Sitno >>185<< still.
Was a pretty pretty day, actually. Gonna rate it a full +3. Went fast, the chat with land manager was not at all a stab in the stomach which is how talking to superiors feels on this ship; some new people came and some old ones returned, had a few cool conversations. SLSB was so happy we made 11.000 gold coins in two weeks, out of which I get 600 bucks (750 euro, which is not bad for working 77 hrs per week while people snap at ye - could be much worse is all I'm saying. We made 170 on the cruise before.) last cruise he kept trying to make conversation or happy little random remarks ( 0.o .. blink, blink, okaaaaay... *carefully puts ear to the camera to hear if it's ticking*...), and although I've been eating too much, it is good food. Chatted several times today with my lover, if through a shitty connection. Got a few more books from the library and almost managed to get the grip on the first chapter of Dread. What do I want the structure to be? Dunno ... What do I want the structure to be, come on, think!... Still dunno...
I suspect Goose won't let me fuck around with Dread until it's papered proper. Bad Goose. Play nice.
Heading southwards, via western Spain. Applied for several of the excursions, been denied Santiago De Compostela instantly, though I suppose the saints want me to walk to that one, be it over a city or over a continent some day. If I arrived home in a time like this, early summer, I'd drag G out to walk that route with me the same day.
So far the sea is perfectly flat. Took a pill JUST in case. DOo promised he will let me drive the ship for one hour ("In a storm? through the Bay if Biscay?!" :D) if I get him some mythical something, some box key or something. Dunno what it is, probably something along the lines of possibility as a blowjob from a mermaid. Shouldn't be a problem, really, then..
While I sat down for my second or third lunch (my size 14 shirt getting a little tighter, but I want to eat normally until the off day and then start the salad diet again.), a man I saw cross himself before a meal and wink at me, made a remark about the Slovenian girl sitting away from others again. He asked if he can sit with me and once sat, instantly asked if I'm sleeping with anyone yet ... (Looks like he met me when I first arrived, but there is no way I will remember things from the first few weeks upon embarking.)
Yes, I get it. I have very large breasts. Which you don't easily forget. I get it.
After I mentioned I've been happily married for nine years and that he seems to be married as well, he instantly switched the record and started telling me how his wife has the best job in the world: she looks after their house, raises their children, makes sure he is welcomed when he returns... You've gotta love the good old Balkan primitivism. The woman belongs behind a stove.
I actually approve of men like that thinking there is something wrong with me if I choose to be the adventurer of the family - that surely I am here for the money or the dicks or the stubborness against my father or something, something to prove. Some grand ambition. Surely I can still study something and try to get some job, some position ... Surely I want to be a manager of some sorts ... Good. Let them. If that is the mindset they're in, let them.
In the evening, which passed nicely and almost without incident, SLSB gave us the mandatory condescending/threatening speech about lying on the counter, looking bored, working when we're there or we will be both put on the long shifts, and so on... I kinda wanted to mention I haven't sat down on that chair or been behind the counter for fifty days, but then I remembered it way my roomie who won the employee of the month award and that SLSB was speaking to two women, both taller than he is, and twice as heavy: one busty and one tall and hot.
Imagine this was taking place in a kindergarden and a little boy was for five minutes put in charge of two taller, half year older little girls.
The one thing I did hear him mention and I found curious, though, was that if you're in a team that continues making target, the next time you ask for any ship, you'll get it. So far we've made all of them. Harmony of the Seas, here I come! Unless they make a bigger one in the meanwhile. We'll see what happens when the new manager arrives. By now I care none if they are awful people, just know what you're doing when it comes to profit and we'll all stab each-other's voodoo dolls a little gentlier.
The shops have their new manager as well, and a new shoppie - the most stereotypical pair of gay men you can imagine - one small, bleached blond greasy hair, big lower jaw, thin moustage, zits, not too bright; the other a skanky LatinoLover. But the dining room has waffes, so that is nice, too.
