Alice in Ship Land: Ahoy Family

This was a special week because my mom and aunt were on board! They booked a cruise for a relaxing vacation and, of course, to witness me firsthand entertaining the masses.

A Sr. lives her best self 

These updates will be getting less exciting seeing as I will have significantly fewer new experiences each time I repeat the exact same itinerary. I am in Middle America Vacation Groundhog Day.

Some highlights of my fourth cruise in the Western Caribbean:

-walking around Belize with my family while we all drank out of coconuts a dude hacked up right in front of us, shavings flying wildly

-my cast taking advantage of Mom and Aunt’s dining package, getting to dine at the “fancy”* Italian restaurant with unlimited apps and ‘zerts!

-my aunt winning the spa lottery on Sunday and booking an hour massage for me! I live on a cruise and somehow the masseuse told me, “You are incredibly tense. Especially your calves.”

-Over two scones, ZPill and I contemplated how greatness happens. His metaphor is there is a huge dogpile of humans, and one finally stands on top, making the best thing. But, that person couldn’t be there without stepping on a million other people. My idea is societal needs show up as big holes, and we all create rubber band balls of our experiences. Sometimes because of who we are and what we have, our ball is too big or too small and either slides through the gap or rambles over it. But someone out there creates something just right that gets lodged in place. That’s greatness.

-drinking a peanut butter latte on a porch in Cozumel

-I’ve been wearing my pearls and my pearl shimmer lip-gloss a lot. At the pool is Costa Maya my cast tells me I look like a Kennedy.

-ZPill and I walk down a hall on Deck 6. A girl whispers as we pass, “That girl is so funny!” ZPill turns and smiles at me, says, “I just love getting compliments.”

-I’ve finally started wearing my jean shorts. I’ve been avoiding them because sweatshorts are also a thing. Everyone comments as they see me, “New shorts?” We all know every outfit.

-serving as a “celebrity judge” of the dance off competition for the first time. An old man won mainly because he successfully executed the lift in the Dirty Dancing number.

-wearing my new chocolate perfume on show night. MB asked me if I was eating a brownie every time I went offstage because when we passed each other in the dark I reeked of cocoa.

-the night the cast passed one slice of pie around the single we all crammed into, the night ZPill was sad and wrapped an éclair into a pizza slice and ate all of it

-the time I locked myself out of my room and couldn't get to my laundry for hours--when I arrived in the facility, it was all out of the dryer and folded

Another note: Very consistently I am finding when men come and talk to me after shows they talk about their own experiences. Ex: how much they like SNL, their favorite sketch, the work training they did once with improv, their college theatre group. Women ask a lot of questions. They rarely think to mention anything about themselves besides the initial "I enjoyed the show." Then they launch in to learning. So far, there are no exceptions to this rule.

*still on a cruise ship

Alice in Ship Land: Week Three

-Sunday was frightening. Suddenly, the ship went from average age of cruiser 65 to 22. Spring Break is here and the swarms of college kids have descended upon us. There were so many bikini-bods holding pink frosty cups running around the pool deck. This is a new era. MB and I holed up in our cabin putting on face masks and eating the wasabi peas from crew mart.

-A few of us went to a sit-down restaurant one night, and I realized just how blasé I feel about ship life suddenly. A photographer asked if I would get up from my seat to pose for a photo and I just honked, “No.”

-This go ‘round in Cozumel I had the major urge to find a donut. I hadn’t had a donut in almost a month. Tuesday morning I got a major bee in my bonnet and was determined to find one. I Yelped around on pirated Wi-Fi until I found a bakery a mile up the coast. My gang wanted to visit the cemetery, so I conceded to that stop. It was colorful and kind of cute with wild lizards roaming about.

-Finally we got to this hot room full of pastries. I bought a cheese pocket and a sugar donut. I ate them with spiced ice coffee. We meandered and I felt the fuss creeping up in all of us. Only three weeks in and irritability rises. MB and ZPill want stuffed peppers. I wonder if I should go on my own for a bit. I am right on the edge of saying “I’ll leave you here,” but I don’t. I sit down in the restaurant and the clouds open. It pours.

-Tuesday night I was in the library trying not be distracted by the pack of middle schoolers who were lounging on the couches when Bril came rushing in and told me we had a show in half an hour. The seas were rocky, so it wasn’t safe for the aerialists to perform. I zipped up my stuff, ate four bites of a calzone, and rushed to get into costume. My hair was in knotty braided pigtails, but no time for curling iron. I slapped on lipstick and sped through the finale song. There were a lot of drunk frat boys, but it’s good to have a challenge. Every audience shouldn’t be good. Then I’m not getting all I should be out of this job.

-My eating has taken a bit of a tumble this week. I’ve had late night pizza three nights of the week. ZPill explained it well, “At home there’s the difficulty of getting junk food at night and a financial drawback. Here it’s like ‘Oh, do you have sixty seconds?’”

-Beach day in Roatan. Frazzled ship exit. Security telling me I couldn’t get off the ship, my roommate already off and calling from the gangway, finding a cab, paying for the beach, but finally we were there. The sand was soft as silk under my toes. The ocean warm and welcoming. The sun drying my hair in minutes. I drank out of a coconut and answered emails about an essay I am publishing in spring.

-Once a month the spa is open for crew. The hot tub is splashy in the rough waters. I take off my suit and wear a towel in the relaxation room. Ah.

-I finally set foot in Belize. It’s the hardest port for crew to get to because passengers clog the exits for hours. We take a tour with a woman who has never known another home. She tells us about the culture and her life from inside her car. The south side is broken, the north side corrupt. I drink lime juice and eat a grilled conch from lunch. Plus plantains. Oh plantains! I ask about feminism. She tells me men used to say “Jump” and they’d ask “how high?” Now, men say jump and the women climb.

-We rehearse, he have long lingering dinner, we do our show, late night cheesecake, the first upset, the patching it up, the sleep. The glorious sleep of being in the belly of the sea.

-Our “family friendly” show. Woof. It was my first time hosting and thirty seconds in a spring breaker screamed “gynecologist” at me. I did make two horrible puns and got literally boo’d by hundreds of people, but my third joke was pretty good, and I was cheered like Rudy.

-It took me two weeks to do a total revision of my musical. Cheers to the ship library. When MB wants to find me she walks in, says deadpan, “You’re so hard to find.”

-During the Murder Mystery the audience participates in questioning the perp (me). A big ol’ southern boy asked for my number in the middle of the show.
-The adult show was BONKERS. There were hundreds of people packed into the bar. Our perfect demographic. Afterwards the high fives were endless. A girl came up to me on the dance floor and said she loved us and when she turned around and thought I couldn’t hear: “Y’all, my heart is beating so fast!” The truth is, we’re good, but we don’t warrant this kind of affection. But, still, it’s a fun experience for a week at a time.