| Warm out, and it's been raining. As might be expected, my circadian rhythm's all messed up, and I'm hungry, and I haven't been able to eat, really, since breakfast yesterday. One would think that a ship of this size could manage to have hot meals available 24x7, but this is not the case. I order a chicken sandwich from a surly (and evidently very busy) clerk on the phone. The sandwich appears within 12 minutes, cold and dry. |
I'll tell you what: I would never pay for a "vacation" on a ship like this. The formalwear thing is not for me, never has been, and it's pretty astounding that you have to eat on their schedule, in very small time windows, and can't get a real meal when you're hungry.
I wander the halls. Partyers stagger loudly to their cabins, having favored the "Bahama Mama" - a saccharine Kool-Aidy rum drink. Yuppies in the eighties were one thing. There's a new breed I've been noticing more lately, nouveau-riche kids, rude, self-important, addicted to the trappings of techno-power. In San Diego last week, I saw a young woman beached in an airport hallway, staring at her cell-phone, trying to figure out who to call, and that kind of typifies it for me. You're waiting in a line somewhere, and the kids think nothing of showing up late and blowing right by the line, and that typifies it even more. What I see here is that they like to dress up and they drink a lot, and they are immersed in the trappings, and they don't necessarily see any big picture of the world or humanity. They are healthy, too, and will live to a great old age inflicting their rude habits on the world. Of course, this is a subset; generally mid-twenties, I'd say... My age group has its faults, certainly, but for the most part we have manners.
The ship: Built 1990. 48,563 tons. 692 feet long, 106 wide. 20 knots cruising speed (roughly, 20mph). Nine guest decks, seven elevators. Two thrusters at the bow and one at the stern. Two stabilizers (which aren't doing THAT great of a job, but I haven't been seasick). 2000 guests max (in 801 "staterooms" - guess my "state" is Rhode Island). Four "accessible" staterooms (i.e., if you're disabled, don't cruise).
The levels, the inside/outside rooms, the formalwear-only, all of this stuff lends to the whole experience an I'm-richer-than-you-ness that tends to create a separation of classes on board, over and above the separation on shore.
Hey - here's a coincidence: in the "Random Lottery Drawing" for stateroom selection, two cow orkers and me are neatly in a row of inside cabins on the steerage 4th level, equivalent practically to the peasants dancing with Leo DeCaprio in the bowels of the Titanic.
Of course, there's no talk of class distinctions among the upper classes! However, it's comforting to find that there are others like me who resent - at least a little - this mandatory egg-basket in which we're classed (by entirely impartial random lottery, of course) at grade "C" and others "AA."
The walls are quite thin. I can hear the TV clearly in either room, left or right of me, and the intermittent Karaoke applause directly above. Some cow orkers among the Bahama Mama'd lot outside the disappointing cafe last night, noted hearing sex and/or arguments through their walls -- and of course, given the Random Lottery of cabin selection, they know, and perhaps even work closely with, their neighbors... Kindly of them, isn't it, to not name names?
The wind- and rain-swept deck at night is pretty great. Some (like me) might like the gentle rocking of the boat. Others probably puking guts out in bathrooms so small their butts are halfway across the cabin. I see other ships in the distance port and starboard.
These islands, by the way, have no true natives, human or plant. Killed and cleared for the sugar trade. Today's natives are descendants of the Africans brought in to work the 'caine when the natives refused, and were hung and burned, or simply died off from good ol' European disease - that great historic settler of continents (and incontinents too, one supposes). I guess I could suggest that it wasn't British, French, Italian, or American might that conquered the world - it was their syphilis. But I won't.
So we're happily visiting the scenes of rapine, plunder, and genocide; if Disney had helped, the whole tour would be accompanied by cute and whimsical animatronic Blue- and Blackbeards, Kidds, and Drakes, endlessly saying "Haarr, Matey!" and piercing natives with their cutlasses. Human history, I learn meanwhile, may have been more "civilized" 8000 years ago than today, though to be fair, one of mankind's favorite threads through time has been that of cruelty to his different fellows.
