8.1 Norse cruise, part 1

Sitno >>174<<

Turnaround in Southampton. Trust the English to decorate an embarcation TENT with dozens of crystal-plastic baroque chandeliers and plastic 'gold' chairs with red mock plush. Holy fucking cow.

No chance of going to town, as we'll start early, right between the dock loading-cranes and porta potties :D I had a long shower and breakfast and will go around the ship to see if anyone left behind any books. The ship is on Code Red, so all of it is being fumigated. So, water for Code Green stage, gel for Yellow and smoke for Red? I imagine the next stage is a flame thrower? Spoke to my babe, his voice and words the most solid thing I posess on this Earth, making everything else feel like a stubborn illusion. With lots of English weather in it. In some other realm I am so in love it's scary, and what can I do about it? Write more postcards? Eat more ice-cream with his name on my lips during? Mention him to more people, show them more of his photos? No. There is no cure. Only amputating the ship off me would help. Unfortunatelly, this shit is far too fun to give up on now, while we're on a roll. :P

...

Explored the place while it was being washed over and got myself some more pills from the Med.center. Asked how they were, which was a stupid question, considering the med staff are knee deep in shit and people died, but they at least think that's included in the price of working on a five star cruiser. The shop is selling Bryson, thank ye Gods almighty!!!, but they locked down the library from public use. :,(( Will try to change the Pratchett for Bryson, because managed to take the same Pratchett out just before the locks came on. Found three crime books of unknown worth lying around. Kept running into DOo, who was supervising repairs around the ship while our dear captain slept, and we chased one another around the coridors a bit, at times quite literally running and laughing, then he told me go do something, anything, as long as it isn't stealing books. 

Easy for him to say. I start work in ten minutes, at ten thirty, and no guest will set foot to the ship until two, so that's nigh four hours of having to pretend to enjoy being in SLSB's mighty shadow, pacing around in circles, waiting for life to go by... At least he never says a word to me, so I count my blessings.

*note to self: ...it will make a great deal of sense to make Dread torn between two realities. Also, I ate a cookie and a large piece of chocolate. Just putting it out there. Since I tell myself to stop ingesting sugar fifty times a day. With Britvic tonic on top. 

Grrrr...

Eve

Today was perhaps the best day to date, as I reckon the days around here should be, but 

HOLY FUCKING BLOODY MOTHER OF FUCKS am I tired.... O.o ... I didn't think a person could be this tired. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, unless tomorrow is like today. Seriously, I just gotta pass the fuck out. This is now a slave ship more than ever! SLSB is driving us like nuts. Aw, man, my poor feet!!....

...Did I mention I got two kilos of caramel chocolates from the shoppies manager? My fridge is absolutely packed with chocolate. There is no way I can eat all of this :D I would say I don't think I even like chocolate very much anymore, because it makes me thirsty, but then surely the Gods would strike me down...

Sitno >>173<<

Neup. Too fucking tired today also. Ironically: Life = good. <3

Sitno >>172<<

"...shipboatwhatever... Though I do know the difference between a ship and a boat. Do you? Apparently, the boat is what you get to when there is something wrong with the ship."

Beverly the Diva

Okay, so. Sorry for the lag. Last two days... The Turnaround day is over and the First Formal/second day is kinda almost over, except they postponed it until today. That's that. Cruising ... Some magically beautiful fjord today, fantastically oxygenated green water, rocks as high as miles, just calling out for a basejumping dare, weather bleak and pompous, easy does it.

I will suck someone's cock to be alowed to go see the glacier they are going to see tomorrow. May be the General's cock some other day, though, because seeing a glacier is not exactly SEEING a glacier. Knowwaddamean? I wanna do it proper, Greenland-like. I wanna SEE, CLIMB, TOUCH, SMELL, HEAR AND TASTE and crawl it. I will have to do that on my own terms, me thinks. So I stopped stressing about being allowed on excursions on this fucking ship. Two and a half hours of standing outside toilets, squirting people's hands for desinfection, every day ON MY OWN TIME. That is the reality of my condition. The rest of the elements are ELSEwhere. 

Wanted to say again, though, the Turnaround in Southampton was like the coolest workday I've had so far on this can I guess working far too much for human norms really turns me on. First we did absolutely nothing for three hours. SLSB decided 10:30 will be a good time to start photographing embarcation, so we literally STOOD ready from 10:30 until 13:30, when he decided may be a good time for a 20 min lunch break... Thank the Gods of my unyeilding appetite I murdered a Flapjack beforehand, while waiting for the gangways to be switched, because the moment my lips touched the coffee (drink coffee DURING lunch, lesson learnt in a hurry), the embarcation was announced and we ran down back to our posts.

I realise I drink too much coffee. I realise that when some day I return to the Real world, the level of mental and physical detox required would best be handled on Shutter Island.

Thing is, the people working in the docks really love to fuck with us and continue to relocate us to ever less favorable locations and threaten to have us removed altogether, as if we were some kind of fucking criminals or paupers. As if we had no right to be there. At some point, when pax were coming in and posed nicely, a woman came to say we only have 15 minutes left to shoot everything, otherwise we'll miss the tide..... 

What fucking tide? There were still 700 people in the waiting rooms OUTSIDE. We were the least of the bottlenecking stops the pax had. But no, it was us she threatened. 

Although we were suppose to shoot 200 pics pf couples and singles, switch cards and print them, FPP, who was the one shooting this time, shot 400 on one card, 600 on the other card and 300 on the last one. She got told off for it, but. But the last card crashed and would not show any shots at all. SLSB, who if this happened to me probably WOULD get me fired in a moment, if not murdered, just cursed for an hour, pale and miserable - because our rollcount otherwise was record. Maaaany first timers, which is what you want on a cruise indeed - managed to salvage some with a salvage program. We printed SOOOO many pics, Gods. And labeled so many of them. Good thing I love labeling.

Sometime during that, the curtain flew open and, quite startled, as if he just discovered a room he's never seen before, DOo blinked in, holding a walkie talkie (It was pax drill time.) and said: ”Ah, so this is where you hide in your lair!... Uh, it's hot."... And walked away again. 

Yes. Because in two months he didn't know where the photo lab is on this ship. It's, like, smack in the middle of the ship in front of the biggest restaurant and we set the studios up in front of it twice a week. 

Anyhoo, his adorableness aside, once the labeling was almost done and putting them up in tris began, I had to abandon all of it and stand outside a toilet from 6pm to 7:30. I had to make sure anyone coming out of the restroom sanitized their hands. You can imagine the level of dignity required to do this with a smile. All but one of the pax were more than willing; only one refused and claimed he washed his hands. I tried to explain washing means cleaning them, but sanitizing means killing the virus... He was rude. Who cares. The main chef came by and asked what am I doing. I said I am guarding the restroom. He asked where is my gun. I lifted the gel bottle and said: I am the germ killer. He said: I hope you are not the Germans killer! 

:D (He's German. But he's cool. He will tell you where all the best strip clubs in Hamburg are :D)

After, my feet already so tired I cramped like hell (is it true you're supposed to eat bananas to get the potassium against cramping? Hm...) I ran to help FPP in the gallery and we sold as best we possibly could to some pretty fucking retarded people, or some nice people who were really tired, or some tired people who were really drunk. I think we made excellent money, even though towards the end of the day SLSB was so worn out he was his good old miserable, nasty self. Back to snapping at me, like in the good old days before-abuse-report. I tried to get some food in the Buffet, but it had to be served to you by the Indian waiters, and you can imagine how much they gave me. Oh, how they loooove to waste my time, knowing I only have ten monutes to eat. How it pleases them to see me tired and hungry and upset... Five leaves of lettuce, three grain of rice, one whole noodle and five red beans from the salad... I asked for my coffee to be made one third coffee and one third milk and one third cold water and the aloof fucking dickhead refused because he said he doesn't know what a third means. It was true, too. 

After 'diner' I ran down again. The shoppie manager told me he left us some chocolate, which turned out to be two bags of caramel chocolates, nearing expiration dates. That's two kilos of chocolate. On top of the kilo of Toblerone I already have and a bunch of previous gains of party flavour variety. Blimey! And supposedly there is my countrywoman on-board for the week. I would be excited, but I know my countrymen abroad and they tend to be kinds of shit. Something about a village mentality going out to see the world and thinking they got the God by the balls...

Well, that turned out to be correct.

Tiiiired, I sent the one text to my baby and then I don't remember much else. :D

In the morning they extended my toilet duty to two and a half hours. At least I get to chat with some nice couples and watch geriatrics play carpet bowling to the beat of a bored-to-death host. I am beginning to worry that after I get home, I will have such acute PTSD, the General will have to come looking for me standing outside of the local retirement home, screaming at people to SMILE! and CLOSE TOGETHER, FOR NICE PICTURE!.... I worry about this, because the first time we did the month long winter fair, after it was done and we all nearly died from exposure there, I had a terrible urge to sit outside of the DM, in the street, for days ... O.o

I slept after gallery duty from one to three and then worked until ten. It was a busy gallery in intervals I am used to by now. DOo came by, cheerful, couple of times. Maybe he finally got laid? Ah, wishful thinking :P I know he bought the spanish guitar he wanted to treat himself to. Either way, he was cool. I think I would have left this shitty deal a long time ago if it wasn't for his moral/mental support. I got paid what little I got paid, though I said if I get more than 280, I'll spend some to get G the annerversary present, which in this case was a bottle of Sauvage by Dior, a perfume I really like on him. Fuck I miss his skin. Fuck fuck fuck.

Last, at half past ten, went to see a show by Beverly something, The Diva of Music and Laughter. She turned out to be freaking awesome. I knew she was kinda cool from having had her embark photo taken in a fun way. Usually she's this chubby, large, dark-dressing odd kind of an individual. On stage she wore the brightest red gown of glitter and sequins and feathers, which made her look like a fire red turkey. She plays a 300 year old violin, too. 

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen... Lemme tell you a little about myself, so you'll fully comprehend the presence of whom you have the privilege to be this evening... As a diva, I asked what I can expect on the ship. May I bring my entorage of 27 people? No? You don't have 29 royal suits? You may notice now a small ship following us at a discreete distance. Will they pick me up at the airport? Depends on what I'll be wearing. Can they help me with my bags? They don't think there is a plastic surgeon on board the shipboatwhatever... "

...

What may she expect on her pilow? A chocolate. Not the captain? No, but the captain would like to invite her to diver. She doesn't dine with the hired help. Will she get a jacuzzi in her suite? No, but the manager will give her a long and extensive tour of the engine room.

She suffered for her tremendous success as such is always the case, in her personal life... She had ten husbands, three of which were her own. All she burried, two while they were still napping. One died suddenly falling into a deep wishing well - she didn't know they worked. The second misteriously died of poisonous mushrooms. The third died of a fractured skull... For not wanting to eat the mushrooms. But like all extremely large women, she is always chased around by very small, more politically correctly - vertically challenged men. One chased her while she was having a prestigious dinner with a sheik and his immediate family of 380 closest relatives. He finally came near, yelling at her and she got up and looked down over her large chest at him, demanding to know what he wants. He declared to the entire golden restaurant, that he would like to have sexual relations with her! "Well, if you do - and if I ever find out!!..."