Was thinking I will eat like a human much until Wednesday, a reverse off day, but all this chocolate is making me sick and the food doesn't taste as good it you're overeating. I can see now what they meant when they said after a year all the food tastes the same. Be back on rabbit food soon, then any scone tastes like a weddng cake. Had a weird dream on the subject of forcing yourself into stuff that's supposed to be spontaneous and cool... I'll stop using the 85 code, as I have it written on my wrist for now, which was my weight when I started this, and will just write down F, for Fedora. It was in the dream, I'll explain later. There were also some old witches that killed an entire wedding party of three little muslim sisters, whom some guy bought for his wives. And they were monsters and ghosts, but only as long as they still sat at the wedding table; if they were tricked into standing up, they could be defeated...
Like I said. Weird dream. But a good short story, if you're into red weddings.
Our phone bill is STILL 150 bucks, for fuck's sakes, but okay, some of that may be from last month's over-use, I hope, I pray, I roar. I should just toss the fucking thing overboard. The General said I should buy one of the fairly cheap latest Samsungs they sell for crew. Why?? What the fuck do I want with a posh new phone? Give me a used lens and camera sale any time, though. Guernsey isle, was it, the Seascape guy said? Just another reason to really wanna go to Guernsey.
Am thinking I should try to save some of the money I make...?
Eve
First formal, was okay. Not too stressfull, only one dickish customer, douche literally used hs hand to flick me away. Was tired, so I didn't sit down for half an hour and explain our Seascape program. One of the crew members, though I think he looks kinda cool, was so scared of taking a photo, he fussed to no end and will unlikely choose any. He has a birthmark on the inner side of his nose and eye, which I personally always find attractive, same as I do people with a tooth missing, but I seem to be in a minority. Everybody wants to look like Poe Dameron or something. Yes, he is very beautiful and very awesome. Not the only way to look good, though. There are also the likes of Ragnar, Seph and my 'holy shit, is that your husband?!' husband.
Now, whenever some woman tells me to airbrush out her wrinkles, I just say, coldly: "Why? Does having more wrinkles make you look more stupid?"
The most exciting part of yesterday, adding also to SLSB's fourth redeeming quality*, was the installment of the new carpet floor, which then somebody managed to ... Have an accident all over. Two decks had to be sanitized: white powder poured over everything - and this person must have tried to run around the entire ship looking for a bathroom... - then scrubbed, soaked in anti viral stuff and then fumigated by a guy who looked like a ghostbuster. I got to yell at people: WATCH YOUR STEP!??! Because English fucking people are too important to care what they step in. They got offended by it, so I just said: Well, if you PREFER to step in someone else's excrement, caused by a gastrovirus, madam, by all means, be my guest. And do enjoy the consequences.
*
SLSB's redeeming qualities (because I really do try hard to find the man less epicly appaling, like fet fungae or rotting pizza is appaling..
He says 'excuse me' when leaving the table.
Speaks at least four languages.
Makes good money.
Won't say a dirty word; instead will say: 'Somebody did... Something.' when referring to a guest's gastric incident.
Sitno >>184<<
Hello, Spain. Weather like bleak midwinter in Austria, gangway as steep as a slide, the guards many and armed with machine guns. A rafinery near by, fumes billowing in excess, and dramatically, which, if it was a vulcano, we would be fucked.
At least the Spanish are never boring :D
Off to shoot. Catch ya laterz.
Shot 370 gangway pics in drizzle, yo! Yes, I cheated, did what SLSB does, just shot individuals, before they managed to deny me, and am 100% sure SLSB will find a way to ruin it for me, but babaBOOEY MOTHERFUCKER.
Eve
Loooong gallery eve, over six hours of standing still, too tired for gym, crampy, but it always flies when DOo comes by and we compare dirty secrets for the better part of an hour. He told me about how his wife found out about his many many many mistresses (he was drunk and bragged to his best friend about it. Can you BE more of a cliche?) and I told him how I like to be beaten with a rope. It's twice as exciting to do it while annoying old English people next to us look at their photos and say: Cand feen'd me oun, musta brokeeh the camherah...
