10.2 - Shetland and Ireland and the rest of 'where the fuck am I?'.. Part two.

Sitno possibly >>73<< but we'll see how the tides turn...

Been awfully quiet since I submitted my resignation forms to Hotz. I'm placing bets with everybody, will they try to ignore me surrender or will they throw me off the ship come Southampton. Should be interestng either way, as I have no money at all. LandManager didn't reply my email. Nobody said anything. Haven't had the resignation interview yet. SLSB is acting like my bestest friend ever, and not just mine. He is cheerfully chatting with the customers, he is cheerfully chatting with the other shoppies... He came by the bazaar yesterday and asked: "You had breakfast? Also coffee? You need fifteen minutes?..." 

... O.o ...

I really wonder if he knew all this time how foul he was towards me. Or did he think that's how normal people interact? No, I'm being ironic. Of course he knew. When I said 'man, you tried to get me fired the second day I was here, when you should have been mentoring and protecting me...' he said: 'That? But that was ages ago!'...

The Shetland Isles were wonderful. As cold, bleak and barren as my soul. Bognor jumped around as happy as a pegasus. We drove to an archaeological site called... Jarlshof or something, which was exactly like Skara Brae, only it wasn't abandoned and conserved, it was recycled over and over again and half of it was eaten away by the sea. If there were no people, I would have started screaming, because I couldn't find any other way to express myself. Poetry wouldn't be sufficient. But there were many people and also ponies and those wouldn't understand a woman shouting at a sea in the fog. They would think there's something wrong.

We had a sea day in between the ports. Didn't eat, but forgot to drink as well, and took a pill for what I thought were period cramps. Mental note, when you forget to drink and take a painkiller, don't be surprised when the pill wanes and your head nearly falls off. I sucked a water bottle dry.

Went to a cheap shop to buy some clothes, but ended up only buying undies and socks. Dublin is the same as I remember it and I remember it really well. What's it been, twelve years? Even found the bookstore and the museums I hid in, after Afrika. Managed to hop onto a tour that took me to Trinity College to see Book of Kells or faksimile thereof, as I always doubt originals are actually displayed, that would be crazy. No matter. Mesmerizing stuff either way. Their library is what Dream God's Heaven looks like - I know, I visit it often, to talk to the tomes and frottage their spines. Took a pic of a poem by a monk who wrote about his cat companion, chasing the mice around at night, while he chases the darkness away by making illuminated initials... 

Found a neat cafe to Skype G, but as most of everything around here, it closed in half an hour, at five. Sought several other possibilities, until I walked into a REAALLLY posh hotel, concierge dressed like Neo in the Matrix, shaved head, hitman features, skylight, tea at five euro starting price...  - with perfect wifi and very nice eastern European waitresses and Filipino toilet cleaner. Damn. Deja vu! Stayed here for hours. The General still has toothache, but he is already making plans on how to get me home as soon as possible, and how to never let me work on any ship ever again. He said he's only just gotten used to not having me next to him; he is not interested in repeating that process again in a hurry...

Off to seek a comic book store if there are any opened, to see if I can spend my last few bucks on another horror neo noir american gothic comic novel...

Wau, that was a mouthful...

Sitno >>72?<<

Liverpool. Sunny! And freaking freezing! Shot gangway, best I could in sunny-cloudy intervals, then put on leggings and wooly cap and marched off into the wild wild world to find a comicbook store a shippie fellow recommended.. Found a quirky shop that sells old suitcases, though luckily didn't have enough money :D Bough: the new Sandman, Wytches, The Beauty and Twice Told, volume two.. Then checked out the shell of St.Luke's church, tried on some black bob wigs and found an Italian cafe that makes me feel like I'm still in Ireland. Skyped my beloved toothached darling until he passed out. He is starving. How fucking hard is it to make a smoothie, people? Just stuff all the bananas, honey, granola and chocolate ice-cream into a blender, and it should be liquid Flapjack in no time... 

I still have a few pounds in my pocket... Lemme see how much that old suitcase actually was...

Sitno >>71?<

I think sometimes Bognor gets so large he fills up the entire shell of the ship and begins to resemble the shape of the Gem itself.. That is what I thought I saw today, when I was coming back to the quay.

Because Crazy Russian Safety Officer Guy likes his drills long and smack in the middle of free time, there wasn't much of actual free time left to explore Rosslare. I had my eye on an old Irish open air museum, alas. As soon as I got off, dressed for winter (gangway was so cold I needed parka and was still frozen stiff, and wind so horizontal and en-face, tears were streaking down my face.), the welcoming comitee gave me free postcards, strawberries, a pen and promised they will post what I write free of charge... i wrote down the entire list of my people, sending out some fifteen or twenty cards. Sent four or five to poor G, who required dental surgery and had to have three of his teeth removed and was so out of it, he barely sounded coherent when I phoned to see if he's okay. Since he ismine, that man is an extremist. He doesn't just have a toothache, he has a dental landslide.

Found a forlorn beach, laid down in the sand and listened to the sea foam bubbles hiss as they seeped into the sand, kids play in the distance, a tiny dog coming to sniff me happily and then running off again, and ravens pick the seaweed, which looked so big and fleshy I am now sure those can't be animals, but they are not exactly plants either... We brought some Scottish weather with us, though it cleared anough to let some sun through on me. I thought of nothing, I was almost nothing, just a speck of dirt on flawlessly systemic creation, just a purple parka in the middle of primary colors elements, mighty for being aware of it and tiny for being there for only an hour, leaving nothing behind, not even my story. While the Reality was horrid because people did terrible things to other people, I cloaked myself in one of those: "... See the world in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour...."

It would have been so easy to let go. If only the Gem was not what stands between my love and me... I was our penultimate port of call, maiden as it was, and the welcome comitte was just preparing to send us off with an Irish band music. I could hear them tuning in the wind. We have formal tonight, and need to set up sooner, because Captain is bringing his family to be photographed... I hid behind SLSB to play the photographer in this case. I can't make such photos of the people I know. I can't do them they way I think people deserve, so I won't be the one making them. I am peefectly happy taking pics of giant gellyfish corpses and my own feet, bare in the sand.

I wrote down the conversation Kay has with Goose as he is dying, about how easily art can be saved. How it has actually saved itself already, and the artists with it. Look. Can you see it? It's as plain as day. I know it feels like we are all temple-keepers of St.Luke's in Liverpool, but look. It was right THERE all along, the good answer.

I ate more strawberries, wholewheat bread with dry goat cheese and chutney, and home made apple juice, offered by the locals. Thank you, ship, for bringing me to these places. I forgive you for putting me through hell in your entrails. But thank you for middays like today. Mum asked me how this cruise was. It was perfect. 

I can tell you about the future, too. My future is like a bit of breat being torn off for a bite. Let's see. Tonight the band will say goodbye by playing me 20 minutes slow jam called Nina's Blues and tomorrow, in the tiny town of Falmouth I will find another waterfront cafe with the menus written in chalk, owned by a beautiful woman, who will serve me coffee in a bucket, play for me some easy corner radio music that can't be identified, or Shazzamed, and I will go out to find handmade postcards. I'll buy butter shortbread and hide in a seaman's mission until it stops raining. I'll check the bus timetables to Paris and tell the General to go fuck himself for not telling me how much pain he's in. At some point I will stop in my tracks, between what's coming and what's been, between a bookstore and a castle, between a train station and a ship, my pockets full of town maps and sea shells, and I will feel everything at once all over again. 

Do you have any idea

How hard it is

To re-assemble my corporeal being

From grains of glassy sand

And tiny shards of crushed seashells

The carnivore seaweed

And pizza plate sized jellyfish corpses

The comuli clouds on my sky

The grass that would cut through my jeggings

The tiny dog in a bowtie hairclip

that came to sniff me

The laughter of kids in swimtrunks in the distance

The ravens picking on crab pincers

A random condom tangled in driftwood

The sound of none of my thoughts

The smell of the world in the wind

The nobody that I find myself almostbbeing

Consciousness that I needn't harness

A heart designed to beat a hundred

The brain eighty

And the teeth to grind for fifty years

To unstuck myself from the planet

Get up, get the windbreaker on

Beat the sand off the camera bag

Put on the cap, shake the shoes

Walk back to the quay

To the coffin of salty iron

That is my ship?

Every cell in my body is glued to a silt grain.

Do you have any idea how much

Of willpower it takes to become me again?

10.1 Shetland and Ireland and other cool British stuff...

Sitno >>155<<

Southampton, turnaround, breakfast. Off day, so had four croissonts, apple juice and Nutella (since I didn't really have any lunch or any dinner yesterday, just a fruit salad for supper and some chocolate and tonic when I was too hungry to fall asleep :p) Reading a little bit of Wild, because miss hiking. Keep thinking which avenue of approach to take to convince the General to do the Appalachian or PCT or Santiago de Compostella walkabouts with me... I don't really care which one, as long as I can spend a few months walking and staring at green.. Though I would maybe kind of prefer for it to be warm... And without grizzlies. 

Compostella it is, then. :D

I just realised that Larry the Officer Mess Keeper calls SLSB 'sir'.

'How are you this mornig, sir?'

'Gud.'

..

On a much happier subject, I also realised that the reason why the General isn't too keen on bringing my family to the port in autumn, to see my ship and me, has nothing to do with logistics or weather. 

He simply does not want to share me..

This just made me learn there is another level of which one can be in love with their husband. I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, looking much smaller now, I mean a lot thinner, thinking what could I possibly do for our date to make me the utmost attractive... Dye my hair golden blonde? Wear a playfull, long summer dress? Heels? A beautiful hat? He probably won't recognize me, or even like me in the long run, since it is the gritty bubbly trooper he married, but for that one date? I desperately want to seduce him, want him to gawk when heb meets this extraordinary woman he's only been corresponding and Skyping with for so long. You know? You don't often get a second chance at a first impression. 