:D

Promiscous humor. Always works.

She said that in Africa, they call Chardash music 'charred ass'.

She asked one of the ladies in the audience what her name was and when the lady said:”Barbara."

"That's correct."

She's on two diets, because one doesn't have enough food in it...

When they heard she was embarking, all Six members of our orchestra hid, but she found them because she needed all of them to get her in this dress she's wearing. Which one she will keep to take her out again she hasn't decided. But she has her eye on Oggie - this really cute, very young piano player, who shot her a terrified look across the stage when she said it. :D

She introduced them in bulk so we could save the applause for her. She also had trouble tunning her strings, especially her g string. And mentioned she doesn't use much make up these days, more like embalming oil :D

...

Anyway, that was an hour of laughter and good violin playing.

Today it was darker. Today I almost gave up on this whole fucking boat thing, because the weather was shit, my mood was shit and my standing outside of the toilet was shit and every time SLSB went on and on how little money we'll be making, I didn't want to waste another day away from my lover. We work SO much, for SUCH a long time, never able to have rest, never able to see our families other than through fucked up wifi, and then they insult us always, mistreat us always and in the end even the money is bad. This is a weird world to be in. Every time you do something pleasant  someone is there to reprimand you, or interrupt you or find a way to ruin it for you, so you start feeling embarassed for being happy..

I didn't want this anymore. But I sent him some texts and he sent me some texts and I had some coffee and a cookie and the sun came out over the pompous fjord... I studied my itinerary for autumn. I think I know when I'll abandon this peculiar fruitcake of a vessel. It just isn't going to be today. In fact Hermes doesn't want me to leave, he's being very good to me: the sea today was the most beautiful I've ever seen. It was like a romantic painting: the waves were high and many, small and tempestrous, and when such a small feisty wave crests, you catch a glimps of blazing emerals rim through the foamy crown, while the hot wind blows off it the salty mist, same as the wind dances sand on the edges of dunes in the Sahara or snow atop of the dangerous jewel mountains.

So I shake it off and stay another little while longer. 

But here's another bad poem, just to make sure you understand how close I got:

(And I promise to stop using the words 'sea','ocean','deep','dark','lonelyness' and 'gray' from now on entirely.)

This loneliness can not be described by human words or measure

It may hardly be described by a dark, cold and endless sky

Though I hide myself into a palm in which I can hear the sea

And ropes and sails of a small boat,

I cannot breathe for how much I miss my house and the green around it.

The voice of my father. The smell of my street. The skin of my lover.

The lenght of my stride however I see it fit. 

Sitno >>171<<

Spoke to my baby for almost two hours, falling in and out of the wifi connection in this tiny shed which is also the only thing in the dock, besides a hotel and a kayaking deck, sorrounded by massive steep stone fjord walls and a LOT and I mean A LOT of clouds :D It was good gangway today, even though it rained :D As per instructed in the beginning of this, he told me to stay out my contract like a professional. I told him I will like it here less after DOo leaves. Which will happen in four days. I admited I burnt through the other half of my second Veto card hugging and kissing DOo's cheek good-bye today. The General said: if it was just a kiss on the cheek and a hug, it wouldn't be worth the Veto card. He mentioned that if I don't behave, he will scatter my ashes all across the Velebit. :D

Fuck, how he cheers me up. But after I zip up the iPad and get from the chair, here I am, returning to the boat again, and having to deal with my own issues. Not my strongest suit, right? 

So ye, DOo is leaving in four days. I've been here for 71. Long fucking time, actually, considering. It doesn't seem like I'll ever manage to print the photo of him I wanted, and the frame I wanted to buy SLSB won't sell me. It'll have to wait until I get home some day. I kissed him goodbye today. I wanted to when I had the chance, because I likely won't have the chance in the coming days, knowing this damn boat. The man has a phone AND a pager AND a walkie, so imagine how often it lasts five seconds before he has to answer one of them. I went to the cabin at his nap time, aware that was the likeliest time nobody will be calling him to solve anything. He hates it, but I like that hour and it won't happen again anyway :) Maybe once or twice, max :P

I kissed his hand and his face and his chest, because those were the things about him that I appretiated the most - the hands and the wit and the humor. I didn't really kiss him with my lips as much as I used my own cheeks, eyelashes and my own hands. It wasn't dirty or weird, or anything like a wife kissing a man. It was the way I kiss people. 

Like the story characters that they are.

I told him that I am aware, oh, many ladies like the Chief, if most for the money, some for the charm and one for the calmness he is in this odd hysterical stage I am stuck on ... That if I'd met him ten years ago, when my soul was still dark, he would have been in more trouble. All those other dumb bitches wouldn't stand a chance. I wouldn't share him with anyone. 

Not even the sea. 

He chuckled, muttering, I wouldn't be able to keep him from the sea. 

I muttered I didn't say I would keep him from the sea.

In the end, when we hugged, I laughed, saying he hugs me as if I was a child. He laughed I AM a child.

...I liked that. I liked that he somehow always knew preserving my innocence and my joy for life was important, even if he didn't know the word for it. Ships swallow many good people, turning them into old, miserable shells of men. I appretiate he protected me, even if he won't admit he made an effort. He was a really cool lost soul to know. And made ME a better seafarer. Like a lady pax said the other days: No, I could see there is more to you than meets the eye..

Well, yes, madam. Looks like I am the one who will bitchslap Callipso the next time I see her. 

7.3 Spanish cruise, part 3

Sitno >>178<<

Griefing Gods, how much my feet ached last night, and how hot I was in the awful synthetic uniform jacket .. But there were many paying people and I worked from 4 to nigh 11 in the eve, albeit with a neat half hour diner and later 20 minute coffee break, which felt like a pie slice of bliss, sitting outside, watching sleeping freighters... i never had a legit coffee break before. I suppose looking like I'm about to pass out from overheating hit a pragmatic chord with my manager, who figured giving me a break is better than having to stand in the poorly aired hallway alone for the rest of the evening... Also one of the passangers offered to hold the deck door open for me, so that a cold wind could blow in and I could be fanned by it, which was a pretty decent thing of her to do :D

During the busy hours someone tapped me on the shoulders (happens often enough for me to know never to look over the TAPPED shoulder), but there is no-one on the left, no-one on the right, only far down the blonde crew cut and beneath it DOo grinning silly. The other day he tried to craw pass me beneath the counter. Fucking adorable old idiot :D

I tell him, gesturing at the shop behind him: "Get the fuck off the floor, you idiot. There is a ghost in the shop. An old lady, confused, stuck. She can't remember what she came to buy before she felt poorly and had to sit down in the cafe."

"What are you talking about?" (He speaks with a heavy Finnish accent, sort of stacking words one on top of the other.)

"And you had a Code Bravo! What the fuck are you doing to this ship?"

"What are you talking about, there was no Code Bravo. An old lady was Code Alpha."

"Yes, I know what Alpha means."

"What it means?"

"That someone is going to die."

"No, that's not what it means."

"If there's Code Alpha and no helicopter, someone is going to die."

"Oh, you. You really are one step forward, two steps backwards every day..."

The 12ths are my days of hormonal imbalance and everything that happens makes me feel worse. Even excellent food. (Or my strict diet of ice-cream and coke.) We had Spanish food buffet for diner, complete with pancakes with foamy ground almonds, cinnamon and cream. I asked to go to a 8 1/2 hr trip to the fucking Alhambra palace, but because there is drill, instead I have to stand in the hallway for 15 minutes, hugging my life jacket, waiting for life to go by. Cannot be excused. Neup. Not sure who fucked me over that one. If it was the new Safety Officer or not. He seemed a little nervous when I cornered him, saying that because some international inspection, no-body was allowed to go ashore during drill.. Except of course my roomie, because reasons. If it was SLSB who ruined it for me, it just means he must have noticed my Instagram by now... Though at least they are awere of out existance and all photies are on AwaitOrdersTeam, so that when we CAN be excused, there are no reasons not to. Or so I'm lectured. Except when Alhambra.

Wrote the bad poem, to wash away the bile and the ghosts:

I will give you five baskets.

Heavy, large, wicker things.

One's how much you will be laughing.

The other is a vessel for your tears.

One is sleep, or thoughtless abandon.

One is everything you will ever do wrong.

The last one is all you will ever do right.

Hearts are hungry, fickle things.

They bleed, they break, they stop (with no warning.)

And my five baskets are heavy.

Eve

Managed to find the one McDonald's in existance without wi-fi. The Gods of home made ice-cream have finally caught up with me. But the truth is, I needed to find a cool place to hide and have a cold drink and some warm water... As fascinating and pretty as Malaga is, I am not aclimatised to the extreme heat and am getting dizzy. A bunch of the hairs on my left forearm keep getting erected, like I'm cold. I remember that shit from Sahara. I'll get used to it. If I knew I can spend the rest of the day chillaxing, I would be okay. But I need to stand in a stuffy hot gallery in the afternoon, dressed in an awfully uncomfortable outfit.

Also:

Aaaah, so THAT's why I was bloated like a seal and wanted to kill somebody yestereve... My other ovary decided to join the party and I am now, after two weeks of leaking, bleeding like a struck pig. Well, at least I have good reasons for crying and whining. Always good to know.

Bought myself some cheap sunglasses and last season's Mango shorts. Really short shorts, too. Thin, pretty, very pretty, very short. Makes me conscious of the parts I am not often shaving, wondering it anyone will notice by the time I get to my cabin :D 'Course it's more probable everyone will just notice my tomato red sweating face. Was also oggling fedoras, but am not thin enough to wear one yet, though my face is getting narrower. I'll get myself one when I am size 12.

I'll write about Malaga in another post... Maybe an Instagram post. Or both. 

They are doing this sinister thing to the wi-fi - you will no longer NEED to buy a code card, you'll just log in and it will be charged to your room... Which is a fairly awful thing to do, especially the crew. Not only because some people forget to log out, but also because if you know you have five hours, you ration that time to speak to your family five times... But people are addicted to their families, I should know, and will think, during conversations, in their head: just one more minute, just one more minute, just one more minute ... No more rationing there, either. And next thing you know a third of your paycheck goes back to the fucking boat. 

I'm not saying that wouldn't make sense if this was good wi-fi, but it's shit. Half the time it doesn't work and when it does work, it takes twenty minutes to load one photo onto Facebook. I talked about it to Tom the Host earlier. I said:

"Crappy fucking wi-fi; I've managed to have ONE Skype sex in the entirety of two months since I've been here."

"I have no idea how you managed to get that through, I have trouble loading porn .GIFs."

...

Sitno >>177<<

"Get the fuck out of my sun or give me some sun block, you fucking Red dragon wanna-be."

