Five days down on the cruise, sixdays to go. Almost midway. I studiously avoid the word “trip”. There’s only one “Trip” that I ever taken now and that’s with a capital ‘T’. Anything else is a jaunt, or a wandering, or God forbid, possibly a tour. I may be in need of a thesaurus. But the Trip is holy writ (note to self – post that portion of the website again).
Last night was the first time I’ve remembered my dreams in months, even if only vaguely.
The first one was about still being on this boat, but Heather and Tyler were out on the beach, coming over a rise, running around chasing one another and giggling. I miss Heather a bit. It was very Gidget.
Then my alarm went off to wake up my mom.
Upon getting back to sleep, I dreamt about being back in my mom’s house – but it was really, really crowded. I retreated to what I thought of as “my room” (though more recently that’s George’s room, or now the Guest Room) which was now pale blue and had two beds in it in an L-shape..
In any case, the rest of the house was just full of people putting together some sort of performance – in one room there were midgets were practicing holding one another through handstands and spins. In another, a couple of friends (I remember Mitzi and Janna being included) were working up a very passable cover of Cricket Hunt.
In “my room” for a moment, I’m finding quiet before the door bursts open… I’m sitting up in bed under the blankets, and two women (I don’t remember who) burst in and climb into bed with me, wanting to talk about the flanger effect being applied to my guitar in the studio on my new song (Drift – later note – that’s why I tried Dave’s flanger out on stage while playing it at Jozart – cause it was suggested in this dream).
THEY wanted to use my old Korg pedal, but I wanted Jeremy to apply it after-the-fact… strains of Cricket Hunt still coming through the door…
Then Brandi pops her head through the window. She’s found a ladder someplace and is half-way in. I’m yelling at her to come in or NOT (I don’t want people just hanging outside my bedroom window on a ladder) when my mom knocks at the door.
Gesturing frantically for Brandi to GET HER HEAD DOWN – too late, my mom walks in and, in her way, studiously ignores everything that looks to be going on in the room and demands that I come help with the dancing…
Thank God my uncle’s snoring then woke me up before I was dreaming about dancing with midgets.
Pretty obvious dreams, really, one reLiving and pointing out my most recent relationship failures and the other just reiterating the fact that I wish I could get away from the people on this fucking cruise.
About the Cruise So Far…
Yesss… about the cruise…
So far, 5 days in, 6 days to go, I have NOT hated it. I’ve spent some times disliking my mother, my Grandfather and my uncle, but no time actually disliking the cruise itself.
I like playing the Yamaha – a lot. Though I miss my computer and all this writing is making my shoulder cramp really, really terribly, it’s probably good to be excreting so much into my Little Black Book again. If nothing else, I think most of the other passengers think I’m writing about killing them, and that kind of fear is worth it’s weight in gold.
…
In any case, I’m upstairs with a buffet breakfast and the ocean steadily being pushed aside outside the floor to ceiling windows outside.
I wonder what forces are at work to create that hazy horizon, and how far out at sea we are to provide are uninterrupted landeless vistas.
Eating is an excercise in guilt. Constantly watching other people serve (very diverse, actually – my Baltimore eyes are suprised that the bus boys and waiters and whatnot aren’t divided along racial lines – though NO white males – on the other hand I haven’t seen but one white male among the entire 903 people of the crew)(as I write this, a beautiful tanned model of a blonde asks in accented English if she can take my tray).
In any case, I’m very, very conscious of swarms of people SERVING me. Estrella, the latino woman who comes and cleans our room, does so twice a day and says “Good morning sir rob… good evening sir rob.” I don’t like that feeling, like the standards they are held to means that my every action makes their work harder, and that stopping to engage them in conversation like everyday humans only lengthens their work day.
She is older, and MUST have a family (I find out later that she’s missing her two kids, they stay with her sister while she works cruise-lines). I wonder how often she is home. I wonder how steady a job this is for any of the staff (she works them regularly – for .75c an hour) and if they miss their homes (she does, terribly), or if they practically Live on the boat – if they’re well-paid, etc.
I’m watching the table in front of me – two retired couples (?) wondering about the construction of chairs, if they’re stackable – previously talking about the price of diesel, presumably for their motor homes… Whatever it is has a 100 gallon tank – he talks about how when he bought it, diesel fuel was cheaper than unleaded.
He passes a table of Japanese and remarks on the size of a breadstick, apparently gripped by a child (the blonde appears and disappears again, leaving a waft of fragrance) and tells her that he’s NEVER seen a breadstick that big – the child grips it and says “I wanted a BIGGER bwead stick!!!” – the table laughs.
Even I smile.
—
My grandfather is both worse and better off than I thought.
On the one hand, he walks well, and other than missing a step in Mazatlan, does really well. He clamoured up steep inclines in San Sebastion – that had me concerned – and can probably outwalk ME.
Not that we’ve kept up grueling paces or anything, but he IS 83 or so.
But on the other hand he’s very, very confused – he keeps being surprised that we’re spending the night on the boat – can’t hold schedules in his mind, nor the layout of the ship. He gets confused by words that don’t come to mind, he doesn’t like the fact that buildings outside keep changing. He hates the fact that we don’t see stars at night.
He’s very easy going about most things. “Are you alright / ok?” almost invariable receives an “I’m still here” response. He still uses the same phrases from when we were kids, like “You really lucked out”.
His flesh fallen slack like the wattle of an iguana, remembering the service photographs on the walls from when he was 20… I can’t imagine coming to terms with such changes and age. I imagine going around the room, shrouding old photographs, and burning myself into non-recognition.
He’s taken a real joy out of the discovery that he’s on a boat (0ver and over again), out of the airplane ride to San Sebastion, he had a huge grin on his face upon frightening a flock of pigeons near the Mazatlan Cathedreal – but I wonder if he’d remember the event if I mentioned it now.
I miss Heather? No – I miss playing music with Heather, but I’m not sure that I miss her. I’ve always known that I needed some real time away from her. I’d KILL to have a romantic interest out here with me. There’s a Creature back home who would Love this – I’m taking photographs of pirate ships for her and she’d run me ragged climbing after coconuts and chasing lizards. Well – she’s more reserved than that, maybe – but there’s black sands and skies that aren’t to be believed and dolphins and … I Live through bring things to other people, and it’s painful not to be sharing it all with someone I really care about.