That said, there are a lot of peroxyde blondes on this ship - and only one flaming redhead.

..Off to photograph the shopwindow display of the Ikea kitchen he's been renovating for me.. 

Later

Got it, got the kitchen. Will sketch and measure and count everything, including the Pantone code for the color.. Am leaning towards Pine Green or Artichoke.. Called mum and dad, who miss me too much and really need to learn about Skype, otherwise we'll leave most of my salary to the phone company. Dad always gets tearful when I am describing the magnificent cities I travel to and he is proud of my viewpoints and a sense of taking it all in, my inherited veganon's soul... Mum's just proud she can use ShipLocator and GoogleMaps and Instagram.

Embarcation went through. Odd crowd, though. In retrospect I shouldn't have said that to the visiting Land Manager, when he asked how is the embarcation going. I said: "Pathetic. Miserable, cheap, rude people. The usual, then." I should have remembered he doesn't care about honesty. Only people that matter are the likes of SLSB, who regardless of how hard the job is, how many people are nasty or all-inclusive, know how to get money out of them. And that's not me.

One of the female pax tried to hit a small room stewardess, thinking it was me. (I invite the lot to pose for SLSB taking the shots and when my roomie was doing the video footage and the stewardess was inviting the people inside, the woman swung at her.) 

Am looking forward to this cruise, especially the north. With a little luck it will be bleak and drizzly, same as it was in the time of Vikings :D

Sitno >>154<<

Ate too much last night, spent a lot of time in the bathroom as consequence. Cleared a whole new level of Vegetables Vs. zombies, as the English call my favorite toilet-time game. It's a sea day today, so am not gonna eat anything and drink only a little. Learnt that is the surest way not to get queasy at the of worst times: first formal tonight. Should be interesting. But there are going to be a lot of ports this cruise. I have to ask how SLSB wants me to take the pics, as we continue to get complaints of my pushyness... I already cannot think of a way to be less intrusive. So what do I do? Diminish the rollcount and just take couples? People still come to see them the next day and say 'oh, that's not half bad that is. I'll have it...' Hm. 

Well, he's the boss, let him make that call. 

Eve

Poor burnt down sister ship, it just isn't its season. They have less than a week to fix their wiring if they are to embark on their Arctic, most profitable of cruises, with three millions worth of pre-sold seats. And it doesn't look good. They were planning on dry-docking it for a month to elevate its rating to five stars in November, which considering the clientelle seems highly unlikely. Our LandManager, having failed to persuade anyone else to come to this ship, is lending us their photo manager and their videographer come next turnaround, or so I'm told. That'll be, what, the third or fourth option by now? He is sending a newbie there instead, an unusual executive decision. And remember the jeweler from a couple of months ago, who was all wise and telling us how to make money? I overheard the shop department talking how they are getting the jeweler who hasn't made any decent money in eons (if you ask her it was everybody else's fault) and we ourselves haven't made target in a while. That is also everybody else's fault. There are indeed funny pax this cruise, and I don't mean in a giggly way. A man attempted to provoke first, then humiliate me in front of his parents, which were too old to truly understand what was happening. They were embarassed later and bought the ohotos. I apologized for the inconvenience of having tried to photograph them, thanked them and moved on. He was the kind of person who would abuse a woman in front of his family and then say something like: 'I can get you fired if I want.' Yes, sir, I know. You and everyone else. 

While I stood outside the restaurant, waiting for the second sitting to end, the old doctor came out, swearing like only a Croatian man can swear and which cannot even be translated into English with enough juice to it. Something like: Fuck these cunts, eh, my gold? (My gold is a way of calling someone my darling in Croatian, but simultaneously calling them your child.) We looked at one another and couldn't decide if this is a crying or laughing matter. I cannot tell if the world has always been like this or is it getting worse. I think it has always been like this, I was just a little small at first, and only noticed things close to the floor..

Over a meal, the doctor and another excursions woman from Croacia were discussing the shithole that Sri Lanka is. Not compared to India, compared to India it's paradise, The Beach and all that, but the doctor said that when he was there, they tried to sell him a three year old girl for 5000 dollars. Not in the adoptive sense. They scouted for excursion locations and came upon a small camp where people came at them with machettes. They said that if people come on ships to this shores by day, it may be okay. But there were people who came after sundown. Three people. They are still here, in those little piles behind the sheds in the ground. Problem being that people come to these villages to snatch people for organ harvesting. So, no to Sri Lanka for a decade or so. The doctor said how the scouting party he was a part of explained how they have to go make pancakes on the ship and will be right back.. You can imagine the speed of which they raised the anchor...

The captain is making his utmost effort to be talked about across the ship. On turnaround day he pushed a pram all around the ship, from the mess to the gangway decks so that everyone could see his baby and all the women were going 'ooh, what an adorable baby booooyy!..' He took photos with the dancers and today, while I was portraying a woman in her formal gown, he jumped in on the shoot, grabbed her and demanded I take them together. Now I have a bunch of photos of a very large man smelling of cigarettes embracing a very uncomfortable looking (good looking) woman in her fifties, who did her best to smile and generally failed. Old ladies, who tend to swoon over tall men in fancy uniforms, asked me if I would like to be on a photo embraced by the captain as well. 

I conjure the same expression I make an efford to put on when someone mentiones royalty. Did you know prince that and that was there and there that day?.. 

No, I did not know that. Do you know that when I first arrived for a couple of days I had nothing but lettuce for lunch?

I couldn't sleep tonight, even if I wanted to, as there is a party going on in the Crew Dayroom. There is pretty much a party going on in Crew Dayroom every night. It is no wonder why people on ships like these drink every night. I tried going to the gym until 1am in hopes they'll grow tired until, but they're still blasting. I bumped into the current Chief on my way down the steps to deck 1, who laughed it's too crowded for him. He was optimistically in his formal uniform. He clearly hasn't gone to many crew parties before. But at least they're playing 80's disco and rock, which isn't so bad. I grew up on that music. I'll just shower and grab a book and read until either them or I pass out. 

Sitno >>153<< hmmmm....

Been an unusually good morning... I mean it's nine, the day hasn't really had time to find anyone to fuck me over yet, but that considering, it's been a really nice day so far. It's even clearing up, stopped drizzling and big white puffy clouds are letting through some azure sky and sunshine. Seaguls and ravens are circling a cool looking Scottish town. Dundee. While shooting gangway, one of the deck cadets explained that we have an osmosis machine on board - a machine that is turning sea water into fresh water as we move! .. I did not know that! That shit is awesome! Supposedly subs use it as well, so there goes my favorite irony: to die of thirst on a submarine... 

I ate two breakfasts, my usual oatmeal and apple at seven and at half past nine my first French toast (puffy and with cinnamon, my goodness...) and a tiny sandwich with a lot of wallnuts and pineapple on the side .. Also drank like a camel, as I hardly drank anything yesterday and spent an hour sweating in the gym. Was too tired in the gym, though, my heart wasn't in it. I just moved from one bizarre aparatus to the next, hoping to get my body somewhat less petrified and my joints any-what lubricated. Which I did, I feel better now.

SLSB is on to me. He noticed that when I photograph people with one light turned off, I do that purposefully... I did so to Rog last night, a guy who works here and is kind of nice to everyone... Rog is okay. Was hoping to get a good photo of him. Normally we are never to format the card before the next day, but, you guessed it, when I picked up the card, it was completely wiped out. That's tricky, considering he may still need the photos of the first formal should the computer fail again. But I am sure he would find a way to blame me.. SLSB cannot abide the concept of anyone taking portraits without the intention of charging for them. It upsets him like the idea of peaceful existance upset Achilles. Minus the stuff of legend stuff. SLSB is as nameless and smallminded as can be. I've spent every day with that man for three months and I still cannot for the life of me remember his last name. In three months he has only spoken to me once. 

Out of curiosity, passed the gallery this morning and all of my yesterday's photos were... Freaking perfect. Every single one. Perfectly framed. Perfectly lit. Perfectly toned. Skin tones: flawless. Accidental tilts: gone. Composition: ideal. Backgrounds... picturesque.

I stood in the hallway blinking at them dumbfounded. The Crazy Russian Safety Officer Guy came by and looked at what I am looking at. I said: "They are excellent, every single one. He has never developed them well before, he always makes sure they are awful. I used the exact same settings as every time. Can you see? They're GOOD. It's scary."

"Ah, I see. Yoo have some tenshion in yoor deepartment."

"Every department has stuff going on."

"Yis. I also had some things go on this morning."

"Happens, unavoidably. Wanna go to the gym and have a fist fight?"

"That akchually sounds like good idea."

We had a cool Chemicals Safety Ed yesterday. He talks fast and in a heavy accent, but as a fellow Slav I can understand him perfectly and he's funny.

"What happenz if yoo mix acids and alcalis, eh? How yoo go home? Hm? How? Best case scenareeo is fire. Worst case, how yoo go home? In a box. What happenz if you drop *something something in a pool of something? Usee common senz. How yoo go home?"

Everybody: In a box.

"What happenz if you (mix something something with something) .. How yoo go home?"

Everybody: In a box.

"What happens if you smoke in the room where we have grease cutters? How yoo go home?"

"In a box."

"No. In ashtray."

Decided to use my free, limbo time (had to shoot at eight and will have to shoot again at twelve.. You know, so there is no virtual chance of me going to town to Skype..) to try my luck with the tailor. I walked down with my size 20 skirt which I never wore, to beg for a size 14, or 16 or 12. He was actually in a good mood. He looked at me and said 'U size 12, no?' And tossed me a 14 and a 12, which I managed to get in quite easily, though it is rather tight if I sit down and drink half a gallon of my watered down coffee. No worries. Give me another week. Now all I have to figure out is how to get my size 14 shirt around my size 14 torso and size 24 breasts.  

