kong with ten migrant workers living in it), made up the Lego set I bought in the ship’s toy store at 11.30 last night, listened to some podcasts, had lunch in the restaurant which normally isn’t chaotic but is today because the storm has chased everyone inside, and went up to Deck 12, the highest on the ship, to take photos and nearly get blasted off my feet by the screaming gale. Then I did some blogging, went to the gym, saw the evening show in the theatre, had “elegant” dinner in the restaurant, then inelegant cocktails in one of the bars. Or rather, I bought the cocktails in one of the bars, then carried them down a floor and into a separate lounge area where "Aldo LeVar with Svetlana" weren’t massacring some pop tune from the 80s.
I also found time to undertake one of my favourite passtimes on a cruise: encapsulating the passengers and crew in prose.
Slightly Brad Pitt: an officer who bears a passing resemblance to a certain famous actor, who spends all of his time standing on the buffet patio, speaking tersely into his phone and looking tired and worried. I’d be concerned if he was in the engine room or on the bridge, but it’s the buffet – how dire an emergency could it possibly be? The ketchup dispenser is clogged again?
Low Rent Jacqui Weaver: a passenger who bears a passing, rather haggard resemblance to a different certain famous actor, only this one wears so much smoky eye makeup that her eyes look like they’ve fallen through a wormhole and retreated to another dimension. Paired with pearl-augmented denim, sequin-augmented cotton and fringe-augmented leather, she cuts quite the figure in the buffet line.
Homeless Man: I saw one old man in the buffet who I swear was homeless – clothes badly fastened, unwashed and shambling about with a vacant look on his face. I suspect the only reasons he wasn’t begging were because nobody carries cash on a cruise liner, and because it’s hard to convince generous strangers that you need money for food when there are trays of free mushroom omelets and chocolate croissants right behind you.
The Aspirational Couple: a husband and wife in their 40s, both ridiculously good looking, lean and fit, poised and beautifully dressed. He has immaculate dark hair and stubble with a hint of grey. She has a tumble of chestnut hair and flawless makeup. They look like they came onto the ship directly from an Audi commercial. Their stylish outfits – always elegant and beautifully pressed, by some sort of black magic – are coordinated. Not matching, which would be tacky; coordinated, in subtle nods to the colours, patterns and textures of the others clothes. They are completely out of place on this ship of fat Kazakstani businessmen in stretched polo shirts and chubby Italian housewives in bad dye jobs and zebra print nylon blouses… and they know it. They drift about the ship, looking perfect, with smiles of barely contained superiority.
posted by Blandwagon at 3:10 PM
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