:D

(One of my shoppie mates, affectionally, after seeing my tattod back on the beach.)

Looked through some of our future itineraries... Few new ports, but mostly old, familliar ones. Mixed feelings about that. While I am insatiable, regarding this world (Gimme more, gimme more of it!), I do have a list of towns I wanna dive in more and mayhap this will give me the opportunity to cross them off that list... Three days of Hamburg, with food and sleeping paid for, in abundance?? :D MiniatureWonderland here I come!

Not a bad day behind us, a seaday. Did burn through my entire supply of tampons and napkins, simultaneously, as am leaking ridiculously, but will survive. Tomorrow it's Vigo (Portugal, not Mortensen.), then two more sea days. Two more bazaars, which I like. Not sure how much I will like it while crossing Bay of Biscay, but we'll cross that vomit fest when we come to it. The shifts were nicely distributed, so it wasn't painful, even though the ship is rocking, on an otherwise not too moody seas. SLSB held an almost friendly, cheerful meeting, during which he read us the latest complaints we had to the management. There was a particular one regarding me by name, which it took me a while to understand WhiskeyFoxtrotTango. Someone complained I told them to remove their clothing and that when they asked me to take their photo I refused.

Blink.

Fucking blink.

...

... Had to really think about that one. Then I remembered. Yesterday, in the hallway, on the day that there was 46'C in the Malaga port, a man came by, wearing a woolly sweater and I asked them if they are not hot. They said that what will they take off if it gets any hotter? 

Okay, it was a random conversation, I didn't think anything of it. But, hey, you know, I always forget, some guests come onto this ship only and EXCLUSIVELY to complain, because this way they get free stuff for it. Even the guy who shat all over the ship, so they had to spend hours on end scrubbing and sanitizing, will get monatery compensation for being quarantened. As a karma payback, he will not be able to board the complimentary bus home. 

I had a passenger today who insisted I should offer him a deal for the three photos he is buying. When I explained I am only an employee and have no bargaining leeway, he moved onto SLSB and tried an ever more aggresive aproach, ultimately abandoning the photos, upset we would not cut their cost. What insulted him the most, I think, was the fact that behaving badly towards us would bully us into yielding. We didn't even blink. It was actually kind of silly. This shit happens every day, more so towards the end.

K, so one was an attempt at a missunderstanding, it happens. I'm used to it by now. The second one was a complete lie. Nobody ever asked me to take a photo of them while passing Gibraltar, because a) why would I ever refuse just taking someone's tiny camera and pressing a button? and b) it was pitch black while we did it. What someone once DID ask me was if I take photos of the sunset, and I said that no, those are only for me. 

... The coleagues telling me I spend too much time talking to the passangers, that I am too friendly and some are not right in the head?... I am starting to believe them. Slowly, bur surely. I used to think, but, wait, some people are creepy, sure, but at least some are super sweet? "No. Fuck them. Speak to nobody about anything. Even if they seem to be the loneliest fucks in creation, in desperate need for anyone to notice them, fuck them. Any form of niceness will only come back to bite you in the ass. Speak to NO ONE about anything, not even the weather."

Yup. Am starting to believe that. As the super hottie Vigo Mortensen would say: Seek life ELSEwhere. 

BUT!..

I SAW A WHALE! I was so excited once it finally happened I found the first person I could, which happened to be our dear cocksure Dubrovnik-born captain (no. Just no.) talking to the pretty blonde excursions girl, and told them. I saw a whale! It was not like in the movies, it was just a cow-sized slick gray something that spurred water out of their dorsal nasal thingie... But I never saw one before and it was kinda surreal. Whoa, dude! A whale!

Got to appretiate the fact that we live here and now and can see a whale and not have the need to kill it. (Though I never understood why a whale doesn't just swim down when being hunted. We have something like a 100 meters under the keel. Just swim the fuck down, not AWAY, moron.) If DOo and I lived and worked on a boat a 100 years ago, he would have to be a navy mariner or a whale hunter or fisherman and I would have to be a pirate. We would have to hurt things. Even as a charter and an explorer, I would destroy things.

On that note, DOo update, as he is my favorite human on this tin can, the second funnest part of the day was talking to him in the gallery, asking him about 'so who is this woman you think of when you look at me? Because you are looking at me like I'm this complicated toy, this.. may be fun to play with for a bit, but too many moving parts to really have patience with, too heavy to carry around..?'

... And he just began to say I'm being spooky and tell me about his girlfriend, when one of the passing girl employees said: "Happy birthday! Was it a nice surprise last night?"

After five minutes of calling him bad names for being a complete dick for not telling me - I asked him like a dozen times! -  he said no, this is much more fun!

Fuck you, I could have given you that photo for a present. Asshole. 

After lunch I offed to his cabin when I knew it was his nap time. He sleeps too much anyway. What adult human sleeps for seven hours? Seriously. Thus we spent another hour, me sitting on the floor as usual, him on the bed, talking about ugly divorces, kids, a guitar he would like to buy, and Malaga they way I saw it, and men on this ship that hide their true nature very badly. (And would cheat on their wives never ever EVER, except, you know, if there was an opportunity...) 

We hugged (people hug A LOT around here, this would be like my sixth hug since I got here and I am NOT a huggy person. Granted, I do really miss being held by G. every single breathing moment, but that's different. Nobody has skin like him. Nothing would substitute his arms.) and I felt weird how small he actually is, I could feel his ribs and cross my arms around him. All of it oddly unsexual, just kinda sad, because he'll be gone soon, and probably for good. I think he is begining to see that going back to the Real World while your heart is actually locked to an ocean is not all it's cracked up to be. 

I should know - I have the exact opposite problem. 

Sitno >>176<<

We're almost in a proper sea storm. Not a very dramatic one, but a sea storm nonetheless. Been going up and down for more than a day now, which you feel no matter how many seasickness pills you take, and we're only a couple of hours away from docking. Gangway is going to be fuuuuun :D

Couldn't sleep because ladies' business gore gallore and am freaking out a little by how much one person can bleed before it becomes an issue?.. 

The TV in officer's mess is often on, showing BBC news, which mostly just generates angst. I know I defend the horrors of my species by saying for every Bach there must be a Goebels, for every Malala Erzbeth Bartnoly or whatever that dumb bitch's name was, for every Gandhi that Waterloo freak, what's his name, Napoleon, and so on, but still. I know that if you mess too many colors in together, one will ruin everything from a rainbow into a gray sludge. We do some pretty awful things to one another every day. Which make everybody else just a little bit darker. Every time a passanger treats me like shit, I move further and further away from the concept of them. Every 'in need' mass I've ever met were the wrong kind of people to help. Africans, Indians, Nepali, the economic migrants who came across my own country and left a shitstorm behind, quite literally. None of those NEEDED my help. None of those thought I was being a good person. They all WANTED something from me, because they believed I was a bad person, a person undeserving of the shoes I wear and my 15 euro watch. 

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood because my tummy aches so badly, despite medicine. Or maybe it pisses me off that for three days BBC's been showing footage of people dying and crying during some mass shooting in a night club in Orlando, screaming 'how did this happen?!' ... Well, probably because a mental patient walked into a gun store, purchased two gym bags of ammo, walked to a night club, used it and now the gun manufacturers will loby for every night club bouncer to be armed with at least two hand guns and religious fundamentalists will loby for all gay clubs to close, for their own safety - all the while in the rest of the world some other, more significant horrors, but also more significant triumphs of humanity were taking place, which did not inspire as many TV viewers. 

Eve

Attempted to go out, but gangway was two hours of pouring rain or furious wind or blazing sun or all of the above at the same time. Not a rollcount to speak of, but at least it wasn't worse. I didn't go to Vigo at all, I just sort of swept through the shopping mall in the port, to get some better headphones (did miss that bass) and another bracelet, and try to catch a wifi. Some of the letters sent home already arrived and caused some joy, others are still in the transit. Went back, without really buying a postcard, since I wasn't really ever in Vigo.. Ran into two men in the hallway at the same time and managed to insult one by choosing to chat with the other. As if it was a choice. 

"Who's he?" asked DOo smuggly. 

"No one."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. You're the only one I'm not sleeping with."

That came out a little wrong. 

What I was trying to say, is that of all the people on the ship I am not having any relations with, he is the one I am having least NOT relations with... LOL. There is just no way to explain this. Bottom line, I am entirely faithful and pure to the Reality of my origin. There is just the ongoing joke between DOo and I about the almosts.

"So you almost-captain, you almost made the same mistake you did the first time. You almost cheated on your almost-girlfriend with your almost-mistress..."

The almosts are the joke. 

... That didn't sound right either. Fuck it.

An off day today and an Asian buffet today for diner... That is a benevolent combo. If you don't take into consideration 50 knots per hour wind speed gusts and the enclosing Bay of Biskay. 

Had my three chocolates of choice and another rice pudding with sweet plum for late nite dessert, and some nice coffee, then headed to the gym to spend and hour and a half walking really fast, uphill. It would have been an even harder workout if I didn't hold onto the handles of the conveyer the whole while, and instead carried the weights as I usually do, but believe me. If you were on a ship that ploughs through THOSE kind of waves, you'd have held onto stuff, too. Funny feeling, though, the massive waves - at times you're almost levitating and in another ten seconds you're in a G4 force ascend, heavy as a dry fish. 

Sitno >>175<<

So far the Brooklyn approach to Biscay has been working out best so far: strong pills against seasickness, and many, some painkillers for the tummy ache and no food and very little water at all. I haven't eaten in 24 hrs and I have not been even a little sick, despite the fact the ship is jumping like there's no tomorrow. 

The one semi bad news is that because of Code Yellow, a treshold of an epidemic, we cannot have the bazaars and without those the chances for meeting target look very bad indeed. Perhaps this time for the first time we actually won't come up so very good. Ah, well. I only need 280 bucks to meet my quota :) We'll see. Kinda wanna buy G an anneversary prezzie. And mayhap myself some summer shoes. I keep staring at people's feet to see what nice things they wear. 

Eve

Discovered Britvic Indian Tonic Water in these tiny 150ml cans, of which I bought a whole case at SlopChest (for the price of two normal Coke Cans). It's really nice bitter tonic, good for the tummy. I ate a large spoon of rice and a small slice of cheese cake and drank some more water. Still persevering the sickness. Not sure when I should take the next pill.. Better safe than sorry? But I don't wanna run out. Fuck it, !'ll just take all of 'em and crawl down to the Medical center for more later.

We set down the studios unusually early, because there is no way we're going to make target anyway, unable to set up the tables for people to purchase magnets and postcards and albums and the like ... I think I'll just go to bed. I've slept through most of the hours which I haven't been working. It helps. For once I am not the one with the green face, stumbling from column to column, looking like death's bitch. 

Sitno >>174<<

"We only shoot tables and couples tonight, yes?"

"No, what couples? It's the third formal, what is the matter with you. Only tables and couples!"