On minus side, one of my ears feels slightly heavy, hurting if I put in the iPod earphone, and my port side (left) thumb hurts. Standing in freezing and windy cold for a few hours will do that to you. I always worry something will get inflamed, some tendon or some small bone. The ears I don't worry about, I can work with oily ears. But an inflamation of a metacarpal from having spent two hours photographing and eight hours selling the pics, that would be a bitch.

Okay. Had my fourth coffee. I am prepared for the day to get worse at any moment. Ready and armed. The idea pf osmosis machine just made my morning, so let's see what direction the blow will come.

Eve.

Ha! Ha ha. Yes. A blow came indeed. Of course it did. 

For a moment there, the world got even better. My shoppie bossom buddie and I offed to explore, it was sunny and warm and beautiful. We loved the town. Everyone spoke in the most sexy Scottish accent and the street bums played the pipes while begging for coins. I got THIS close to buying a two foot BB-8 toy for 40 pounds. But I know myself, so I only had ten in my wallet. But next we went into a comic book store and after I made all kinds of crazy noises at the new titles (”I've been completely out of Reality for three months! Look at all this stuff! I don't even know if Gaiman finished his fucking latest Sandman or not, and look at all the new Saga! Nailbiter! Wytches! Still at the volume 1! And what is this?! Beauty? Holy fuck, this shit looks amazing!..." I also started breathing heavily over anime posters, mainly pretty much everything to do with Attack on Titan. (Why hello there, Levi, it's nice to see you again.. Haven't had sexy thoughts about you for a long while..)

The delightful young thing behind the counter, who turned out to be the owner of the store, came to life listening to me and totally explained all the good stuff of the Horror genre. We established I have just enough money for a single volume and she decided that should be Revival, since I have not read that before. Seriously, though, if I brought my whole salary along, this is where I would leave it. We exchanged our contacts and Podcast recommendations and I left high as a kite on soumateship.

Then it came, the blow. I found wifi and opened my email and in it a letter from the LandManager. Here, I'll copy-paste it:

I feel compelled to say how disappointed I was with your comments when I introduced you to our new Video Operator for Black Watch on Wednesday.

I have always offered you support, listened to your concerns and given you regular opportunities to talk to me.

Your comments and use of expletives are both unwelcome and unnecessary in that situation.

If you wish to vent your frustrations to me in future, please do so in private.

That felt like being punched in the gut, even though I pretty much knew why he was lashing out: I think I may have spooked the newbie he was training. He couldn't afford to lose anyone anymore and he was going to throw another one to the wolves and I might have gotten in the way of that a little bit. I wrote back I should have mayhap kept my grace and not tried to help, coming off as robust and too direct for an English taste, even if I only wanted her to understand the first month is the worst and if she feels like there is something wrong with her for feeling awful, it isn't and it passes. 

It still felt like having the rug pulled out from under me, now finally abandoned also by the LandManager, whom I felt gratitude towards until now, and compassion for he has a lot on his plate. That's over. But I called the General and suddenly the acidic tears that kept boiling from my tired eyes hit all the right chain links and the chains on me began giving. The General said: just come home. I said I want to make another grand to pay for his Detective's exam. He said: ye, okay, if you want, but as soon as you do that, just come home.

Bognor was the size of a pug when I marched cheerfully, begining to feel finally liberated, back to the ship. 

The countdown to the end of my sentence is now going to alter a little bit. I'll count it somewhat differently for a little while. 

Sitno >>152<< or >>75<< or <>1000-140<>

I took half of an anti-depression pill (I ownly have the one, so didn't want to waste all of it) today, because I couldn't stop crying during gangway and didn't want to do anything rash or stupid if I reached the end of my fuse. It was painfully cold, windy and cloudy, and the people continued to treat me horribly. It really hurts to try and do your job while an endless procession of rich old strangers spits insults at you:

"Sir, may I take your photo?"

"No, get lost."

"Hello, madam, would you like me to take your photo?"

"Oh, you're not getting my money."

"Good morning sir, madam, will you stand together for a nice photo?"

"Not you again. Can't you find a proper job?"...

After a hundred people say such things to you on such a day, you can't really stopy crying anymore. The Crazy Russian Safety Officer came by and he has this way of standing with his face really close to yours, with large dangerous green eyes and those Arnold Vosloo features. He kept wiping the tears off my cheeks, but like they were something bothering him, not like he actually wanted to be gentle. I mean he was, he was making an effort to save me from caving in, he just did it in a way a cookie thumper would. I said to him: "This job is SOULCRUSHING. I stand for hours in the wind, in the rain, treated like bird shit, and then I stand for six hours more in the gallery"... , trying to sell them to people who call them 'disgusting' 'terrible' 'awful' and 'we're not impresed. I wouldn't pay you sixty pence for these, yet alone six pounds.'... And I make 800 pounds a month. For what? 

Like the Seascape guy a few months, he told me that I signed a contract and now I need to arrange myself to commit to it, to live up to it and not think like a quitter. Because yes, I was frightfully close - one more argument close, in fact - to quitting today. I just want to go home. 

But I promised myself not to make any giving-in decisions on rainy days, before I had coffee and before the new manager arrives. 

Oh, don't know if I mentioned: that third option, from the burnt down sister ship, who was supposed to replace the guy who was replacing the guy who was replacing SLSB, he denied, too. We are now getting possibily no.4. 

I turned around to look at the Ingvergordon dock, full of spare parts for the oil rigs, and there was Bognor, the size of a mountain. But sleeping. Hermes did his best to help by stopping the winds and we have a whole new shipment of chocolates at the bar, so a whole new array of gastric gems I haven't sampled before... 

You wouldn't believe me if I told you I am posting this from a Seaman's mission which is INSIDE a church WHILE someone is playing the organ. Unreal. 

The church folk also gave me a hand knitted wooly cap. They were handing them out to the lot. But it came very useful, because this place is FREEZING. I took a Bryson from their free-to-take shelves, went to the first art market, bought a beautiful photo of the green lights which can at times be visible around here, went to the second art market and bought a sterling silver pendant of a tree, then went to their tiny museum of local naval and medical history, where they gave me a list of rules for schoolteachers, such as having to wear AT LEAST two pettycoats and never loiter in places such as ice-cream parlors, yet alone never ever dying their hair... 

Guess the rules haven't changed all that much since. We have a rule list similar. Our underwear has to be appropriate so as not to deviate from the uniform (solved that problem nicely, unless I have to climb into another life boat), our hair must be a natural color, we have to be groomed (i.e. shaved to the gills), we cannot walk around with a drink in our hands, we cannot sit down to watch a show or at the Observatory deck... 

I went to the afternoon tea serving at the buffet and started reading The Revival, which is as spooky and gruesome as I need it to be... That feeling, when I look up from the pages, my bone marrow creeped out of it's frame, and realize I am actually having coffee and cake in a room full of people I don't care very much about ... Those are the good literary stuff moments. 

Course it's not true, either. I do care for these people. I cry over these people. Every cruise I choose a favorite and this cruise it's an old lady with a mind of a child that I cry at the very thought of. She would spend ten minutes showing me the photo of her with the captain, so proud. So proud. Because I took the time to admire it, she would come back for another fifteen minutes of showing me a photo she took of the sunset. She is so cheerfull, so happy, her wit is so pure and simple, I am humbled to my knees with shame of dreading them. I want to know more people like that. I want to BE more people like that. 

I have to be better than that. I need more strenght. The pill I took, that makes me feel like I have a soft warm baloon tied to the back of chest and it's lifting me out of the gutter, but it is not saving me from the rest of my spirit seeping through my fingers like wet sand. 

I need to be stronger.

I need to stop sinking.

The cavern of my chest cannot be filled with empty villages in the rain and bitter strangers whose stories I am deaf to purposefully, awere all they do is lash out... 

Wake up, heart, come on. You'll be seeing me again very soon, so cheer up. Come on. Cheer up. Go out into the rain and take a photo of a behemoth oil rig. It took them ages to build it this close to your ship, just for you. 

Sitno >>?<<

No, fuck it. SLSB repremanded me for coming in a minute too late. He saw me taking photos of the pipers band as the ship was leaving the quey. How dare I. .. Not two, not three. A minute. He said: from now on you come to work fifteen minutes before the hour.

Fuck this shit. I can't breathe like this. And the best part, when I said I am resigning, he said: "But why? I am leaving. You will not have problems after anymore..." 

Yes, thank you for admiting, but my soul is caving in. 

He refused to let me use the net to contact the LandManager, so I sought out the Hotel Manager and I asked him to print me out a resignation papers. Two pens failed me while I was filling out the form. Sorry, Triton, I know you will miss me. But this job was soulcrushing. 

I will be back. Unless they strand me out of spite, I still have two months to work anyway. But I will be back. Possibly as a librarian. 

9.2: German waterways part two, second time around..

Sitno Fiorina >>161<<

Travemunde, an old furniture/handmade jewelry/fish salad serving cafe by the waterfront. I was invited to a picnic, but the weather is perfect for a bit of melancholy introspection, so am hiding from my shipmates in the corner of an establishment that feels like the same one every time. I always find the nerdy French-like old-chairs and wooden tables and old posters on the walls places. I can see the shippies passing, wind flailing around their coats and hair. People not sure how to dress: for the moments of bright sunlight or drizzly gloom. Everything feels kind of a little bit bad on days like this. My body, the sky, my financial status, talking to G, my feet which hurt if I want to buy new shoes, calling Gran who wants me back, dad who isn't picking up the phone because he is worried it will be bad news, the fact my mum discovered Instagram and I miss her, oddly enough, my job, the fact I don't have a single pen to write the postcards...

But no. I need to feel bad some days, some hours, I order myself to feel bad. Bognor has to have his bad poetry while seaguls chicks shit on him. There has to be something wrong, otherwise I'm missing something. I prefer if it's the inner, the bullshit things. Not the Real things.