I'm really pretty depressed when on this boat, not much less so ashore among the money-hungry locals. Why don't we just cruise to the port of San Francisco, and have a choice of excursions to the South of Market and Tenderloin areas, and for a few dollars more, the Haight-Ashbury?
Lower back pain helps to prevent sleep.
No, I'm not generally a shiny happy person. But I do find joy in a million tiny things, often invisibly present, such that I may get a smile out of things that others ignore. Flip-side, I'm overly sensitive, perhaps, but I get the feeling most people are in blinders. To some extent, you have to walk around with a bag over your head to not be crushed by appalling injustice at every turn. And me, guilty too, making pretty absurd money really, considering I build paisley icicles on the eaves of chartreuse cotton-candy castles atop a big pink cloud called the Internet... I start to think that computers are forces of evil, separating, as they do, in insidious ways, once again, the haves and have-nots. We "knowledge workers" are no smarter, and certainly no wiser, than any human at any point in time. We have literacy rates that are fractionally higher than those of the general public. We have no consciousness of history. We understand hard cold logic, and that's all, but we lord it over the "lesser folk" exactly like a thousand rapacious kings and generals of old.
Well, I've been up since 2am, a ghost on the ship. There are other spirits; you see them in odd corners, staring out at the blackness, reading in chairs, walking the halls and decks. We are the forgotten, or the never-thought-of, and maybe we like to be so. It's easy to become invisible.
This ship creeps by night between islands of earthly paradise; most people sleep during the creeping, but we ghosts creep during the sleeping, along the walkways between the safe lighted parts. Maybe they are unsettled - so are ghosts reputed to be - by occurrences in the past in the waking world. Whatever, they recognize each other with a slight nod, an ironic "good morning" at 4am, a barely perceptible raising of a hand, almost but not quite reaching out to touch. The non-ghosts do not see you, and do not want to.
| Towering clouds mark the approach to St. Maarten. "Scattered showers" were never plainer to see - I'm not the first to compare the open sea to the desert, but it's an apt comparison - here too, you can see four or five distant rain storms when you're not in one. |  |
 | Sunrise, then, is murky, the sky slowly lightening above the eastern clouds, no color until a full-on white-yellow sun shoots rays straight up. |
| The non-ghosts begin to rise; they appear to resent that the ghosts are now somewhat visible, drinking of their coffee, sitting within earshot, smoking where they can smell it, though the ghosts have to smoke in particular areas where the non-smoking non-ghosts stupidly sit. The ghosts travel alone, mostly, the non-ghosts in pairs or protective clusters, heads together, sharing unghostly information: their excursions for the coming day; gossip; scavenger hunt plans; tips on making their PowerPoint presentations more stultifying; perhaps their shared hangovers. |  |
Me, my main areas of concern today are the blister on my right big toe, the untrimmed toenails that have drawn blood during my walking, and the abraded areas port and starboard of my genitals, from walking a few miles yesterday in wet and sandy "small-clothes," all causing me to walk like the comic-relief character in some western TV series.
Tip: bring a day-pack for a trip like this, if you can get an extra luggage tag. In the day-pack, carry dry, sand- and salt-free clothing.
The big advertised attraction on each of the islands has been shopping. What use shopping to ghosts? I might just stay aboard at St. Maarten and sleep. Sleep while the ship is still and roam the decks by night.
Heh! Naaah, can't do THAT! Must see "the largest selection of Jimmy Buffet merchandise this side of Margaritaville," and two floors of Tommy Hilfiger bargains! Watches! Jewelry! The famous St. Maarten guavaberry liqueur!
Christ.
Hey, it's payday. 7:40am. Guess I'd better get food while I can.
It's a "tender day," not referring to my crotch, but meaning that the ship anchors out in the bay and little seabuses ferry passengers back and forth to St. Maarten. I run into Len and Toby at breakfast. Len has been quite ill. Though the day has been cloudy and "scattered showers" are forecast, I feel I should at least set foot on the island - a rare chance to get off of this boat. Len wants a cappuccino, amazingly unavailable in the boat.