... "Er..."

SLSB is so angry we are not gonna make the money because of the gastro prevention rules, he undid the studios halfway through the formals last night and just sent us to our rooms. He managed to negotiate one table for today's sale, but that got closed down after an hour also, because Code Red. I suggested we just display one of each postcards for the people, which was not agreed upon. He later displayed one of each in the display cabinet, because he is very clever. Not that it changed anything. People don't buy the things they cannot touch.

A pair of passengers lent me a book about Britain's origins for a few hours; I am reading that now, waiting for my shift to start and for my clothes to tumble dry :)

Eve

Broke my no-food rule again, with an excuse it's comfort food and I deserve it, though in truth I didn't need it. Didn't need any comfort.  These are the good days. I just love the company, and the food tastes great. The hosts and the band are either high or drunk or just being themselves, glad to get another hour of sleep when we switch to London time. We're laughing at smut jokes so hard I'm choking on my nuggetz. We also must have done something right in our lives, to be able to just eat as many nuggetz as we can - it's an open buffet of everything you can eat and this shit is delicious. Same stuff as you get in McDonald's IN BUCKETTS.

All kinds of grim predictions for tomorrow... That we'll be manning toilets for most of the cruise, that we're embarking from a hellhole tent in the middle of a quay construction, that we'll be forced to make package deals regardless of how uneffective they are... But all of that sounds kind of fun so far, I can see no difference standing in the gallery for four hours or standing outside of a restroom for three, and so ridiculously normal, that suddenly to be called a Braemarian just means, in the mariner vernacular, you're from "one of those ships" :D 'Is this normal?!' Ye. It kinda eez.

At home my love could have gone to a hot concert up in the castle ruins theater, but had to work and is not the kind of a guy to get some time off and then spend the night partying. I know, because up until two months ago, I was not the type of a person to be out after eleven, not even if it was a really long movie. Homesickness continues to tear apart my heart strings, the way bathing my dog is described, (more accurately, the dog's precious few fleas), the way choosing the BD gift for my sister is asked for.. I miss my father,s voice, the smell of my house, the flowers in my mother,s garden and the problems pf my friends. I miss my Internet; down in the crew mess some goth jump scares horror tragedy with Daniel Radcliffe is playing and I have no idea what it is about or any means of finding out and I hate not having a broom to clean my headspace before I go to bed, such as the Internet was back home... The way the passengers talk about their relationships, current or gone. The heart is somewhere really really really fucking far away. The heart is fucked. 

A woman who spoke to me abut philosophy and poetry told her husband that I am very bright (that is a very nice word. To be BRIGHT.) and they will be looking out for my name in the future. I kind of feel obliged to live up to their expectations with Goose as a new form of literature, not bound by any style, not bound by any genre, not bound by any existing norm... And no death or disease or tragedy will stop me, I pray, because if they don't, my own limitations certainly shouldn't.

The heart is fucked. It is not getting any less fucked, it is not getting any closer to home, because the longer I am so far away from my house, the less I am myself, and who knows into what the oceans will change me. The heart is fucked. 

But the head is laughing to tears, the tummy is happy on nuggetz, the legs are strong, the wrists have cute bracelets and somewhere down there a massive machine is pushing the tin on, a band is playing good stuff and Bad Romance, an army of housekeepers are handing three thousand colorful suitcases through corridors and in a lonely cabin on the other end of a ship a small blonde old peacock is sleeping, alone and cheerful, like me. Funny thing - all the best things in his life happened to him because of women, and all the worst things that happened to him were because of women. For me, the same applies to travelling. It is a strange addiction to have. If he were mine, none of those bitches would stand a chance; I wouldn't share him with anyone.. Not even the sea..

So how do I make sure that the man who IS mine, whose voice holds my entire existance in proper shape, is never ever tempted to the oceans and that I am of all the bitches the one who steals all the kisses from his lips, be it the daylight, night time or dreams borne? Is it stagnation or trust that which I should rest my foundation upon?..

7.2 Spanish cruise, pt 2

Sitno >>181<<

Could not be a better day. After shooting too many gangway shots of individuals running/pushing pass me, I decided to use the perfect sun and a nice old church ruins backdrop to shoot only couples who stopped and posed. Thus I only got 80 or so good, but they were good. 

Then we met for the beach date and a dozen of us offed to the most beautiful silt beach I have ever seen. Google it: Portimao, in Portugal... And there we sunbathed, swam, sunbathed some more, the shoppies, the hosts, the band guys, the dancers who joined us, some of us topless a bit, I went into the water alone and just walked around, playing with the waves, enjoying wearing only my shorts, free as a jellyfish. All heart, no bones. My shoppie shipmate didn't know how to swim; we tried to teach her, but there's always trust to get over first, and fear. I think she is starting to like the Irish host, who then just piggyback-carried her around the waves. 

I can't understand why anyone would ever die in an ocean. The ocean should be a place where nobody could ever die, drown or sink or be eaten. But as long as we continue to kill sea creatures, the ocean will continue to kill us. Fair enough. 

I had to go back sooner, to get to work, hoping I didn't get sunburnt too badly (only a bit of my neck and hair split, ironically). Some of the english refuse to understand what the big deal is about the sun and wake up the next morning pink as pigs. I grabbed a KinderSuprice chocolate egg and a cup of strawberry cheesecake ice-cream for lunch and hurried to shower the salt and sand off me. Portimao is an extraordinarily beautiful resort, tourist city with perfect silt beaches and posh houses, clean water and new hotels, cute and not too busy, at least not now. Excellent sailaway, also.

I spoke to pumpkin later in the eve, after having eaten a good salad and some sugar-free vanilla rice pudding and some popcorn later still... Edited some Instagram pickies, thinking about my life...

I spoke to Drej, typed via Skype, and thought this centrifuge existance on these boats, this is like stepping onto some wild, rogue merry-go-round, where faces and buildings blur together, port towns as different as can be, and you need to step off again to get back to a focused sense of reality, on land, where all towns are made the same, not in command of the crescent bays. I can no longer comprehend the pace of which we go to cities and who the new people are and who's left us already ... You know how sometimes you wake up from a dream, thinking: whoa, best dream ever!... But when you try to write it down, it sounds kind of senseless and stupid?

I wanted to return to the basics so bad today, I not only left the camera (it will resent me, but it was a) hot and b) freaking sandy), but also the rest of my shiny surfaces. Not even my bag. Just a towel, sunblock and a derelict old umbrella for sorta shade. And flippy floppies. DOo paid for talking to me about kissing by getting a toothache and had to go to the dentist. We get to Seville tomorrow, and with a little luck I will get to see flamenco dancers, find a post office and get lost again in a Spanish city...

"Where the fuck are you guys going - why don't we just go to the beach over there?!"

"There is a river in between, moron, how do you think we got here?!"

:D

++3

Sitno >>180<<

My lips taste like sangria ... Ye, my lips taste like sangria ... Nnnnn ...

Okay, so I totally burned through one and a half of my two veto cards for the year. Or maybe both, but I wanna wait till the end of the year to see what happens, to be sure.

First, entirely uneventful morning, we slide through some incredible landscape, the Guada... Something River fields resort. Dunno what they grow there, but it looked fucking awesome. I instantly put it on the list of places I want to hike. 

We docked in Seville, I grabbed lunch and my bag and Tom, host, and I offed to take some pickies of him, as he asked for headshots. We started in a park, but there were mosquitos, so we moved to a maaaaassive palace, super picturesque and if that wasn't cool enough, there was a street performer doing the whole Spanish guitar act thorough our stay there. It got up to 36'C. We offed for a drink and Tom asked if I wanna have sangria and I argued for a little while. But it was said to me that if in Seville, you've gotta do that one. So, on the table comes over a litre of red vine with ice and fruit in it. Which, gotsta say, tasted freaking great. I drank about a third before every host, shoppie and band mate I usually hang around and certainly told I never ever drink came by. There goes that bit of my reputation. And to hammer another nail in my rep's coffin, when I went to watch the flamenco performance, I drank the complimentary sangria, too :D The guys are going out at midnight, which is an option, but I think I'll head out to shoot nightscape and walk a bit, then go to sleep and go out in the morning to try and see some of the city through a lens properly..

Best part of the day was DOo, again. Fuck I'll miss him when he leaves. Two more weeks, I think. I was having coffee in the mess, dinner time just started. The Croatian shipmate, who is all testosterone and no romance and would forget his marriage vows and mine in a blink of an eye if I flirted with him for just a second. (Balkans are like that - they take insults and flirtation VERY SERIOUSLY.) Is why I avoid him politely and never take on his invitation to go out at night. Unlike DOo, who will talk sex with me all the time if we get the opportunity, some of the other shipmates are not to be invited anywhere near that conversation, trust me... 

Anyhoo. More people came in to eat, officers, hosts,.. A cute host girl joined me and we talked about the bridge and how if I was on her evacuation team, I would finally be able to see the damn thing. I whined so loudly that I haven't had the chance to see the bridge that all present were amused, the whole mess. When he was done, sitting with his back to me a few tables away, DOo stood up, wiped his mouth with a napkin, took his plate to clear the table and announced: "Mrs. Garlick, would you love to see the bridge?"

FUCK YES.

The host girl mouthed: garlick? I said: It's 'cause my name is Arlich - very nice man, chief, but he can't spell too well.

So, excited out of my silly little mind ( =drunk), I hopped behind him whle we made our way through the ship (crew passages, as I was in my civilian clothing and was not allowed in the hotel deck), and then there was the bridge. Loooots of buttons and levers, man. I asked a hundred questions for DOo to interpret the details for me, and most of his explanations concluded with: No, you can't press that. Don't push that. Let go of that lever. Stop turning that button. Stop that. Put your hands in your pockets. 

His two bridge-mates, a deck cadet and some semi senior guy, who were there with us (imagine a cockpit in the middle of a very wast and fairly comfortable living room on top of a skyscraper in the middle of a river.) were ordered to tell him what is the most important thing to coordinate yourself on a bridge is and I, kneeling, while getting my camera from the bag, mocked him: It's a trick question, guys; he's probably referring to the coffee machine or something...

...

"A fucking photographer knows this and you don't," he nodded at his dissappointing students and then I finally managed to get a photo of him. Which someone suggested I should print and give to him, as it is a good shot. I think so, too, but I know some people hate their own shots, so ... Nah, fuck it, I'll just do that, he can toss overboard it if he likes later on. 

I grabbed a coconut cookie from their buffet, which nearly choked me, and grinned that I am so humbled by this place my hands are shaking. (Also drunk.) He told me I really shouldn't tell him things like that, that I am drunk, that I steal books, because he should report me. I imagine bringing a drunk civilian with a big camera to the bridge is not exactly by the book, either, eh, papi?

So the sweet hour went. I walked around, touched things, photographed things, sat down on things or opened things, looked under things and moved things about. When security officers came and saw my bag they frowned a bit, but when they saw it was me, they all understood and smiled: I must seem like such an amusing, comfortable presence on this ship, the crazy redhaired photographer that calls the chief officer cupcake and the kitchen boys 'sir'...