In truth I took 320 pics of gangway (AFTER I deleted all of the ones I didn't like), people are nice to me, even SLSB for some strange reason. I bought the cool fedora and nerdy wild sunglases for 4eur, and will borrow a pen to write the retro postcards to the General, while I drink a bucket of white coffee and cherry crumble pie with whipped cream, which I ordered IN GERMAN. Adorable shanson music is playing on the radio in several languages and the people sitting at the next table are eating salad with potatoes cooked/baked in aluminum foil. I am so much the Traveling Auntie Max it's not even funny. The melancholie is just there because I washed the General's T-shirt and now it no longer smells like him. Bognor has been doing his best to skid over it several times, just so that it would smell anything but the ship's laundrette. I put the fedova over him and told him to shut up. I'm contemplating buying a thin notebook to write letters to DOo in, or would that be too weird?... Ye, it would be kinda weird. And there's your answer. :D

Eve

Ah, so that's why when I think I took over 300 pics there's always only like 200 on the wall: SLSB chooses on his own which he will print or not. Okay. Not a problem. I think they are too many as it is. You get people who stop, hug, smile and pose happily, only to later inform you they never buy them anyway. Or you get people shooing you away only to come later to complain the pictures are never good. No, you think? 'I'm not photogenic.' Oh, really, did you just decide that? Fine. Whatever.

I was right - it WAS a bad day. People I know broke up and I missed supper because I was talking to a woman whose father died when she was on a cruise just like this one a year ago. She returned to find him in a coma and then she had to make a decision to pull the plug. That has been plagueing her soul since. We talked about painting yourself into a corner with guilt: you are desperate for forgiveness of the one person who is no longer around to offer any absolution. Personally I don't believe in forgiveness, but in her case I don't believe in guilt either. I think it's stupid to make the loved ones make such decisions, though it is probably a form of closure, like funerals. I also don't think her father would want her one emotion to come to her mind when speaking or thinking of him to be guilt. It's not my issue to solve, though. Looks like he was a huge chunk of her existance anyway, much bigger than it should have been. Some dads are like that.

But a lot better and a much more appropriate subject was one I had with an older lady. She told me she has no family or anyone to give her things to, so when she sold her apartment and all her things to move to a smaller retirement unit, she took all her photos, burnt them, and scattered the ashes around the bushes in her garden. I told her I am a great denier of entropy and also believe that nothing that already exists can ever be lost, just transformed, so the blooms on those bushes will have old memories in their sap and after they die, grass or new flowers will bloom with those same fundamental carbon elements. I think I would do that to my books if I thought they were mortal. I'm reading a spectacular little novel on the subject, actually, one that had me from the first page and still has me completely, I can hardly cheat on it with another: Jean-Paul Didierlaurent's The Reader on the 6.27...

Went to the gym but my femoral biceps is so tense it felt like it was burning when I tried to run, so I just walked lenghtily and quickly. Will continue to eat bananas. Or fritte bananas. Same, right?

Sitno >>160<<

In Hamburg, after Kiel Kanal dragged like watching an ice cube melt on you plate. Fuuuuck, today was a long day. Everybody wanted the ship to dock already, but because it is full of Englishmen and we are in the middle of Germany, they made sure we are a couple of hours late. Everyone is going out tonight, a bit after midnight. In theory, that does sound fun. Dancing, drinking, laughing, flirting with people you will never even ask their name... In reality, all I want to do is drink my gin tonic minus the gin, pretend I'm a smoker and a poet, write letters, edit pics and talk to G. I dyed my hair again, leaving the bathroom looking like I slaughtered a small Thai. I'll go to the quay just to stretch my legs, but I won't leave the ship to go to the red district. Too lazy. I'm getting up early tomorrow to go to Miniature Wonderland. And to the Concentration camp in the afternoon. How is that for a Saturday schedule? 

Sitno >>159<<

Spent the night trying to skype through a shitty connection, or google Ikea kitchens, sent an email to DOo and listened to music, until at three I finally forced myself to sleep some, only to get up again at seven. Offed to see the Miniatures, which was half nice half nasty: I am getting increasingly claustrophobic, or agoraphobic in my old age and after an hour of people pushing me, kids screaming and sweaty strangers breathing down my neck to move on, I didn't care much for the magnificent models anymore, and didn't even look at them at all, just took hundrets of pictures. I am not used to being a turist. Usually I photograph things after hours or just before the shows. No ambient music, and no sweating people. There should never be anything between a camera and the subject, only light. 

Eve

Tired and this fucking garbage of wifi is starting to irritate me enough to throw the fucking iPad though the fucking window. But then again I knew that hellshole of the concentration camp is going to freak me out.

I fucking hated it.

Hated it.

Not the camp, that shit was just stupid. I know what a camp is. I know that the Nazi party was still alive and prominent well into the sixties. I know that there have been plenty genocides since, some of them last week. I know that Germany thinks themselves a mighty place above the rest of the European nations all over again, which is history repeating itself and shitting itself laughing. I know why we do the things we do, why we are the the harbringers of horror.

Because we can.

Because we want to.

Because we like it.

Because history remembers the worst.

I spoke to nobody during the entirety of the fucking excursion. Fuck them all, I am not on their customer service mode today. I just cried and ground my teeth. The tour guide woman was cheerful and offered us a very warm welcome to the memorial site... 

I know. Fucking moron.

There was cheer and laughter and very clever coments and very stupid questions. Gruesome comments. Grotesque questions. Dumb, fucking fucking fucking dumb fucking people.

Oh, there was a brothel for the collaborators in the camp? How did they choose the women? What happened if they got pregnant? What happened to the children who were brought here? What happened to the old? What happened to the young?

They all fucking died you witless fucktard. They killed everybody. They took fucking notes watching them die and then they made their brothers bury them in the cess pits.

The worst parts were the prisoners' posessions: someone pencilled a drawing of their dog. Tiny, worn out photos of their wives and parents. Photos of them when they were young and happy and went together to a town photographer. Letters. Photos of them after they managed to survive being bombed by the Brits, screaming in the waves of a bloodthirsty ocean. That was a genius call on behalf of the Nazis, filling up the ships with POWs and then missinforming their own people. 

There was a beautiful young Slovenian woman, a librarian, arrested for being in the resistance. She survived, though, there's a shot of her as an old old lady, bringing the flowers to the commemoration ceremony. Many Slovenians here. I had no idea there were HUNDREDS of these camps. Hundreds.

If it was me, I would burn them all to the ground.

They do not deserve to be tourist locations with perfectly cut grass and some crazy sculptors going all out on making awful statues. 

The tourists do not deserve to see this and then talk about it on their fancy little tour busses. The likes me does not need to see it, does not deserve to walk through the same gate as those condemned. Can you imagine what it was like for my grandfather when they took his wife so that he would be kept in check? Can you imagine what it would be like if they took your spouse and sent them to a place where people died of starvation every day by the dozens? The likes of scum who built it do not give a shit, they would build another one tomorrow if the opportunity arose.

In fact that place was re-used as a prison in the seventies. Fucking brilliant. Tastefull and what not.

But there were no ghosts there today. I've never seen a site of genocide so peaceful. Like the beaches of Omaha are peaceful, and pleasant. And pretty. It was so wattered down, so many tiny souls long blown over by endless commemorations, politicians bullshitting, grandchildren demanding monetary compensations, Angela Merkel, prisoners, gift shops... Those ghosts are gone. Nobody who perished there is still there. I checked. Just rude, retarded turists. People who would not understand what horror is if somebody ... No. Doesn't matter.

The dumbest question, after all the really bad ones, is 'how did they ever move on from there? How did they continue living?'... Well, easily, really, madam, because the alternative would be letting their torturers have the last word. 

On a related subject, one of the ships in my fleet burnt down. I would laugh, but am too tired.

Sitno >>158<<

I actually felt sorry for SLSB today: I walked into the stuffy tiny lab to get the gallery keys and there he sat, small and worn out, trying to get the computer to work, trying to get the printing machine to work, trying to get the Land manager to answer his mails when can he go home. I am fairly certain by now that I will quit ahead of the end of my contract, because it is common practice around here to keep people as hostages, extending their contract without their consent to nine, ten months, refusing to pay their travel expenses... The General made the mistake of arguing with me on the subject. I was not in the mood. Though Bognor was unusually small today, and lazy, but a size of a fat buffalo, I was tired enough to weep by the time I finally got down the hangway and into the sleeping shopping mall, where enough wifi worked for me to see him. I told him: if I threaten to just walk away this minute, then yes, stop me, talk me out of it.. But if I say I am coming home fucking October, you say Finally!..

Those beautiful slender women on our ship, taken seriously, taken carefully... That's not me. That isn't the me that I kinda prouded myself on - though I am not saying I wouldn't want to give it a try. It's the rollerskate-ran-over little chicken shit that G fell in love with, though. It's just too weird that the men I like always seem to be such fucking realists and yet they get turned on by a deranged firecracker in an E cup. 

Right.

Sitno >>157<<

There are 438 steps on this ship

And my knees have saluted them all

I've actually found one uncharted before

One where my skirt has most of control

Oh boat, oh boat, oh life-saving boat

How uncomfy d'ye reckon ye get

It fits plus two hundret people inside

But I all I want now is to get wet.

I found a quiet spot in the officer's mess after hours, only to have a cheese-and-wine party come interrupt me. I don't mind. Sitting in the corner with Bognor on top of yourself kind of puts you in the same room with party people, but you are never quite, actually present. Besides, I already got my coctail dress on and my long red curly hair down and some silver around my wrists, so... I won't stand out any more than a small, recluse and melancholy poet in the corner of a public restaurant normally would.

