-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?”