He showed me all the stations, the radio protocols, the ship's logs, the old maps that are now mostly exhibited for passenger's, but he interpreted the symbols on them for me, and numbers regarding depth under the keel (two fucking meters, no wonder we drove to this dock at glacier pace. A rogue bicycle tossed to the water bed and we'd have a whole new log entry..), other vessels' presence, proximity and types, itc... Awesome, nerdy stuff. :D

Ran down to the busses to go to the flamenco show, but in truth, regardless of the fabulous dancers, my brain was stuck on the bridge balcony, listening to pilot protocols and double hull maintenance and remote fire screen door commands and watertight doors ...

"Also known as instant death," I muttered.

"It takes something like ten seconds for them to close, no?" said the semi-senior officer.

"Yes, because nobody has ever been damaged by a watertight door." Don't try to be smarter than me today, little bro, today I am walking on muddy sangria smelling river water. 

Sitno >>179<<

Good half of the day, but I guess a 37'C Seville will achieve that. I ate a chicken sandwich for breakfast and a piece of orange pie for lunch, bought myself a spotty numberless wristwatch in H&M and a bucketload of postcards, as they were the cheapest I've found so far, 35.- 

Walked around, my hair greasy in parts from the sun lotion (always apply sun block to the split of your hair, unless you own a fedora, then it's okay) and dry and brittle like straw from ship water everywhere else... 

The beauty of Seville cannot be described or photographed; it can only be experienced, and you have to do it in heat, on a weekend, at night if can be. They wash the streets with some lime smelling, minty detergent and mixed with the smell of jasmin and akacia or some Venezuelian violet variety there of. Wrote my postcards in a shadow of a cathedral and flamenco posters, eating nothing but ice-cream again. 

I like myself the way I am today, this unruly, wild thing, too sexy to be ugly and too forgetful to be beautiful, with messy long red hair, blushed sunburnt face with small golden and emerald eyes and large idiotic teeth, this creature with huge breasts and tiny hands holding a hot black glass-full camera, this odd mixure of enthusiasm and darkness, of wunderlust and homesickness, postcards and digitless wristwatch, cheap Pandora knock-off with marine life pendants on it, neon orange headphones and ancient beige capri pants, of improper thoughts and pictures of baby ducks in a royal pond, this wisp of lust and poetry, or wanting to kiss and wanting to steal... Like a sweating caged animal who, if released from the iron, would just explode with everything thought and felt. 

++3

Eve

... and then someone went and fucking died during formal diner. :(((( Now we have a ghost on a ship. Un fucking believable O.o

7.1, the Spanish cruise, pt. 1

Sitno >>185<< still.

Was a pretty pretty day, actually. Gonna rate it a full +3. Went fast, the chat with land manager was not at all a stab in the stomach which is how talking to superiors feels on this ship; some new people came and some old ones returned, had a few cool conversations. SLSB was so happy we made 11.000 gold coins in two weeks, out of which I get 600 bucks (750 euro, which is not bad for working 77 hrs per week while people snap at ye - could be much worse is all I'm saying. We made 170 on the cruise before.) last cruise he kept trying to make conversation or happy little random remarks ( 0.o .. blink, blink, okaaaaay... *carefully puts ear to the camera to hear if it's ticking*...), and although I've been eating too much, it is good food. Chatted several times today with my lover, if through a shitty connection. Got a few more books from the library and almost managed to get the grip on the first chapter of Dread. What do I want the structure to be? Dunno ... What do I want the structure to be, come on, think!... Still dunno... 

I suspect Goose won't let me fuck around with Dread until it's papered proper. Bad Goose. Play nice. 

Heading southwards, via western Spain. Applied for several of the excursions, been denied Santiago De Compostela instantly, though I suppose the saints want me to walk to that one, be it over a city or over a continent some day. If I arrived home in a time like this, early summer, I'd drag G out to walk that route with me the same day. 

So far the sea is perfectly flat. Took a pill JUST in case.  DOo promised he will let me drive the ship for one hour ("In a storm? through the Bay if Biscay?!" :D) if I get him some mythical something, some box key or something. Dunno what it is, probably something along the lines of possibility as a blowjob from a mermaid. Shouldn't be a problem, really, then.. 

While I sat down for my second or third lunch (my size 14 shirt getting a little tighter, but I want to eat normally until the off day and then start the salad diet again.), a man I saw cross himself before a meal and wink at me, made a remark about the Slovenian girl sitting away from others again. He asked if he can sit with me and once sat, instantly asked if I'm sleeping with anyone yet ... (Looks like he met me when I first arrived, but there is no way I will remember things from the first few weeks upon embarking.) 

Yes, I get it. I have very large breasts. Which you don't easily forget. I get it.

After I mentioned I've been happily married for nine years and that he seems to be married as well, he instantly switched the record and started telling me how his wife has the best job in the world: she looks after their house, raises their children, makes sure he is welcomed when he returns... You've gotta love the good old Balkan primitivism. The woman belongs behind a stove. 

I actually approve of men like that thinking there is something wrong with me if I choose to be the adventurer of the family - that surely I am here for the money or the dicks or the stubborness against my father or something, something to prove. Some grand ambition. Surely I can still study something and try to get some job, some position ... Surely I want to be a manager of some sorts ... Good. Let them. If that is the mindset they're in, let them.

In the evening, which passed nicely and almost without incident, SLSB gave us the mandatory condescending/threatening speech about lying on the counter, looking bored, working when we're there or we will be both put on the long shifts, and so on... I kinda wanted to mention I haven't sat down on that chair or been behind the counter for fifty days, but then I remembered it way my roomie who won the employee of the month award and that SLSB was speaking to two women, both taller than he is, and twice as heavy: one busty and one tall and hot. 

Imagine this was taking place in a kindergarden and a little boy was for five minutes put in charge of two taller, half year older little girls. 

The one thing I did hear him mention and I found curious, though, was that if you're in a team that continues making target, the next time you ask for any ship, you'll get it. So far we've made all of them. Harmony of the Seas, here I come! Unless they make a bigger one in the meanwhile. We'll see what happens when the new manager arrives. By now I care none if they are awful people, just know what you're doing when it comes to profit and we'll all stab each-other's voodoo dolls a little gentlier. 

The shops have their new manager as well, and a new shoppie - the most stereotypical pair of gay men you can imagine - one small, bleached blond greasy hair, big lower jaw, thin moustage, zits, not too bright; the other a skanky LatinoLover. But the dining room has waffes, so that is nice, too.

Was thinking I will eat like a human much until Wednesday, a reverse off day, but all this chocolate is making me sick and the food doesn't taste as good it you're overeating. I can see now what they meant when they said after a year all the food tastes the same. Be back on rabbit food soon, then any scone tastes like a weddng cake. Had a weird dream on the subject of forcing yourself into stuff that's supposed to be spontaneous and cool... I'll stop using the 85 code, as I have it written on my wrist for now, which was my weight when I started this, and will just write down F, for Fedora. It was in the dream, I'll explain later. There were also some old witches that killed an entire wedding party of three little muslim sisters, whom some guy bought for his wives. And they were monsters and ghosts, but only as long as they still sat at the wedding table; if they were tricked into standing up, they could be defeated... 

Like I said. Weird dream. But a good short story, if you're into red weddings.

Our phone bill is STILL 150 bucks, for fuck's sakes, but okay, some of that may be from last month's over-use, I hope, I pray, I roar. I should just toss the fucking thing overboard. The General said I should buy one of the fairly cheap latest Samsungs they sell for crew. Why?? What the fuck do I want with a posh new phone? Give me a used lens and camera sale any time, though. Guernsey isle, was it, the Seascape guy said? Just another reason to really wanna go to Guernsey.

Am thinking I should try to save some of the money I make...? 

Eve

First formal, was okay. Not too stressfull, only one dickish customer, douche literally used hs hand to flick me away. Was tired, so I didn't sit down for half an hour and explain our Seascape program. One of the crew members, though I think he looks kinda cool, was so scared of taking a photo, he fussed to no end and will unlikely choose any. He has a birthmark on the inner side of his nose and eye, which I personally always find attractive, same as I do people with a tooth missing, but I seem to be in a minority. Everybody wants to look like Poe Dameron or something. Yes, he is very beautiful and very awesome. Not the only way to look good, though. There are also the likes of Ragnar, Seph and my 'holy shit, is that your husband?!' husband.

Now, whenever some woman tells me to airbrush out her wrinkles, I just say, coldly: "Why? Does having more wrinkles make you look more stupid?" 

The most exciting part of yesterday, adding also to SLSB's fourth redeeming quality*, was the installment of the new carpet floor, which then somebody managed to ... Have an accident all over. Two decks had to be sanitized: white powder poured over everything - and this person must have tried to run around the entire ship looking for a bathroom... - then scrubbed, soaked in anti viral stuff and then fumigated by a guy who looked like a ghostbuster. I got to yell at people: WATCH YOUR STEP!??! Because English fucking people are too important to care what they step in. They got offended by it, so I just said: Well, if you PREFER to step in someone else's excrement, caused by a gastrovirus, madam, by all means, be my guest. And do enjoy the consequences.

*

SLSB's redeeming qualities (because I really do try hard to find the man less epicly appaling, like fet fungae or rotting pizza is appaling.. 

He says 'excuse me' when leaving the table.

Speaks at least four languages.

Makes good money.

Won't say a dirty word; instead will say: 'Somebody did... Something.' when referring to a guest's gastric incident.

Sitno >>184<<

Hello, Spain. Weather like bleak midwinter in Austria, gangway as steep as a slide, the guards many and armed with machine guns. A rafinery near by, fumes billowing in excess, and dramatically, which, if it was a vulcano, we would be fucked. 

At least the Spanish are never boring :D

Off to shoot. Catch ya laterz.

Shot 370 gangway pics in drizzle, yo! Yes, I cheated, did what SLSB does, just shot individuals, before they managed to deny me, and am 100% sure SLSB will find a way to ruin it for me, but babaBOOEY MOTHERFUCKER.

Eve

Loooong gallery eve, over six hours of standing still, too tired for gym, crampy, but it always flies when DOo comes by and we compare dirty secrets for the better part of an hour. He told me about how his wife found out about his many many many mistresses (he was drunk and bragged to his best friend about it. Can you BE more of a cliche?) and I told him how I like to be beaten with a rope. It's twice as exciting to do it while annoying old English people next to us look at their photos and say: Cand feen'd me oun, musta brokeeh the camherah... 

"Did you have a good day? With your naps and your pilots and your mooring stations? Did you feel alive? Did you wish you had a lover who would paint your house dark red?"

"No, thank you, my house is nice yellow."

"Your house is freaking beige, for fuck's sakes."