No Bremen, no Bremen. It just isn't in the stars. No matter how lovely a day, no matter how pleasant it would have been to walk by the waterfront for an hour, no matter how well I prepare, there is always something in the way of me seeing Bremen. Today it was a life boat drill. First the captain got us all in the theatre and talked about the fleet ship that burnt down. Retarded accident, like always - while the auxiliary engines burned and melted all the cables, the power was obviously out, but guess what the water pumps run on... Yes. Electrical power. It took the crew eight hours, all the extinquishers and even the ice from the kitchens to cool down the melting chambers. Because of course you are going to make the pumps for putting the fire out of generators run on those same generators.

How do these things stay afloat I will never know. 

So, after the captain got tired of listening to his own voice, and mentioned that the next time there are some complaints, don't tell them to inspectors, come to him first (right), and got the microphone taken from him by the entertainment director, we were ordered to play the extras in the life boat testing. I was the first to run down and get a good seat. Was kind of hoping we will float around a little. Alas. That lasted until eleven or so, I got some food and then offed to check out the shoping mall and find a decent enough wifi for Skype. No such luck. We did the best we could for a few hours, then G finally went to sleep and I poked around the internet and spent my last two euros on quirky Primark (or something) sunglases. Went back, we had a dry version of a formal, breaking the lot up at half past nine instead of eleven. Not reachng target again. At least lately it's not being said it's my fault. 

I had a nice, decent dinner of salad and fruit salad, but now I am eating raw carrot sticks, wallnuts and ten different kinds of cheese, most of which are white, soft, mild and creamy. And very good. People have brought their own bottles of wine, but Larry left us some wine glasses, which is very classy. Universal ones. Expecting people here to know the difference between a red wine glass and white one would be pushing it. 

Sitno >>156<<

So the reason we're not making target this time is because dozens of customers complained their collections of photos cannot be completed, for there was no photographer on the gangway when they were exiting in Bremen. Practically everybody exited those three minutes that I ran down to get the spare set of batteries, or so they say. My flash didn't fire as often as I wanted it to for some reason and I panicked the batteries course has expired. Things fail all the time. I think I did the best that can be done by runnng down to get my spare set (SLSB spent five minutes reprimanding me, of course, how the agency demans flawless equipment, how I should have called him, how he always has a spare set in his pocket... (Yes, yes. All truths. All of it blemishless perfections.) As per usual, I found it wisest to keep perfectly quiet and so eventually his grave dissapointment and frustration of my inabilities wore off and he went back to work, fixing the printing machine which breaks down every day, editing the photos he managed to shoot out of focus.). Turns out it wasn't the batteries at all, it was that I in a hurry didn't connect the hotshoe between the flash and the camera just rightly. It was okay, but it wasn't 100%. Bottom line, I missed some people. All of which obviously only went out that day to have that particular gangway photo taken. 

Eve

Got fed up with having to wear a too large jacket, so managed to squeeze myself into a size ten, but then I had a cup of coffee and couldn't button it anymore. Looks good open, too. Now all I need is a smaller skirt and we're all set. Bye bye size 16 forever. Size 12, here I come. After tomorrow..

Celebrating the end of the cruise by drinking my Britvic tonic water, eating some expired old chocolates and getting some new books from the library. Found another old Bryson, Down Under. But mostly it's crime stuff, a read-once stuff. I miss good old fantasy fiction. Will write a letter to the author of the one I'm reading now, though, that shit's amazing. 

9.1 - German waterways, again - pt.1

Oh, are you fucking kidding me? Tom left, too?? Hermes!!!? Bad Hermes! No cookie!

Sitno >>165<<

Okay, so, to be totally forthcoming, by the end of the turnaround five people leaving hugged and kissed me goodbye, told me they loved me and to take care and I told them I loved them, too, and I'll be seeing them soon (though probably never). So I may not be quite as faithfull a wife as I claim, though still. Pretty faithfull. Nobody's seen me naked or anything, except those eleven thousand people on the beach... The General is not too happy with me, I think. Last time we talked he was shaving with his gurkha knife. 

But ye, Turnaround in Southampton; though no chandelier tent this time. Aww. Couldn't sleep, so watched English alternative to dawn and it was actually sunny for a change, for about a minute. Wrote a story about The Sun and The Cloud, a romance. Better yet, as nobody's got time for that, wrote a lazy poem. It's about a young hot sun just going about his adventures and an older, large lady of clouds, who tries to catch him every evening with her various gowns and veils and drags him to bed.

Went to mess and am writing you, my dear blog, my adorably indescrete and not at all secret journal, until a civilised enough time to get into human clothing and off to the famous shopping mall of Southampton, to see if there is anything there I will consider after we return from Germany. Anything other than the ludacrisly overpriced Pandora bracelets. I'm gonna go check if I can buy the cheap maritime themed knock-offs in the shop next door.

What time does it open, I wonder?

Mess is a good time to hide from inspectors, since it's usually the first place they check and then leave it alone for the duratipn of their stay. What are the odds I, walking around in improper clothing (meaning anything that isn't the uniform) walk straight into an inspector? Plenty. Odds of me walking into them while THEY's walking in tandem with Hotz is even bigger. Poor Larry, our dining officer's mess waiter, who came in late today, was so tired from living up to the norms, burnt hus hand, cut his lip, fussed best as he could, and then managed to serve the wrong eggs, they were all completely raw. The doctor, a little grumpier and thiner after the gastrovirus episode, sat behind DOo and the two talked about the 'inspection of inspector's ears' - who after an undisclosed event could not hear on one ear and the one he was bleeding from, he could hear on a little...

... Well, I know we passed... Is that why we passed? Did we kill the poor inspector??...

I hope not. He wasn't a bad guy. 

Most people on the ship seemed to be cheerful. Tom came to hug and kiss me again. The grumpy too strict Safety Officer declared him leaving a great loss for Assembly Station C. Later the Safety Officer guy got his breakfast, dropped his plate noisily in front of me, sat opposite of me and we talked, through we usually argue. He talks to me like he can't answer a question, he can only dissagree with me. The refrigeration guy came and snarled, asking, provocatively, if I am going to cry after the Chief. I replied, calmly, that actually yes. I probably might. He swore at me and ate somewhere else. Tom's roommate, usually a distant and frowning man, when I asked if he is going to miss Tom, said that no, of course not, he's happy Tom's leaving. Then he opened the door to his cabin (we're on the same floor), saw it half empty and began to scream and collapse against the door frame. "Tom?! Where are you, Tom?! nooooo!!... Come back! TOM!?"

He was still screaming when I stepped over him and threw over my shoulder: "Tom is gone, baby."

But no, of course I'm not gonna cry, at least not today, I'm in too good of a mood. I will allow myself some melancholy, just to keep Bognor fed*. FPP told me the guy who is supposed to replace SLSB quit and won't be coming, so some other option is being hoped for. Poor land manager. I would feel sorry for him, if our wages weren't half of what a normal human makes for half the hours (and weekends off), for contract that only desperate people agree to and even that was BEFORE sterling lost value dramatically. Fucking Crew Accounds refuses to exchange my money. I need to find some other way to wire things home; I can't leave a 100 bucks to Western Union every time... :/

Didn't think I'll see him again, but DOo walked in among the first people, got his food and sat right opposite of me. After breaking enough eggs to learn none is boiled (He was sweet, he said to Larry something like: I do prefer them soft, but maybe just a little harder?), I gave him some final instructions on how to practice the Leaky Submarine on his girlfriend and we joked about the kitchen chef, who was not at all happy today about footbal results. Wasn't happy either, that someone filled in the gaps in the mess board poster ahead of time, favoring the wrong team. We agreed we do not want to fuck with Siggi this morning. DOo laughed I should also choose my words more carefully. I laughed I said much worse back in the day, remembers?, when he was flirting - which is something we cannot do now, when we are friends.

'Why you make such fast conclusions?'

'Oh, fuck you, I told you to kiss me yesterday and you flat out refused.'

'I did not refuse! But there is a saying 'a rooster does not crow when he is told to.''

'Yes, mister old farm wisdom, there is also a saying 'where there is no will there are excuses.''

'You have such strong determination to have the last word.'

'Yes!'

He got up, took his plates and offed to do the possition exchange. He turned, just before leaving, laughing: 'YES!'

'Luv ya!'

>Another moment when people in the dining mess stopped talking and tried to pretend they are not listening. DOo walked out, nodding his head, laughing at me, the crazy fury that I was and I laughed at the dirty old bastard that he is (or not at all, when no-one is looking), so brave in the daylight at six in the morning :D

The shopping mall doesn't seem to open until ten, so I will load some Instagram pics to post later. The guest relations manager walked in, just as I was preparing to leave. For a moment we were alone, so I asked about the captain situation. She got upset with me knowing things and stormed out. Naive creature. This fleet seem to favor their captains tall and dark, but not always very bright or even all that particularly decent. I should show her one or two YouTube videos featuring a top deck yacuzzi. But no, she's freaked out as it is. Another one of the nice officers, an old chubby man came to say goodbye, hugged me and kissed my cheek and we exchanged FB handles. I sat in my corner, feeling completely centered. 

Stopped traffic in the quay parking lot to make sure a family of mama duck and baby ducklings made it across safely by ushering them while she quakked at me angrily.

Offed to the shopping mall. Loved the kitchens they had in Ikea. Damn. I could totally do with a dark green kitchen, I see that now. The shopping mall was large, but I didn't have time to look at any of the shops really. I found a spot where thirty seamen from my ship did their usual headphones and cellphones formaviva and joined them to speak to G about what happened, before I post it on the blog. I did feel a little bit guilty. Back home we don't hug and kiss and say 'honey' and 'darling' to people. I'd say: 'Morning, handsome,' to someone I like and they'd say back: 'Morning, beautiful, morning, GORGEOUS.' People have picked up their teeth for less where I am from. The grit of it is I mean it, too, all of it. I DID have feeling for all of them, they were exceptionally kind and friendly lot and I will miss them awfully. Ships are terrifically lonely places. Those few you DO find common GROUND with, tend to reach the heart. Looks like he doesn't want to read you, journal, because he doesn't doubt my constancy and does understand I need to have some stories and secrets of my own and occasionally like some other people beside him. My passion for him could not be smaller, nor does me being fond of DOo chip anything away from the massive granite block that is my awe of the General. I am a human and can have more than one emotion at a time.