The nether parts of the island (half-Dutch, half-French) are probably very nice. But the town (Philipsburg) is just ugly. Well, not the town itself, but the influx of cruise-ship tourists, and the rush to take their money. We see most of the town before finding a bar with a cappuccino machine. Len orders a double, and the bartender, misunderstanding, delivers two cappuccinos. I politely drink one, though I've already had four or five cups of Nordic Empress coffee this morning AND a shot of the horrendous guavaberry liqueur they're pushing everywhere.
I start to feel slightly ill myself.
| I do find three Hawaiian shirts I like for $27, and four cartons of cigs for $35. Hey, I'm a cruise-ship shopper! Having set foot on the island, and having seen all I care to of Philipsburg, and having been up for nine hours, I'm ready to catch the tender back to the ship. |  |
The tender is just leaving when we get to the pier, but they're running about every twenty minutes, so we duck into the "Reggae Cafe" (picture a modified "Hard Rock Cafe" logo...) where Len tries some kind of rainbow-colored concoction, and I opt for a Red Stripe, which is ice-cold and great.
Actually, the idea of a cold drink by the pool on the top deck now seems pretty good. I can get lunch, too, and toothpaste and direly-needed sunscreen, and be more or less set for sundries. Probably get a nap somewhere in there too.
Sundries are in a shop onboard. The shops onboard do not open unless we're three miles off shore, because they also sell duty-free crap. This is another HUGE downside to this cruise ship - you cannot buy standard utile stuff unless you're out to sea - after eight at night, usually. Ridiculous!
I'll probably make it to a meeting for the first time tonight, since I got four hours of sleep here.
Level's rule of thirds: "There are two kinds of people... and there's always one more kind." People always do that "two kinds" schtick, but you can always identify another class that falls between, in neither or both categories. I don't think this rule can be proven - which, for what it's worth, puts it in a third category of theory between the proved and the unproved, so at least bearing true in its own context...
Re the "ghosts" earlier mentioned: a ghost may move to a class, as can a non-ghost, of neither/both. As a non-ghost, you always hover on the potential of "dying" to the world and becoming a ghost, and vice-versa. As a ghost you may be brought into the world of the living, become recognized, by friendship with a non-ghost or another ghost. In the instant of recognition, you are not-quite-ghost or honorary-probationary-non-ghost: in that third category.
Simple, and nothing new, right? But there is always gray between the black and the white. In fact the pure black and pure white, if they exist at all, are usually smaller than the gray.
As we know, there are grays that are virtually indistinguishable from black, and others from white, such that you often cannot even discern whether you are really looking at a true black or white, or merely a very dark or light gray.
Again with the "ghost" thing, and what it really represents: what I'm finding is that there are cruise-ship people, and there are non-cruise-ship people. And then there is a whole other class: those who inexplicably find themselves on a cruise ship, who don't (yet) belong to either class. This particular ship might just have the largest-ever third class in cruise ship history. :-)
Corollary to that, my two days of excursions have both involved potential "ghosts" - Toby, Len, and me - reaching out to each other in some way, however small, to join the living.
Reading about Egyptian feats of construction, unequalled until (perhaps) the present time. Durant notes, however, that the world for which the Luddites get all misty-eyed included hundreds of slaves rowing an obelisk of many tons up the Nile, or pushing and pulling great slabs of rock up mile-long ramps, to achieve what we do with a crane. Without machinery, some things may still be achieved, but achieved at great human cost. Would you really go back to prehistoric civilization to escape the evils of machinery? If not, which machinery is evil? How would you keep all of humanity from ever sharpening a rock, using a ramp, or accidentally discovering the pulley -- or electricity?
Whenever I've thought of Luddites, something was not quite right, but perhaps I never quite put my finger on it. Trite as my (and Will Durant's) theorizing here may be, it helps me to get to the crux of that. And if you ever put yourself in one of those either/or classes, you might consider that maybe you're really in the third (and often the only real) category, and thus abdicate your ghost throne. Onward and upward, then!
...
On another track, this ship seems to be a kind of Bizarro-ship in a Bizarro-world, where nothing is entirely real, but is a botched copy of the real thing. (Len brought this up today, using the word "ersatz.")