:D

Will really miss the old bastard when he leaves. The sunset last night was another jaw-dropper and I called him to go look at it. He asked on which side it is. I said: west, starboard, I don't fucking know. Just go look! ... And he said: I am already naked, so if I now walked onto the bridge ...

Seriously, why are people so concerned with what others will think? Thus he missed another best part of his job. That annoying ball of Helium and water on fire, that can never be topped in glory, no matter how good a painter or a poet you are ...

The only thing that pissed me off about the whole day is not being able to call my love and tell himEVERYTHING in detail, every last thought and emotion and adventure I have, every food I eat and who stared at my bewbs and what the shape of waves is tonight and how fast my heart is going... Useless fucking overpriced ship shitty wifi. 

++3

Sitno >>183<<

Got lost in La Coruña. After finding the Hercules lighthouse and a really big iron concho horn statue thingie. Which I had selfies with. With foaming waves around the cliffs, around us.

This can only mean one thing. I had to:

a) find a cafe that sells ice-cream and has, maybe, if possible, wifi

b) went to pee

c) order a creamy biscuit, two balls of random ocra colored ice-cream, which turned out to be some sort of nut, and a capuccino, which the barista took so long and so careful to make, I had not the heart to ask him for milk, I just put the ice-cream in it

d) got wifi, googled Ship Locator, to find where my hot little ship is (this would be so much more embarassing if I had a sailboat. Excuse me, have you an idea where I last parked my sailboat?)..

e) ran google maps, to find out where >I< am

f) barista during downloaded a phone app that helped him translate 'where would you like to be?' Ah, my friend, if you only knew, in all this perfection, sorrounded by all this ice-cream and Cuban-looking streets and lighthouses, where I would REALLY like to be... I could tell you the shape of his hands and the taste of his lips and the color of his eyes, but I only speek Spanish enough to order a glass of water..

It's only two, though. I have another hour to love my life here and now, such as it is, licking the crumps off the plate.

Yesterday my shoppie shipmate and I explored Aviles, another small, old, adorable northern Spanish town, until we came upon the other shippies and we spent two hours goofing around the city. I took some friendly goofing-around photos accordingly. Sis linked me Disturbed's version of Sound Of Silence, which I then listened to at the exact right moment to make the world sink itself onto me, making me as tiny and alive as a supernova in a vast hot chaos of blackness that these damn oceans around me are. Water that never runs out. Only humans can be so arrogant as to think we can hurt the waters of this world. Not me, though. Me made plans to go out early today, to swim in the ocean, but again the English weather followed I and me can, and it was raining in the wee gangway hours.

It's certainly not raining now.

I changed some money, just so that I don't walk around like a pauper. The last two euro last night were spent on knee-high nylon stockings, which I then folded into a tattoo-cover. It looks fucking stupid, but there you have it. 

If it was sunny, then you would have seen 200 seafarers pour out of a ship with their towels and their beach hats, alas. I bought myself a sailor-themed blue and white T-shirt and an orange towel. Half the day was beyond pure perfection, totally worth this twisted heart strings. 

Let's not say more on the subject, ere I jinx it and SLSB remembers he hasn't yelled at me since I wrote the abuse report.

What would really make this day better than perfect, though, would be a post office. I've been dragging a bunch of postcards with me since the last month's Baltic. 

Off to find the ship now and to shower, in that order. I've 300 pretty pickies to edit and post on Instagram #papershiplife , but also, you know, a job. Catch ya soon. :P

6.3: Baltic cruise, pt.3

Sitno >>190<< or something

I know! Long fucking cruise! Longest I've done before this was nine days. It feels like we've only ever been on this one, though, yes, interestingly enough, the longer it's getting, the easier it is. Easier to distribute shifts, to plan ahead the sale strategies, and you can already tell who the nice ones are, who the crazy and who just want to be buttered up. Never forget, they all come to see the photos, even if they didn't stop for you. The ones that confuse me the most is people who come to the STUDIO to pose and then don't even LOOK at the pics. But anyway, I know by now to tell who is just tired, who is nasty and who are just cheap. They love the attention the camera gives them, but buy very little in the end. This ship has six passenger decks: the same price for a photo will have someone saying 'oh, is that all? That's not so bad', and another 'what? Are you crazy? Does it come in a golden frame?!'... My oddly stubborn idealistic nature insist on thinking everyone is nice, they're just having a bad day.. Even the likes of Hotz. I pray that doesn't change in me. I'd hate myself to think that ye, sometimes people are actually just total dicks. 

The days pass cute, but not too good. When you are asking yourself: is this where I wanna be? no? Where then? - and not know the answer, you know the problem is you, not the big iron mass around you, or the gloomy weather, or the lack of coffee in your blood. Or the lack of land to complain to. DOo was telling me about Estonians, as that is where we dock tomorrow and which is what my roomie is - how they are proud people, but not in a bad way - how they have been buggered by Russians, who mostly ever did only that to any nation they ancountered and still do. How the Fins, which is what DOo is, have great respect for them. How they are quiet (my roomie sometimes doesn't even say Hi to me back, when we meet in the hallway, and it isn't because she's be upset or any somesuch), but decent people, nice and honest. You get used to their odd, quiet attitudes. Even tempered. She is fairly calm, or CBA about things that would make my liver explode. I have the nice, calm, naturally easygoing temper of a nuclear warhead. I never thought to apply characteristics to individual nations before, it seemed like something a snob would do. But no. It rings true. Cubans are honestly very happy and friendly lot. Romunians are everything but, and profit oriented. The Philipines can be really nice, but oddly hypocritical towards the whites - and I am white, as if there is anything I could do about it - meaning that they but crawl in the restaurant to bring me water or take away my plate, but won't say Hey to me when we meet in the crew mess. Since they are off the clock. I understand they are getting the rotten end of the deal working on these ships. They work jobs white people would never work for the money and conditions here. They sign on to being treated like dogs. And the worst bit, their employers think they are doing them a favor, since this is still a better life, financially, than their home. They trade in their dignity for being able to send their kids to good schools and their parents to good hospitals. This is still the world we live in. Easiest lot to take advantage of. No wonder they hate us. I spoke with two Polish ladies, awesome dames, something shamanistic to them, who explained that to demand of your employee to wear heels is against human rights regulations. Did not know that. 

Last night, or, more like early morning, I didn't have to go to bed like I should be going now, and I joined the band guys to have some drinks in the room of one of the travelling salesmen, taking photos of the cutest one, wearing Russian hat and sobol coat, pretending to be a mafia prince. We went upstairs, the lot of us, to watch the bridges open, which didn't happen while we were there, so I just took some more pics. It was fun, even though I haven't seen some of them drunk and that was not pretty. I ate a lot of food last night, almost none today. Whom I really wanted to spend time with was DOo, of course, but he is not the type to be found in the middle of the nite, wandering the empty decks. He is on the other end of the excitement spectrum, as for us everything is new and exciting and scary and for him everything is way pass caring. Life is not meant to be 'meh'. That will happen, if you stay in one profession for forty years: you will wake up some day and decide you are an old man, ready for retirement, at the age of fiftyfive.

Was fed up with the growing hole in my stomach from not having anyone to talk to, and he ignored me through most of lunch, which sucked, so I went to my cabin and called if he's gonna be up in his room the next few minutes. He said he's going to take a nap, so now is not a good time. I said fine, and hung up, feeling worse. Called again the next second and barked: Fuck this. I am coming up right now.

We spent an hour talking, me sitting on the floor of his fancy cabin, the sun shining through the huge window, him lying on the bed. If it was up to me, I would be there all the time. It is the most normal place on the ship I can hide in. Nobody can find me there. It's quiet. Nobody to yell at me. Nobody ever does anything bad in his presence. I appretiate the illusion, the aura of calm seas around him. He tells me a million things, more than anyone else. He tells me about small planes and large ships, tells me about the people and nationalities, tells me about the main and auxiliary engines, tells me about his women and his boat, tells me about the Morse code and how not everything that my superiors do is about me. Writing your problems into a blog may make them seem mighty huge, but telling them to a grown man makes me sound like a child. Oh, was your manager mean to you? He's a mean boy? He's a big meanie? Oh, booh hoo... 

He said if someone asking me to wear thick stockings, some officer sitting with his back to me during lunch, some bar keeper reporting me for wearing my hair down at midnight are my main problems, than clearly I live on a planet with extremely comfortable weather. (Not in so many words. The only time he showed any genuine interest in my big ship problems was when I mentioned a pax possibply tried to push me. Because that is a problem. Not being told to wear more cherful makeup.)  Actually, he was just laughing at me. And I would tell him to go fuck himself, then cry/laugh: I know! i know I am being stupid! I know I am a tourist. He knows I am a tourist. We agreed my Instagram photos, cute as they may be, are photos of a tourist. I read him a letter I wrote for him, in which I say I think of myself as a very cool wife and a fairly awesome person and the peace of mind of my husband and his heart are untouchable. That I can be a pretty cool friend, too, and if he dragged me to a Russian ballet, I would drag him to the top of Kilimanjaro. He could teach me to hot-wire a submarine and I would teach him how to write a book. But none of that would ever make me a cheating whore.

He apologized for generalizing, as when questioning my fidelity he simply spoke out of experience of what he's seen. I wonder if now, that he is convinced he will never bone me, he will lose interest in me completely. Gods I hope not. I need someone to continue interpreting ships for me. There really are very many ships that I have no idea what their purpose is. Cruise ship, fishing ship, military ship, freighter, car ship, grain ship, pilots... 

I think I should get a better sense of humor, no matter how good judge of a character I am. I should care less, I suppose, be more shallow. Divide my brain into the Planet me and a Ship me and keep only one half turned on at a time. Like, you know, a child. But a happy child. 

That was the morning part of the day.

It got better and better, actually. My SHIFT did not start until quite later, so I Skyped G, who broadcast my family's BBQ: dad, stunned that he can speak to me via phone while munching on a chicken wing; sis's BF roasting on the grill; Rockstar getting excited about going to the movies; mum and sis clipping the talons of my crazy dog; everything in bloom, the extraordinary pale lilac roses dominating the porch garden... It was stunning to see my family as if on a strange memory loop. I no longer makes me sorrowfull to see them, perhaps if anything it makes me feel guilty I don't miss them more.. Dad worries about me all the time, he worries I am going to be feeling even worse for seeing them. This just tells me that is how he felt on his adventures. But I am a Moomin, Imy soul is called Snufkin, I can have fun far away and still love them, the nutters lot. 

The best part of the day was after sunset. The guitar player bought me some chocolates (because the other day he was feeling lonely and I bought them for him, and he bought the exact same ones, just to be pn the safe side), and so now, after my three WHOLE hours shift was done, I went to get him and said: come, let's to stern to watch the sun sink. (SLSB insist on working all the shifts, even when everyone else is gone. I have no idea why he does that; not only is it not necessary - we don't get paid by the hour. I have no idea what he is trying to achieve. ? ... Or can it be simply that he honestly has nothing else to do in his whole existance? He only knows how to do one thing?) The guitarist only had a few minutes, so I remained alone on the front; plus the sun takes like four hours to set. It was around eleven. Our ship gained and overtook a tremendous cruiser, and we sailed by a freakishly spooky island or cape, where the old military ships and subs were slowly dying. I gotsta googleEarth that place, it looked outstanding. There really is nothing spookier than abandoned era ships. 