The funny thing about the shopping mall: three ladies came to stand beside us at half ten. It was twenty minutes before they realised we are NOT a queue and no, the Apple store isn't selling anything special, it just has good wifi. Now tell me the English don't like to queue. They just saw one and joined us instinctively!

Worked in the gallery and the halls felt fucking stupid. I suffered the same odd sadness that I suffered when I first got here... I kept looking if I will see DOo round a corner. Every time the walkie talkies came to life, I listened if it is going to be his voice and what is he going to say; is it going to be polite or is it going to be funny? The door on the posh deck was just a door I used to know, a room I used to like and know. I could climb the forward stairway without a single knot in my stomach. Every time I stared out of the window into the gray sea, I made sure I am positioned attractively and strategically so that he won't be able to sneak up on me. Dumb things, you know. Insignificant trifles. That made days shorter.

Earlier, after I got dressed in the morning, on my way to West Quey, I walked out to find him leaning on the railing, overlooking the refueling deal thingie. I held him and kissed him on his back and asked how much fuel can we take. "In fact, wait, what happens if we run out of fuel? Do we sink?"

"What? Why would we sink?"

"If a plane runs out of fuel, they're in trouble, you know?"

...

That expression, right between a facepalm and giving me a face palm. He took my shoulders, started turning me around and pushing me away. "I think you better go now."

"I'll be going now."

"Go."

And that was that for DOo. Like the song says, I didn't want his future, I didn't need his past, one right moment is all I asked... And several good moments stacked one upon another towards the end. In fact, come to consider it, knowing this man has just had the entirety of dialogue between Paper and Rommel for 'Dread' written for me. 

Sitno >>164<<

Bognor (A name I got because I am just reading the new Bryson and in my language 'bog' means God and 'nor' means crazy) is the demon of my loneliness. It is easier for me to deal with him if he is outside my body, so that is where he is lingering now. Though he is a very friendly and sweet demon and doesn't know what he is, really, or that he is doing anything wrong. He is about ten feet tall, and wide, in fact he would fit nicely in a family swimming pool, and he looks kind of like a very fat, slobbery, witless three-headed dog who is still a pitbull puppy, like Cerberus's fat dumb cousin. He follows me around and waits for me to do things. He fills up large rooms nicely, but has a problem chasing me down narrower corridors of the steerage and doesn't know exactly where to turn in my cabin. He doesn't fit at all too well in the passenger mess, but kind of does in the officer's mess. The photo gallery is his favorite spot, as there the passengers walk through him or step over him, and he rubs his back against the window frames while I look out or the rought edges of the photos that remain on the display wall as they don't get bought. He slobbers all over the place, but comes when I call him to heel and then rolls down the stairs with me. His favorite time is when I am looking outside, though, when I sit with a cup of coffee and stare at the sea. By some odd magic he can fly very well, or at least leap very bouyantly, and he plays just by the ship, sliding down windows or jumping over waves, his grinning drool and flapping tongue mixing with the sea spray. Come, Bognor. Time to shoot the first formal. Come. Put on a dickie bow.

Sitno >>163<<

Did cry yesterday, angry, enough stuff stuck together and Bognor incidentally sat on me and nearly suffocated me. But after the cry and after I stuffed him into the bathroom, the angst passed and I went to bed and woke up better oodles. Will try to send the money home via priority letter; it can't possibly be more than 80 euro. We're still at sea, though, second sea day. The second manager denied his coming here, so now we are stuck and SLSB is getting despondent. He is leaving, for sure, but he couldn't care less about what happens now. Funny thing, too, that even my roomie, FPP, doesn't know exactly when she's going home. We are supposed to be at the mercy of our land managers. No, you can't go home, we haven't found your replacement yet. Haha. Almost funny. Good luck, though.

They could just lend me the Serbian Seascape guy to train me how to operate the printing machine (SLSB would pretend to train me and set me very neatly up to fail) for a week and I can play the manager until they find someone better. I learned all there was to know about ship photography in less than a month. How hard would it be to sit in meetings and beg the thirty year old printing machine to thump on?

I applied to all of the excursions this cruise again, forty or so, and SLSB approved me going on one. Would you care to guess which one? Was it one of the beautiful Bavarian castle museums? Was it a posh winery with magnificent gardens? Was it one of the small medieval towns with picturesque artsy centers? A nighttime ride with a boat through the channels of Hamburg? No. The one to the Concentration camp. 

Not a joke. 

I stuffed Bognor into a tube of Pringles. He's going to sleep there tonight. Moved off days from tuesday noon to wednesday noon. 

Sitno >>162<<

Off to shoot the first gangway, Flensburg the second time around, and then to try and send the anniversary perfume home via priority mail. I asked a few people to come with me as I am not too happy to walk around with money. Ended up asking the refridgeration guy. It was okay. I didn't thnk it was going to be better anyway. Two beers in he was telling me things that make me never ever wish to have a drink with him again, but he's given up trying to hit on me and we mostly just talked about movies and sailboats in the end. Such an odd stereotypical contrast: DOo from the uppermost deck with his maritime law and engineering degrees, Piper pilot licence and a fluffy small dog and beautiful white sailboat at home, and the lower deck refridgeration guy, with all his twoface ... Bullshit. "What happens on a boat, stay on the boat." Hehe, yeah. Whatever you say, dude. Just don't ask me why I would choose one hug from DOo over a thousand fuck invitations from you. I would hitchhike across Europe to have another coffee and talk about old records and cloud types with DOo, whereas you I will do a lot not to have another beer with again... He was right opposite of me and my camera was right here in my bag and yet I could not bring myself to take a photo of him. As if that would somehow be rude towards the camera, something emotionally dirty in the language of lenses and light.

Moving on. I can't be angry at men for being men; after all I knew what I was getting into by asking him to tag along (and the funniest bit - for all his buffalo gym physique, he couldn't keep up with my pace. My feet are tiny. I walk like an ant. Finally he just said he'll sit down to have a drink while I run around..). 

Found a DM, boughts a new hair dye and lipstick pencils and posted the postcads I still had from ... Seville? Norway? Shit. And the tiny package, whch will turn out to be the cheapest way to send money home, or by far the most expensive ever. Ikea kitchen, Hermes. Don't be sleeping now. 

I failed to take a pic of Hermes' statue today. Hope he doesn't screw me over it. Found a nice wifi cafe to chill, eat a piece of pie and have a non-ship coffe, so I'll be posting you, too, bloggie. 

8.2 Norse cruise, pt 2: on my own two fins

Sitno some

Sorry about missing out the last few days. Long days. Also Bergen.

(I did something kinda stupid and dangerous. I threatened a pair of old English ladies. They were't our passangers, they were just some other rich tourists. I asked them, extremely politely, if they could move a little bit as I was trying to get the perfect vantage point for shooting a sunlit statue in the middle of the town square. They refused, looking down on me. A fucking DEMON took over and, from the bottom of my stomach, my face in 'do not test me today, bitches' version, a Slav in me boomed heavily: 'MOVE!..' They moved.)

'Kay.

So we're back to Southampton, (never seen it in the sun before), wrapping up the fjords experience, off soon to German..er pastures. Same dance, same chaos, same fun. Maybe a little more fun of a less cynical variety, because SLSB is leaving after this cruise and is begining to border on cheerful, nigh happy, which is the strangest thing you'll ever see next to a blue baby chicken.(Nepal, 2008)

DOo left. He and the less scary nurse got their own driver, so they got picked up like an important person with his own driver leaves a scene, but left he did. The next Chief is supposed to be a Romanian, which, after knowing SLSB, sounds.... Ye, okay. Doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me - the hotel isn't really a Chief's domain, DOo just liked it there because the gallery deck was full of hot women. 

It wasn't at all a bad cruise. Not a legendary fun stuff, like the Mistery Maiden Calls, but it was nice. Some cool people, some cool sounding names, though it always surprises me how they seem to love being photographed and then they don't even come to look at the pics. Poor pics. Good thing they get reincarnated (melted and the paper gets remade.), would have been a sad fate otherwise.

So let's see. 

Come Monday, last time I checked in, Sitno 171, I spent most of the day slaving it away cheerfully, plus there were some good moments of pure ship fun.

If you're gonna look for someone else to keep me spitirs up, Tom the Host is your next best bet. He has the energy of a puppy Russel Terrier. Him and another host, Liam, which looks like someone who might have been a young Hobbit extra in Lord of The Rings, and I got into this ROFL situation we called 'Wolfing it.' Namely, they were just showing me an ultra no budget horror movie they and some of the dance hosts made on Tom's phone, with Liam playing the troll. (Unlikeliest casting choice ever.) Tom recorded soundback by whistling and growling and making thumping noise. It was so stupid and so cool we nigh peed ourselves laughing. I never met anyone so ready to use their face and voice before. He was awesome.

Howwwever.

While laughing, Liam knocked over a full glass of orange juice, all over the pristine white cloth covered table and floor (and Tom). We froze like we just dropped a baby. We needed to pull a Wolf cleaning right away, before Larry, the super nice mess keeper ( who gets his short hair cut even shorter every week, because he has a crush on the dresser girl) comes in and kills us all. So, quite in a hurry, we undid the whole dining table, stole the cloth from another, made it look like it was just oddly placed, redid the table and mopped up the floor with it, then hid it in the laundry room amidst the towels, all within the span of a minute. That scene from Pulp Fiction when the three dudes are optionally dispossing of a body and the nurse wife catches them, coming home? That were we when one of the electricians walked in. It was the best moment of the day.