At the very base of it, what the hell is a Nordic Empress? Was there ever a Nordic Emperor? Who was this Empress? Well, actually, according to the plaque in the "Centrum" (that's the "center" for you non- or gray-Latins), she was a queen, not an empress, and nowhere are the words "emperor" or "empress" mentioned. So why "Nordic Empress?" It sounded classy to some ad-agency droid.
This has a perfectly ironic parallel to OinkiCorp's attempt to create a synthetic corporate culture here. Thus, the Nordic Empress is a perfect choice for a place to do it.
I believe someone at OinkiCorp read a book somewhere, and the endless meetings, the rah-rah war propaganda, all are attempts to create an imagined perfect culture. I haven't read the book so wouldn't know, but I suggest to you, dear reader, that cultures are not created except organically, by the sum of the participants (and non-participants, and not-quite-participants, and not-quite-not-participants).
Keep in mind now that I've been awake way too much in the past 100-some hours.
Even the most strict and structured cultures (military?) grow organically. The Nixon White House - paranoia, burglaries, and all - heavily influenced by the radical (and not-so-radical) left. In part, the 60s peace movement created Watergate, as much as did Nixon and CREEP.
Hitler's Germany, everyone's favorite example, created in some part by the jews. A culture is formed in the actions and reactions between the people inolved.
I make it to the "good" dinner, and the company meeting, for the first time. Oddly, held up my end of the conversation at dinner with my new-found OinkiCorp Olympics team (none of them, evidently, giving a rat's ass about the Olympics - indeed, none of them having a rat's ass about their person [well, there's one guy, but I'm going to omit that part in a public forum).
I think because I'm a quiet person and I work pretty fast with little apparent effort, there may be some question as to whether I'm a slacker and/or a social retard. Well, rule of thirds, I'm often an honorary slacker and/or not-quite-not social retard. But I felt good at dinner, drew people out a little bit simply by asking them questions, such as: "Would you do a cruise like this again, on your own dime?" Never really got a straight yes or no, but did inspire some conversation where it otherwise may have died with the lamb shank and shrimp under our very forks. Nice to be of assistance, when I can. Great food and service. Formalwear is NOT required.
And I'm thinking, hey, I'll join these folks after the meeting for a few drinks, and actually have a good time, not be a ghost, up the value of my stock at the company, an optimistic farmer with a whole wheelbarrowfull of optimistic thoughts paces left and right behind my eyes.
As it happens, the company meeting and the ensuing doc department presentation (thank me later for omitting those - and other more gossipy and speculative - notes) pretty much use up all the social energy I had, and when I get to the casino bar, it's three people deep and loud loud loud, and I must flee to the upper deck. There, it's also loud and crowded but I do manage to get a margarita, with which I flee to one of my favorite spots on the ship - the forward 11th-level "flying-deck," from which I can see the prow of the ship and the oncoming scenery, a bird's-eye view, the highest point available to mere passengers, ethereal or not. But it has rained and there is no place to sit, so I finish the 'rita standing. I see groups of people I know on the party deck, but haven't the energy to:
This is pretty much how I always think.
One crappy 'rita is enough, and I head down to my beloved room 4633 and you my little notebook. Thinking, I am not a ghost, except by choice. I am not depressed, except if you don't apply my "rule of three." I'll never be false-happy or rah-rah like some people; I like my solitude, and that, really, is all. I'll talk one on one with anybody, but I don't do crowds well, and I generally do drunken crowds even less well. I live with that through all of my (365 * 43) + 25 days; it gets me down sometimes that I can't join in the "fun," but I have a rich fantasy life by way of compensation.
For what it's worth, I haven't managed to have two alcoholic drinks in succession at any time so far on this cruise. Of course, that will change.
I did catch the sundries store open, and attended to temporal things like toothpaste, sunscreen, and nail clippers.
Perhaps I'll get some sleep tonight; perhaps I'll be a ghost again.
Two more days to go, and I'll be home.
| Introduction | November 13 | November 14 | November 15 | November 16 | November 17 | Vacations | Steve |