"Did you have a good day? With your naps and your pilots and your mooring stations? Did you feel alive? Did you wish you had a lover who would paint your house dark red?"
"No, thank you, my house is nice yellow."
"Your house is freaking beige, for fuck's sakes."
:D
Will really miss the old bastard when he leaves. The sunset last night was another jaw-dropper and I called him to go look at it. He asked on which side it is. I said: west, starboard, I don't fucking know. Just go look! ... And he said: I am already naked, so if I now walked onto the bridge ...
Seriously, why are people so concerned with what others will think? Thus he missed another best part of his job. That annoying ball of Helium and water on fire, that can never be topped in glory, no matter how good a painter or a poet you are ...
The only thing that pissed me off about the whole day is not being able to call my love and tell himEVERYTHING in detail, every last thought and emotion and adventure I have, every food I eat and who stared at my bewbs and what the shape of waves is tonight and how fast my heart is going... Useless fucking overpriced ship shitty wifi.
++3
Sitno >>183<<
Got lost in La Coruña. After finding the Hercules lighthouse and a really big iron concho horn statue thingie. Which I had selfies with. With foaming waves around the cliffs, around us.
This can only mean one thing. I had to:
a) find a cafe that sells ice-cream and has, maybe, if possible, wifi
b) went to pee
c) order a creamy biscuit, two balls of random ocra colored ice-cream, which turned out to be some sort of nut, and a capuccino, which the barista took so long and so careful to make, I had not the heart to ask him for milk, I just put the ice-cream in it
d) got wifi, googled Ship Locator, to find where my hot little ship is (this would be so much more embarassing if I had a sailboat. Excuse me, have you an idea where I last parked my sailboat?)..
e) ran google maps, to find out where >I< am
f) barista during downloaded a phone app that helped him translate 'where would you like to be?' Ah, my friend, if you only knew, in all this perfection, sorrounded by all this ice-cream and Cuban-looking streets and lighthouses, where I would REALLY like to be... I could tell you the shape of his hands and the taste of his lips and the color of his eyes, but I only speek Spanish enough to order a glass of water..
It's only two, though. I have another hour to love my life here and now, such as it is, licking the crumps off the plate.
Yesterday my shoppie shipmate and I explored Aviles, another small, old, adorable northern Spanish town, until we came upon the other shippies and we spent two hours goofing around the city. I took some friendly goofing-around photos accordingly. Sis linked me Disturbed's version of Sound Of Silence, which I then listened to at the exact right moment to make the world sink itself onto me, making me as tiny and alive as a supernova in a vast hot chaos of blackness that these damn oceans around me are. Water that never runs out. Only humans can be so arrogant as to think we can hurt the waters of this world. Not me, though. Me made plans to go out early today, to swim in the ocean, but again the English weather followed I and me can, and it was raining in the wee gangway hours.
It's certainly not raining now.
I changed some money, just so that I don't walk around like a pauper. The last two euro last night were spent on knee-high nylon stockings, which I then folded into a tattoo-cover. It looks fucking stupid, but there you have it.
If it was sunny, then you would have seen 200 seafarers pour out of a ship with their towels and their beach hats, alas. I bought myself a sailor-themed blue and white T-shirt and an orange towel. Half the day was beyond pure perfection, totally worth this twisted heart strings.
Let's not say more on the subject, ere I jinx it and SLSB remembers he hasn't yelled at me since I wrote the abuse report.
What would really make this day better than perfect, though, would be a post office. I've been dragging a bunch of postcards with me since the last month's Baltic.
Off to find the ship now and to shower, in that order. I've 300 pretty pickies to edit and post on Instagram #papershiplife , but also, you know, a job. Catch ya soon. :P
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