Tuesday, Sitno 170, was my first gangway of the cruise, drizzling but beautiful. Fjords really are outstanding. Doesn't matter where you're from, fjords are overwhelmingly beautiful. They are like magically huge walls of black rock with trees on it, and the Norwegians have this thing for waterfalls, so there are very many of those. Also, in every fjord you pass, there is bound to be at least one ferry smack in the middle, just to remind you of the year of the scavenger, season of the bitch. 

While we were staring at a particularly beautiful waterfall, a mighty thing indeed, the nurses came pass and stopped a bit to chat with the shoppies. One of them is an elder woman from South Africa, she is the strict, scary one. DOo rounded the corner, crept up behind her and covered her eyes and she was so embarassed she started turning red, when he took her in his arms and started dancing with her around the hallway, waltzing quite well, actually. Awwwwww, that could have been meee... Haha. Right. Ehm. The poor woman, red as a tulip aside, then there came the booming waterfall. Man, that was a powerful mass of frothing water. We parked right beneath it, too. Captain did his best to deliver a big speech about it. Good parking, that. When I saw the waterfall, I came looking for DOo in the shop and he finally said: I'll go get my camera. He has a good camera with a good extra lens, which look like they have hardly been handled.

Didn't really go ashore further than the seamen's lounge/garden shed. Noontime, after I managed to wake him up, I spoke to the General. He just started remodelling the kitchen. I admited I bought him the perfume and that I put a little bit of it on the T-shirt I sleep in, to remind me of him.

Wednesday, Sitno 169, just before the second gangway, SLSB surprised me by barking what was that photo I wanted printed. 

... Er... 

Okay,

 ... looks like someone must have said something. I thought that ship has sailed. Snapping back to reality, out of that stunned stillness, quite in a hurry, I pointed it out, edited the fucking plant that was ruining the composition in the background and got two copies, such as they were, free of charge...

Okay.

... That is NOT the usual state of things in photo lab. Three days ago he wouldn't speak to me a work in four hours of being in the same room. But fine, whatever. Whatever this game is, I will play it along until things get ugly again. 

During lunch DOo, who in a half full dining room set almost next to me and spoke to the shops manager opposite of us, asked me suddenly how to edit the pics from camera to Instagram. I told him I will teach him. The trick is in makng them small enough to begin with. I called him later, asking does he want to nap or does he want to learn? He bargained for one hour of more sleep, during which I shot some more of gangway, got the photos of him from the lab and went to have a cup of coffee. The guest relations manager was telling the nurses, whom I sat down at the table with, about a really funny story involving today's drill. She is so busy she often overlooks that stuff and so she wasn't really paying attention when the drill started, as she had to deal with difficult passengers, her daily routine. Suddenly the phone rings and the Safety officer, a crazy Russian, yells: Code Papa, silent alarm! Inform the bridge!!... Inform the bridge, now!!... And hangs up.

Code Papa means there is a bomb on the ship.

Human natural instinct, when you learn of a bomb on a ship is to just fuck all and get the fuck off, swimming if need be. So for one second she just histerically flailed, headless chicken, before brain kicked in and she remembered the drill. Literally. 

The way she said it and replayed it was hysterical.

I wrote the Bukowski quote on the back of the photo: Find something that makes you happy and the let it kill you... and took it to DOo, but he was no longer in the cabin, which did not surprise me, and I was already dressed to go out in that case anyway. I had three hours to kill, so I could either sleep, explore or Skype. Fuck sleeping. We have so many inspectors on board all the time, sleeping and napping are just some trendy latest modern things you read about in beauty magazines, never actually find in Real life.

I only made it to the end of the ponton bridge - and that bridge was some pretty amazing piece of engineering, because it was a retracting ponton deal with floating joints with engines, so you could actually just extract it out into the fjords and then bend it at will, to meet the boats halfway... Anyway, I found wifi, skyped my lover. That's two ports I skipped completely, never leaving the quay.

It was British night, which went fine, although SLSB refuses to put up the first gangway shots. Maybe because he knows he made them look like crap. Or something. Or so that he'll be able to blame the no target thing on me again. Don't care, really. DOo walked by and grabbed me and thanked me in front of SLSB and FPP and I told him to go look for the Guest relations manager to hear the Code Papa story. 

Was the first off day I didn't buy the three chocolates from the bar. Firstly, because I am too much in debt and second, because I am fed up with chocolate. Never heard me say that before, have you? Ate some other stuff and drank juices I don't usually drink, which taste like liquid candy anyway. 

Also Anton Yeltzin died in a very Darwin Awards fashion. Waste.

Thursday, Bergen. 

Very nice town, fashionable and expensive, artsy and historic, posh and quaint. And raining. Gangway was all over the place - from full blown blazing sunshine blast, flash on 1/1, to deep, dark, bitter twilight of a winter storm. I went in an out three times to get the people leaving specifically on excursions, just to get SOME rollcount. Then crawled to mess to warm up nursing a coffee. There were just one of the security ladies and me in the corner, and DOo came to eat his salad and seafood, sitting right next to me and I told him my plan was to order him to grab his backpack, put the laptop and camera in and some human clothes on and meet me on the quay in twenty minutes, but of course it started to rain. He said he had to get up at six today and I mocked him aloud, oh, no, really, poor you, you had to get up at six? Nobody else on this ship has to get up at six! ...And when did you go to bed, at ten? We get to bed at three! 'And whose fault is that?' 'It's a LITTLE bit your fault, since you're the boss.' Anyway, he had another inspector to deal with. I saw the man outside, I asked him, a new face, if he is our new pilot. He said: you wish, I am here to inspect you. I replied, quite bored: ye, we get inspected, criticised, corrected and scrutinized seven times a day. Welcome aboard.

There is someone called a Designated Person Ashore, our DPA, a name we all must know. I never found out why, but he came to inspect us, too. So, designated person ashore aboard. Kinda defeats the purpose. But DOo said he's an okay guy, as he's been around long enough to know which rules apply to ships and which are there just to get more money out of the owners. (No ship can pass an inspection if an inspector decides he dislikes it for some reason. The rules are too surreal. I know the sanitation inspection people completely freak out if they see a single fly in the ship, though the General suggested that whatever fly is able to survive all our fumigations and desinsections is probably a radioactive alien..)

These two, one very tall, gray and bald and the other short and plump and crew cut, were the godfathers of a moment in which SLSB approached me conspiratorily, leaned to me (actually - tiptoed, in his case) attentively and whispered, secretively, almost intimately: These are the auditor AND the inspector..

..

Goosebumps.

LOL, no, but seriously, poor SLSB was so desperate to make everything appear proper, he threatened to fire me if I fail to clock in again and then went and made half a dozen clerical errors of his own and plenty of guests came back to complain about it. Not so perfect after all.

Went out, at least for an hour, even if it was raining, but I started to need to pee and you need to pay to get into a Norwegian toilet, so I offed to find the so called Seaman's Mission. Funny old world, really. Back in the day, which is why I imagine this Missin exists (unless the tea was roofied and they're going to kill us all or sell us all in pieces), sailors looking for a place to hang meant cheap rum and scurvy hookers. Now you just follow the river of Philipino crewmen from the giant ships to a cute little place with free coffee, clean toilets and free wifi, where a nice couple will greet you with a smile and ask about your ship, while handing you a net password, a cute mug and a pamphlet. Nobody would be interested in a hooker if one was stripping on the floor. I had some black currant tea and coconut biscuits and posted some Instagram, then skyped G for two hours while most of my shipmates walked in and pass me and thise wom I've bothered about the General before, waved at him. A great afternoon. My life feels a little bit like it hasn't really changed all that much, now that I thnk about it. In a room with fifty expats... Twenty years ago I spent time like this in halfway and refuge houses all across southern Europe. Exact same mood. 

Friday, Sitno 167..

DOo came by the gallery and kind of froze, seeing me, my hair. 

"What is with that hairdo? You look like littlemi..."

"I look like a whoody what now?"

"Little My. It's a character in..."

"Oh my God! Snufkin's stepsister!... That is like the nicest thing you ever said to me, almost a compliment! Except that time you called me crazy, that was a compliment, also." 

As expected, I hadn't had the chance to get him alone again. Now that he is leaving, I of course have a dozen questions for him. What did his parents do? (an English teacher and an engineer. Makes sense.) Does he like indie rock? (Forgot to ask.) Did he ever try to kill himself? ... (No, probably because of the kids.) How long are our mooring lines? (the longest is 200m.) 

But I work all the time and then I have drills and education on top of it. He came by a couple of times during bazaar and I asked him to do another Dirty Uncle and bring me a mint candy. (They usually give them away at the reception and they are bad for your teeth, but they do help with the lack of saliva after you've spent two hours smiling at people...) I threatened a visit and he told me that I will NOT be coming to his cabin during nap time. I asked if he remembers, many moons ago (five weeks), when he was flirting with me and I would tell him that at night, when I cannot sleep and walk around the ship, I pass his door many times, but never knock? And he would say, back then, oh, but why you not knock? Today I said: you growl at me when I knock at one in the afternoon, can you imagine your reaction, if I woke you up at two in the morning? 

'Uu, hello and good evening, you sexy thing, may I ente--?'

'Get the fuck back to your cabin, it's the middle of the night.'

Reality versus fantasy? :D Haha.

Fuck, how I will miss hearing his voice over the securities' walkies. 

'Bridge, bridge..'

Who is going to tell me all the ship stories now? And interpret asshole actions of the new Hots? (oh, did I mention? Hotz left last cruise. "Goodbye, sir, hope to see you again soon!... Or never." Long live the next Hotz.) And do things behind my back, that make people stop trying to get me in trouble?

I would, obviously, I would knock and wake him up today at one. He can sleep after Sunday. But those fucking morons the British just abandoned the EU and the value of sterling plummeted, so I spent an hour running around, trying to exchange my money to Euros... I told the General yesterday,  in case something happens to me, that there is still a little over a thousand euros in my room. He said, yes, if your ship sinks, I will spend a multi million dollar salvage operation to get to your thousand euro little box in your little cabin at the bottom of the English Channel. 

