Need To Vs. Want To

Currently, there are two e-books on my iPad: Lindy West's Shrill (2016) and Stephen King's Bag of Bones (1998). I flopped between them today on the train from Madrid to Sevilla (insert nail painting emoji). I wanted to be reading Shrill--it's fascinating and honest and interesting. Every chapter is a caramel in bright foil wrapping. I want to make it last.

But I continue to read ol' Mr. King too. For the opposite reason: I don't want it to last. I want to finish. I am hugely intrigued by the puzzle the book begins with. Page one maybe! A question unanswered that, like a clogged drain, is never a straight put of one hair. There's a clot down there. I just want to know the ending so bad. So much so that when a B-plot gets introduced (and, oh, they do because the book is a jillion pages long I GET IT STEVE PEOPLE ARE COMPLICATED AND MAINE IS COOL), I'm like, "Did we really need this?" The answer is going to be yes because of course all the plots will weave together. Which is ALSO why I can't just skip to the end and read the last chapter. I won't understand what's happening. By then, then there will be twenty-seven more key characters I haven't even met yet.

Both authors are doing their jobs. I'm hooked, aren't I? But one I appreciate much more. One I will always return to. The other I was make a pact to avoid and then in a moment of no-other-books-are-available-at-the-library weakness, return to him as I always do. (In his defense, I always do.)

I am reminded of The People Vs. OJ Simpson--the best TV I've seen all year (and so much TV is good right now!). It wasn't about the end. It couldn't be. We all know what went down. NO, it was about each episode--more--each act break, the nuance, the lines, the way I asked myself questions when the screen cut to black. I'll sit through two hours of obnoxious Q and A with the host of The Bachelor to find out who won, but I wish I didn't have to. Meanwhile, I'd hungrily chow down on Broad City even if the episode was titled, "Abby and Illana Sit On A Couch for Thirty Minutes."

Alice in Ship Land: Cruise Five/Adventures

-I’m learning to look nice more than one night a month. I have to look nice. There is a dress code after 5 PM. And I have time. Every commute is a five-minute walk. I never cook. I guess I have a moment for lip gloss.

-Last week was a dessert explosion. I chose to cut back this week by trying not eat after 10 PM and cutting out all desserts. I feel so accomplished. You do not know the siren song of the soft serve bar.

-Who’s got two thumbs and won the Rummy match Monday night?

-An ocean swim hole in the back of a bar in Cozumel. I had the quesadillas. The side of guac divine. I kept trying to journal but watching snorkelers.

-It feels good to have a to-do list for the internet. There’s no slack for goofin’.

-It’s easy in a small pod to feel like harmony is so key it may mean you bend in the wind. But as I was reflecting on one day I realized I ate up garbage someone else fed me. Ensemble is king, but you are always yourself. I have to leave this ship as myself.

-Bran muffins are my food of the week. Two bran muffins every day keep the cheese constipation away. #ShipDiet

-Is there anything better than getting home early, snuggling into your roommate’s bed, chugging a Pelegrino, and watching the illegally downloaded American Crime Story episode your boyfriend sent to you?

-One of the dancers ran into me while I waiting by the Personnel Office. She asked what I was up to, and I said I would be spending the day writing. “What are you writing?” she asked. “Oh, a lot of things,” I said. “So that’s why they call you Smart Alice,” she replied. My second week a bartender told he he always saw me working in the library and nicknamed me Smart Alice. Apparently it has spread. I hang out by the evening lounge singer on Wednesday, and when I get up to leave my boss says “Goodnight, Smart Alice.”

-One morning I am writing and see two girls come out of their cabins, turn the corner and see the ocean. They throw their hands up and scream in glee. Oh yeah. I forgot how majestic our house is.

-Wednesday afternoon I’m on the promenade deck and see a family waiting for a dinner they wish they were eating. And then snip snap, suddenly the parents are full-on cursing each other out in public. Mom stomps off. Dad waits. Follows. The two preteens sit silently next to each other for twenty minutes. No one returns, so they finally leave. #SpringBreak

-And then we tried to go to the waterpark in Costa Maya for MB’s birthday. We asked the tram driver three times if we were going to the waterpark. He said “yes, yes, yes.” Twenty minutes later we’re dropped off in the middle of town. We ask around, “Waterpark?” “No,” everyone says. And the tram doesn’t go back to port either. Huh. Okay. Okay. We could go to the beach, but I am ill-prepared. I specifically brought nothing but a towel and sunglasses. We go on a hunt for iced coffee and somehow get beach chairs right on literally the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. We swim. I put seaweed in my hair like a ribbon. We try cartwheels. We couldn’t have planned this day if we had tried. For her birthday, MB wants a massage. Little ladies come up to us in an endless stream asking to give them. We find three little beds far down the stretch, away from music, surrounded by ocean. Three one hour massages for $60. We get a lunch rec, and I eat way too many nachos. Number of coconuts I’ve drunk from rises to four. We have to take a cab back, but whatever whatever whatever.

-Early calltime on Belize day, but I have an important errand. Last week I saw a necklace I liked at a local woman’s stand. I told her I would buy it if it were longer. She says she would have done it while I had walked to the water if I had told her. I say I am crew and I’ll be back. This week I rushed past all the self-made tour guides and hair braiders to the card table. She was there. I didn’t have to say anything. She picked out a necklace from a box stashed away. It’s perfect. And then it’s back onboard. I read the book Dizz has recommended me from my iPad, so the tender trip isn’t even that bad.

-The family friendly show is a nightmare. I love most of the sweet children watching with wonder, but three boys sit in the very front and scream at us the whole time. We run offstage and I ask, “Where are their parents?” Tail snaps, “WHERE ARE THEIR MANNERS.”

-The adult show is a dream! The audience gives me and MB “Romeo and Juliet” as a suggestion of relationship. She plays him like a bro, and I am a vocal fry’d nightmare. She says, “If I live to be fifteen, we’re gonna get married.” I ask, “What could possibly happen to us before we’re fifteen?”