Back in the crew dayroom, I Skyped G again and since I still haven't sent him photos of my bewbs in uniform (as odd as it sounds, I genuinely would not like for those photos to come to public attention, if anyone hacked my phone. Not the bewbs part, but the uniform part. Again - here is my dirty little secret, which will soon become my undoing: I like it here. I don't want to be fired.), undid the buttons of my shirt there. Things got more interesting when I took the iPad to my rooms and the internet connection lingered. After we came, at the same time, we spoke for another hour. I said I like it here so much I can totally see myself lasting until september. The General suddenly no longer argued that design. He said: But you won't be leaving again until the next year, correct? I said fuck no. If I do, I will leave next summer. He said: another summer gone without you? No way. Fine, I said, then I'll leave over winter. He said: and not to have you home for Christmas? Forget about it.

Looks like he is begining to miss me, too. It'll soon be two months. Longer than we expected me to last, to be honest. I want to stay longer. I want to do more ships. Fuck it, I want to do more jobs! I wanna cook and clean and be able to stand on the bridge while we dock. I am starting to like ships same as I love trees and forests. I haven't thought about them for forty years, now I think about them all the time. A lot of this planet is aranged according to ships. Since the beginning. Seamen are these strange lot, they get stuck in the same vernacular. I asked DOo what he would do if he decided not to work on ships anymore. He said he has the training and a certificate to be a ship inspector. 

...

Idiot. 

:D

+2.5

Sitno >>189<<

Today was a super nice day. I shot gangway in the morning, sky without a blemish, gentle breez and seagulls screaming in Tallinn (Talinn? Tallin?...), Estonia, back on EU soil... Nobody was too odd to me today. I got an excellent rollcount without even really trying. Had pleasant drill, I still enjoy those. ASAP applied some sunblock, grabbed the camera bag and offed to explore the Old town, which was Hensiatically picturesque and maze-like just as I appretiate them the most. I am running out of memory cards. Must invest in a hard drive. Got two postcards, one for one of the leaving shoppies, made of handmade paper full off seeds, so you can plant it after you've read it ... That was the awesomest thing on an awesome day. Called G, for a little bit. Walked a long while, took a shower, offed to work. The second amazing thing was that SLSB touched me for the first time ever, gently placing a hand on my shoulderblade to move me out of place... It was such a tender gesture I am now really worried about getting slaughtered in my sleep... Later I stood in the gallery for only three hours, had a nice salad diner (I am not eating much, yet it feels like I'm getting fatter again. Don't like it :/ ), offed to shoot British night. I am using different setting than those they told me to - I want to see if I get better results. Bumped into DOo on the way to the lab, sat down for drinks and talked again about sex and ships and mostly ships and some stuff about ships for an hour or so. I asked what would happen if I just walked away. He said he would be the one signing the papers to sack me. Other than that, it seems to happen way to often to make any impression on anybody. I said good, I would want it to be him. I always like the executioner to be someone I can haunt later. 

The sun sets really late around here. Takes about two hours to set, too. I miss swimming, I am tired of the Baltic, calm as it was, just for me. Afterwards sat down in the crew mess and edited the pickies of the day for Instagram, regardless of the crappy wifi. Am really quite tired, almost nausiated by fatique. Up for bazaar at eight tomorrow. Change of clock again, though I have no idea in which direction... Will just set it up for six and then call Guest Services to tell me, as I always do. 

+2.97

Sitno >>188<<

Moved the off day to tuesday for this week, since nothing gets between a woman on her period and her chocolate, also ate yummy ginger noodles in the crew mess at midnight. Sorry for ignoring you/cheating on you, blog, with Instagram, but I just so like posting pickies :D #papershiplife 

The bazaar thingie was nice, I far prefer selling things in a ccrescent of a large room, in the company of my fellow shoppies, and I reckon we made about a grand and a half, with my best sell being five gift mugs, each a tenner. SLSB was all nervous about the setup, half about the money again and half because, you know, this was important, because chief officer might be coming by. Which is important, because the chief officer might be coming by. So I better do everything right. Because the chief officer might come by... Yees. I heard you the first seven times and knowing DOo, he couldn't give a rat's ass about some silly little souvenir sale, he just comes to chat with the pretty shop girls and a wink to the pretty cruise director and is off again, dealing with helicopter evacuations (had two medical emergencies within the last 15 hrs, though as he tells me, it's a Domino effect. I guess everybody wants to be hauled up on a thin steel line in the middle of an ocean, by the price of 30.000 grand per ride..).

Today, drizzly, is the last gangway, which for some reason I am not shooting, but we have so many by now anyway... We shot A LOT this cruise. The days were nice until now, events were cheerfull, most of the people were marginally inspiring. You get a couple of really cool ones every cruise. I painted a gift card for the leaving shoppie - the first use of watercolors since I got here. Am not sure when I will be told not to do so many non-food-related things in the mess.. In my defense, the light is best there. Now, at eight in the morning, I spoke to G before he goes to bed, had the last of my off day treats and washed the socks and undies. Will dress for rain now and head out. I should really buy some new clothes. Nothing fits me anymore and the things that do look really worn out. I have a lot of time to walk around, today. I've no money, really, about two and a half euros, and little space left on my memory cards. Course if an external hard drive costs a 100 bucks and you can get a computer for 250 around here... Dunno. I guess I have trust issues regarding computers. I have trust issues buying a second hand book, yet alone an old Apple. 

After noon

As per tradition, the last port of call is a melancholy one, gray and uninspired. I should be buying more postcards, but I kinda CBA. I should have gone to the museum, also, but I just walked around the park for an hour, taking in the giant chestnuts in bloom. I admire Poland for having their own thing going, not much influence from anybody, and I am sure the countryside is awesome and the capital is cute, but these vast streets are like my country twenty years ago, after a shock wave of Chinese merchendise. I took a couple of pics of cool graffity, since I always wanted to be a street artist of the can paint type, but never knew what to paint, really. Must be the old mural artist in my genes trying to have a say. 

On a mildly related matter, for some reason our bathroom isn't flushing. That can be a bit uncomfortable after a lot of apple juice. And I need a shower. Though cold, the air is unusally humid and polluted in this city. My roomie argued that wearing makeup is only bad if you live in a clean countryside - in a city like this, wearing makeup is the only thing that gets between your skin and unimaginable urban filth.

+1

Sitno >>186<<

CRAP. Got sea sick yesterday again. And it was all of a sudden, too. We came out of the Kiel Kanal, at first I thought we just started hitting other ship's waves, but no. Up and down, left to right, all around we go. I took a pill soon enough, but having to photograph in the uppermost restaurant meant four flights of circular steps, which never helps, and then maneuvering around the tables in a too hot, too humid dinning setting, full of people eating fish. I barely made it to the toilet to lose diner. I dare not think what would happen if I threw up in a room full of already nausiated people. Got pricked in the bum again, not in a fun way. Now my ass hurts for all the wrong reasons. They gave me stronger pills and the less nice of the two nurses said that I should just take one in the morning regardless of what the sea looks like. That she's on that stuff all the time. The doctor just thought it was funny. Am considering buying those wrist band thingies, though those may be a bit pedestrian in my case. The other nurse said I should have gotten used to the sea by now. It's been two months. I cannot argue. On days like this I think working on a ship was not such a bright idea. 

I'll try not eating anything, see if it helps. Can't take tummyache pills now, either, concerned the two won't mix well, and I have period cramps. Another interesting last day coming up, it seems :D

Noon

I feel better, I even cheered up a bit, and all of it without coffee. Good job! Traditionally last day bazaars have been gloomy affairs, but today it was okay. DOo was cute: he materialised soundlessly, as he usually does, when I was rearranging the magnets on our display board. I felt someone standing right behind me, turned, and there he was, that stupid smug expression on his face. I laughed, said hi, what's up and that I found his little island on the map. (The map of the Baltic sea was still on the wall, if a day outdated.) He asked how did I get his address and I said a) I'm married to a detective, b) can google and when he applied for his pilot licence, they ran a background check which is public knowlege. He smirked and asked if I want to know something else. I said 'obvioustly'. He said: I also have a degree in engineering and a university degree in maritime economics and law. I blinked, said: okaaaay, I did not know that. Now you do, he replied over shoulder while walking away...

I do appretiate me some well-measured peacocking in a man :D 

Eve

So, the day was done, it wasn't too bad. Last evenings taste funny. Tired people packing, longing for home, but sorry to go. The afternoon six hours moved at pace, though not painfully so, and I did eat some light stuff, some normal food, yummy food, as the body seems to direly crave grease and salt, which I am not eating enough of. Also crave sweets like crazy, so I ate some deserts, if mostly fruity or diabetic stuff... My roommate won the 'employee of the month' award for her video work, which I thought was awesome, because she actually makes really good video and it is rare that a concessionist would be nominated at all. Perhaps because I have never met anyone who makes bad video, I assume that all the product of my agency is this good. Guess not. I also wondered why they don't have someone giving photography classes to the guests? I wouldn't mind trying to do that, at least until I ran into too many people insisting I should use that and that camera, that and that film, that and that developer and that and that style. You get A LOT of ninety year old dicks who try to throw you with conversations like 'do you ever use 6x6 Hasselbladt' for your pictures?' First of all, it's photos, not pictures, and second of all, we use crayons for ship photography, sir, as I really don't see the cost benefit of taking 10.000 snapshots of people eating who think their price of 6bucks50 is outrageous. 

Don't get into a technique discussion with me, man, I got up earlier than you did and I get paid in dumb customer comments for photos I would never sign my name under in the real world. 

Because we could be here all fucking day. 

Spoke to pumpkin after work, and the forty minutes of it was lovely, then three minutes of fighting because he's not walking the dog enough, and then a few more minutes of lovely. He is too fucking far away. I worry if he gets to work okay from a thousand miles away. That shit can drive you crazy.

+2

Sitno >>185<<

Turnaround today. The ship is still and the weather is English. Will have no problem wearing winter stockings. If I just wear a ton of makeup over the tattoo, I leave greasy skin-toned smudges EVERYWHERE. Am lingering easily while waiting. Apologized to Paolo for not coming to his farewell party on account of vomiting all over the ship. Hate that he's leaving :/ Gave Vicky the drawing, we cried for a minute, then were okay again. Am back to wearing the skirt, which is now too big on me. 