Eve

SLSB seemed awfully cheerful tonight. He even used real curse words. Even almost kind of actually SPOKE to me. I wondered aloud if something was burning and he said:'Don't be afraid, you are safe. Nothing will happen to you. And we are close to land..' (was being ironic.)

After the first sitting was done and DOo and his date came out, DOo lingered while I photographed Liam the Host, and I gave him the 'you, come here' gesture from Dirty Dancing. 'What is it, why you want me to come here?'.. he objected, all the while coming to the stage.

'Because I want to take your photo properly, why do you think? Stand here. Shoulder aside. No smiling. No smiling!'

I turned off the right light and re-did the photo I did when we first met, when one of the lights didn't fire properly, which was a good shot and SLSB deleted despite it being locked safely and the card being my personal card. Then, because this card was not mine and would not be mine to take downstairs, and SLSB would never let me take the pics, I snuck into the bathroom with my whole bag, cabelled the camera to the iPad and transfered the pics, feeling like an internation cyber techno spy, like something out of a Gibson novel :D 8D

I told him not to go to bed at ten. He said something naughty to his date while upping the stairs with her on his elbow, who is a shy chubby woman, something like 'we can't go to bed until ten it seems, I've been forbidden..'

'Course by the time we actually finished (22:32) and I called him to wake the fuck up and let me in, he's already passed out. He just muttered something into the phone and after a few attempts managed to hang up demonstratively.

I will never understand how people manage to sleep on ships. Two hours later I am still wide awake in a bar, listening to the guys sing or joke around, dancers drunk dancing in flawless synch to every bizzare barn song that's played, (even the ones sitting down flailed their hands dancily), doing the blog and a letter and some coffee... 

Oh. Maybe that's why I can't sleep :D

I stared at my own reflection today, during one of the mini breaks... I should do another self portrait of me in watercolors, because a fairly strange woman was looking back at me from the glass. Oddly noble hair-do, a lacy black cocktail dress, a wristwatch and jewelry. Long arms, long neck. My nose is slightly bigger with age and my eyes were small with weary, but the jawline was fine and the lips full and sagged with the weight of lipstick on them... An odd woman. A darker, different woman. I don't want Paper to grow up.

Saturday, Sitno 166

Second bazaar. I think we're doing well. No idea what the target is supposed to be, but I think we're there. SLSB is using full sentences to tell me what to do. Fascinating phenomenon, really. It's like he's been taking a double dose of a happy drug and he is about to start handing out baloons to the people he meets. He nearly exploded into unicorns shaped candy fluff yesterday when DOo told him to mail him the pic. Being noticed by the Chief Officer?! Where's the parade??!

There was a woman in front of the elevator door, who asked me how to get to the upper floor using this thing. Inthough maybe she was just being awkward, but no, she was actually angry with me. I've never operated one of this things before - what do I do?!... 

Er... You step in and push the button with the number of your desired floor. 

And then what? What button?

...

It literally insulted her that she was forced to sink so low as to speak to someone like me about this filthy device.. Course her legs were fine, steps were just a step away and she was only one floor going, so... Another passanger came to help and said she will take her.

I said ye, but let her push the button, clearly she's been too babied for too long and should stop being afraid of mundane things...

This ship.

I ate some banana for breakfast to see if it actually works against cramping. 

Reading Bryson, happily, though the library has many books I can still get my hands on. Hold up. Lemme see if I'm early enough to....

...

I was starved for lunch, but they only had that weird Asian something soup, which I don't like neither hot nor warm, so I was gonna eat a salad, except the crew mess had a waffle stand. So I ate a waffle with LOTS on top. Man, free food is the worst. Only thing worse is GOOD free food. 

I thanked the chef for the waffle and he said I am not allowed to eat in the crew mess. I'm not? 

No. He prepares food for me in the officer's mess. It insults him. 

I promise I will never eat in the crew mess again.

(This was a joke, not serious talk.)

DOo poked me in the ribs as I was setting up the bazaar table and I slapped him across the shoulder a few times, snapping I can't believe he went to bed without me.... Which sounded really weird; I think everyone on that floor stopped talking and began to listen. At least he walked away laughing. I wasn't sure if maybe this time he will be angry with me for being TOO familiar. He gave me his pager and inter-phone numbers to find him after I'm done with work. Sometimes I think he doesn't care much for my company, as he never took up my offers for photo-sightseeing trips or movie nights, but sometimes he just finds over an hour when he should be working and we just sit and talk about cool stuff.

Or in this case, he was packing. I mocked him about the cute color of his neatly stacked undergarments and he shooed me to the other side of the room. 

"Stop mocking me about my underwear. Show me yours if you're so clever."

"You know I don't wear underwear; I literally have NOTHING to show you."

We looked though the photos I took of him and then at the photos on his laptop and tried to get the program he had to arrange them so that he could post them on Instagram. He takes nice pics of the places he goes to, sometimes the exact same things as me when we're passing photogenic locations. He actually takes loads, just doesn't post them enough. They are not half bad, either. He likes winter. We spoke before about the good old days of developing things at home. He used to love doing that. I used to love the smell of the developer. But ye, he does shoot. Different ships, coworkers, crew, different scenes from ship life, his own beautiful boat, its sisters, his family, their trips, his house and the people he likes or is forced to work with. He told me about an African lady who was his Chief Officer when he captained something or other, very good and very clever, but of course an African female, so captainship was a long way away for her. He made sure she got the last stripe, she is a captain now. He told me he worked on an explorer as a captain, something I would want to do (not captain in my case, I would want to be a photographer. Possibly something to do with exploring and measuring glaciers or deep water archae.). He told me how frustrated the new captain is that DOo is more experienced and above all more calm than him. Doen't need to shout to be heard. I told him of my theory of three men's different walks: if they have tiny bodies and some inteligence, they walk with their pelvis, quickly and pathetically, wanting to be bigger. If they are big and manly, but dumb, they walk with their chest, like gorillas. The smart ones, they walk with the face. The body is just a machine to move them. The doctors on this ship walk with the face, and so does DOo. (Old doc came to replace the current one for two days, as the current was quarantened. He was quarantened with Noravirus the exact same day I asked the nurse how come they never get sick? That explains why she gave me a VERY dirty look. Whoops.) I was surprised to see the captain walks with the chest... DOo explained why, and also told me some other things I promised not to tell on. But they did not surprise me. Weren't even news to me, in fact.

I asked if he hated me for being a turist, for being of mind that I can leave at any time. He said no, he can leave at any time as well, he's just doing this because he was bored and they asked him nicely. I do suppose that sort of tranquility comes with age and experience, because I can see glimpses of it when people ask me to teach them photography or when we talk about prose or hitchhiking. Or chocolate. I feel calm and confident about some of those specialities indeed.

He said he doubts I will still be here if he decides to come back in two months.

I said he once doubted I will stay chaste for two months also, and how is that working so far? 

He admitted, true that.

At three he said he officially started work at two and should really return to bridge as oppose to talking bullshit with me. I bargained for him to give me another five minutes, saying I won't be able to rest my brain in this room anymore and will miss it. I probabyl wouldn't be able to do it if he got promoted to master, either. Would be kinda weird. And a queue outside the door.

Fifteen minutes later he got up. I said hold up, I was planning on kissing his face again.

Well, you are not going to be doing that.

Will you kiss me? 

No.

Why? 

Friends don't kiss. 

Back in the morning, when I was at bazaar and he came by for the second time, he tried to be funny, but ended up insulting me. He wanted to ask if I shagged the refrigeration guy, as the man started speaking to DOo again. He wouldn't even say 'good morning' back for a while. He asked me out again yesterday.) That genuinely insulted me, insulted my good taste. It was supposed to be funny, but I took it too seriously. 

While the serious silence lasted, I asked how come he didn't try to kiss me when he had the chance. 

He began to say something about how I said I was married, how I had a husband, and so on, but stopped. He said, corrected himself, no bullshit: "Because I didn't want to. There."

Back in the room (sorry, cabin.) we stared at one another for a long time while the ship rocked and rumbled on. The ship was moving, we weren't moving. Just breathing. 

I could see what he was thinking. I think he was thinking: she is here. She is beautiful. She has red hair, great tits. Great lips. I like her. She likes me. Also, she has the mental stability of nitroglycerin.

...

Of course nothing happened. I knew he wouldn't, that's why I am so bold to stage these things, say such things. It was a deliciously tense moment if NOTHING happening. I wouldn't talk like this to a single other person on this ship and in the remote chance that it did happen, that he would move in to kiss me, I would make sure it would be on the cheek. But he would never do that and I know that. Regardless of my crazy shit, I am still the constancy - even if this wasn't midsommer. Midsommer is an important date for me. Many important dates, not least of which is my wedding anniversary. Even if I do need some stories to be my own, some wild tales of woe to concern only me and not the me that belongs to other people, at the end of the day, I am still the me that plays a dangerous poem too honestly and the honest truth is - my heart would not be in it.

DOo knew this. My heart would not be in it. My heart is in General's chest pockett. DOo would not gamble on the relationship he has going on now by kissing a woman who would never really be his. The math didn't add up and he's a pragmatic. Also, we were kind of cool bussom buddies. Two old ship rats on a raft of the mad.

I smirked and offered my knuckles poutily, ordering: fine, then at least kiss my hand like the gentleman that you are. 

He laughed and grabbed it, pulling me up, into his embrace: Come here.

This time he actually hugged me tightly. I kissed his cheek a couple of times. He hugged some more. He chuckled: "Try to survive."

"Oh, I'm going to be okay! Don't worry about me. You trained me well. You gave me a ship sense of humor. I understand my footing now. You are leaving me in good hands. My own."