Land manager coming to meet us in a few minutes. Not sure what to tell him. We haven't spoken since he tried to relocate me. What do I say? How do I seem? What do I tell him? Nothing. Be like Vicky. Playful, energetic, totally uninterested in the politics that makes these people grim. Find Hotz's preoccupation with my legs funny. Find the stockings comfy. Find the new wave of passengers curious and the stormy waves amusing. Find DOo and mock him about another ship related matter. Gods that man can park a ship in a hurry. Find another fun fact about the ship. (can I ask how one can break it to a full stop without getting flagged a lunatic? I am curious, tho - we have 200 people making sure it's running smoothly at any given time in any given weather... Can it be broken to a full stop?) .. Find the next favorite chocolate. (Mocca crispy holding the title so far.) Find another good book to read halfway through. Find the fucking correlation between the three ships in the first chapter of Dread already, damnit! This damn real life is really getting in the way of my fiction!

:P

6.2: Baltic cruise, pt.2

Sitno >>195<<

Today I wanted to explore the city without any map, without any design, just as dancing with a stranger with your eyes closed.

Yesterday I was in a poor mood. We were in Aalborg, but I had no desire to look for him, not even for a clue of him. I took not a single photo of the impressive architecture on the waterfront or the city; I took not the camera from the bag. I was desperate for privacy and wifi. Which I found, in an old abandoned factory turned youth center, after hours, minus a creep sitting enough behind me to be able to see what we were using the Skype for.  Ah, well, envy will be envy and it's better than getting arrested for public indecency. Or 'pubic', in this case.

Today, though, I just dived in. Forget about the maps and pamphlets, Boedecker, plans or companions, I just finished with the gangway (best rollcount to date, though some were forced and crappy, granted), stopped the tumbledry mode on the dryer, spread my undies and socks around the room and just DIVED out. It was a brilliantly sunny day, hot even (24'C), we were smack in the middle of a bustling Køpenhagen, and this city is LUMINOUS. Bronze statues everywhere, channel promenades, waterfront with museums across, street art classes, bicyclists, hordes of tourists, students, souvenir sales stands, parks and handsome architecture. All of it in a flawless sky. There was just one tiny whisp of a cloud on the entire canvas and even that one was shaped as a jellyfish. Large machines called 'cherry pickers', of all things (<3) elevated our deck hands to wash the salt off the hull. Entourage came out some, but for no interesting reason. Still a complete incommunicado between DOo and I. Even if we are alone in the dining room, he sits with his back to me. And I am still temporally out of sync with most other shipmates, so I go alone and have not the heart to tell anyone alone is how I am at my best.

For some reason we only stayed in the pretty K until 3pm, no idea why. Was it too expensive to linger longer? I took almost 500 photos, which I have loaded now onto the Lr and am editing to feed the insatiable Instagram and its complete disregard for any chronological orders :D The General started following me, so he can show pickies of places I go to to mum, but was angry I haven't stopped to find wifi and send him some photos of my bewbs. (Did eventually. Now it's his turn, once he's done baptising them..). 

Today is also an off day, so I ate (starting yesterday dinnertime)

Two turkey tacos

Seven hours of sleep, pure excess

A croissont, plus butter

Some other yummy stuff with butter on it I forget

Three chocolates from the bar, from the list

A hash brownie, some kind of fried potato, the least healthy food imaginable

With a slice of ham and cheese on top

Some salad for lunch, with cheese and spinnach filled pumpkins

Three different bits of desert, forget which, all okay

Another three bits for afternoon tea

... And many cups of coffee

Which I think I am done with now..

Except for the two lemon tarts I cannot resist. 

I took a shower and am hiding in my corner in the officers' mess, editing now. People will come for dinner soon. I refuse to look out the window so as not to see all the spectacular sites I've missed. Next time. This city is big. I only licked it a little. It is going on my list of places I want to visit not-in-a-hurry, of course. Seems a bit unfair, really - it mostly has to do with the beautiful weather. But then again I saw not one but TWO statues of my favorite two gods these days: Hermes and Triton. Looking hot, obviously. Looking out, for me.

Eve

Day ended shitty and I may have hurt my hand a little bit, though it's not broken, just bruised. The wall was worse off. But good days ending badly ain't nothing new. I loathe, hate and fucking detest every breathing second of being here, and still I am madly in love with this adventure, with the ship and ports and with myself for being this nuts. And dark days, they quickly pass, too.

Sitno >>194<<

Yup, hands are okay, just a bit scratched. There is a scale, you see, a tipping scale, between my misery and SLSB's - when I am upset, he is rejoycing. He is literally humming to himself. When I am smiling, he will not speak to me at all. And to see me happy? That's just like waving red flag to a bull.

I ran twice, again, down to the tailor to finally catch him and asked for trousers, because wearing a 120 den black stocking at the end of sunny May made me so hot and sweaty I was getting nauseated. The tailor would not give me a piece of thread until I confirmed it with his supervisor, the housekeeping manager. SLSB did that for me and I ran back down, third time that day, to get my trousers. I am a transvestite now, because of course they had none of the ladies' uniforms bottoms available. It's okay, I look okay in pants. And they're nice to wear. But they were too long, so I ran back up and returned two hours later for the mended version, at which point tailor said it's okay, the managers just called him I don't have to wear them. I can wear the stockings.

I just grabbed the pants and ran. I just wore them. They will surely take them away from me, but for as long as I can, I will wear them. It's spectacular, this preocupation with my legs, isn't it? They're such a problem, so indecent. You would think I am covered in swastikas or cocks or fucking bunnies or something. I wonder when will they notice my tattoo of a wedding ring?

We just landed in Vispby, and it's so pretty I have an urge to go skinnydipping off the bow It looks like the Carribean, minus the Baltic sea temperatures. I have an excursion in a minute, so no bathing for me today, but soon. The days are getting warmer. It's really quite too beautiful to stay miserable for long. I miss DOo, though, I miss having someone to talk to that's an adult and loves ships and a seaman's life. He now makes sure to never pause in the gallery and though our eyes meet sometimes quite by incident, quite often in fact, we never linger enough to do but an appropriate nod or smile, the kind you give to a stranger. I've missed him the most yesterday, I think, or the day before. I will miss him less tomorrow. And soon I will forget how nice it felt to confide in him. No matter how many of my Instagram photos he hearted. Uu, Instagram is becoming my favorite passtime, as I need no wifi to set them all up, only to post them. All the pickies I take make sense once they're on-line. That is certainly my comfort food, except for actual food, obviously. We had Mexican food buffet today, in the officer's mess, so two more tacos for me! :D But I am an official size 14, jacket size 12. Two more stones down, four more sizes, and I will be hotter than I was when G first met me. Which certainly is something to aspire to. Indecent legs or not. :P

Sitno >>192<<

Hihi, post excursion yesterday: OF COURSE we were 20 minutes late, so imagine me jumping off the bus, sprinting across the vast parking lot, sprinting down the endless ship coridor, into my room, out of my clothes, into my uniform, comb the hair, apply makeup.... Slowlllyyy... Sprinting up again to the hotel deck, down the corridor to the gallery and, stop, slowly, casually around the corner, as if on a gentlest stroll. Oh, I am four minutes early? Oh, gosh, I didn't know the time..

:D

One of the nice shoppies suggested I get a 'sleeve' for my tattoo, basically just buy cotton tights the color of skin and cut out a long enough tube to keep it on. Funny none of my oh so experienced and protocolled superiors thought to mention such a simple and an elegant solution? That would be far too easy, now, would it?

A passenger told me a really cute story about an ill-fortunate soul called Harry :D Poor Harry. What a life. Okay, in a hurry - so, Harry was a poor lad from a poor miner's town and mining coal was what he did since he was a wee lad. Those were shitty mines, too, always flooding, filthy, very bad on your health. He never married or truly pursued the possibility of a female in his life, though he did like to keep safety in numbers with some of his mining coleagues. He invested in a fishing boat with the two he was friends with, which was a mess when they bought it, but once fixed, after many moons, it was okay. Guess who did the fixing? And guess what happened to the boat once it was nice again? Oh, it got 'stolen', though of course everybody knew one of the other guys just sold it. Poor Harry only worried his two friends would feel worse. So, some day, one of his mates sees an add that they are looking for gold or diamond miners in Australia. Back in the day it cost 10 pounds to go from England to Australia, that's how much they needed people. Those were called something like 10poundPons or somesuch. But, because they didn't have permanent residence, once they arrived, they couldn't get jobs and because they didn't have jobs, they couldn't apply for permanent residence. They found a solution in moving to New Zealand, where rules were more limber and they could do OPAL mining. Mining was pretty much the one thing they did. They COULD apply for citizenship and after two months or so, two letters landed in the mailbox for Harry. One was 'congratiulations, you have sucessfully been granted citizenship of New Zealand' and the other 'congratiulations, you are now a New Zealand citizen and are being drafted to a New Zealand military service'. Off to North Korea, Harry goes and gets shot in the lungs, losing a half. Problem is, he has not been a NewZealander for long enough to have insurance and as a useless citizen, he is now no longer welcomed. Thus, Harry gets shipped back, full circle, to England, minus half a lung. But at least his mining days were over. 

The passenger desperately wanted to find Harry, just to see how the story goes on. 

We had another formal tonight, minus the restaurant bit. Just as well, since some man told me he will file an official complaint about me having interrupted him during a diner conversation the other night... I said, as meekly as possible, that I didn't do it because I want to, but because I must and if complain is something he must do, than by all means. My coleague tried to photograph a woman who threatened to smash her camera on the ground. The same woman hissed at me on another occasion: don't you touch me! (I was nowhere hear her, I was just shooting.) Actually, more and more people seem intested in violence. A man nigh bumped into me today, though I am not sure if he was trying to or trying not to. Either way, if he did, he would have knocked me off balance and I'd have landed flat on my hip. The trick is to protect the camera, though, and scream for help of the official security. Not fight back. Never fight back. Scream, call for help of the security and play the poor, innocent victim. As disgusting as it sounds, that will serve you far better in the long run, than being a normal human being and just ripping the old balls off the bully. In truth, while you are in 'costumer service' mode, this attitude catches you so far off guard, you can't react properly, you're just confused. 

Sitno >>191<<

"What is your cabin room number, madam?"

"FourOhFourFour."

"That sounds just like a short poem! ... Four, oh, four...four... Why art though four? Why art thou not more?...."

(As happens when coffee kicks in :D)

St. Petersburg, half way through the cruise. So far, Hermes and Triton have been ironing the sea like crazy - we haven't sailed so smoothly in RIVERS, yet alone the Baltic! It is getting colder and cloudier, though. I suppose I would mind my iron tower prison more, if it was sunny outside. But the General sent me some very agreeable dick pics and one can weather a decade in a buddhist cloister with a good amount of General's dick picks. I'll be fine. I'll catch up on my mail. I'm eating normally today, just because. Not off day, just normally. Maybe, because I am on a verge of a cold from standing ouside for hours. Or maybe just because I enjoy good food. Have a skype date with grandma at two. G&Rockstar are off to see Warcraft today, though it seems Duncan Jones finally made a shitty movie for a change.