Moojinorbit

Finally…a day at sea. And none too soon. We’re so wiped out from all the excursions, parties, and general running around that neither of us seems able to render a coherent sentence. I’m even more clutzy than usual, tripping over every threshold in this doggone boat. Plus, I accidentally set our clock one hour ahead for time zone change last night rather than tonight, so we lost a precious hour of sleep. But after the morning meeting, hosting a lovely brunch at a table with some fellows from Memphis and San Diego, we have nothing on our schedules until 8 tonight when we’re hosting the famously under-attended “Women of Atlantis.” This means rest, a little blogging, taking some sun up on the pool deck, and general lolling around until I get to wear Mom’s purple pantsuit for the classic disco dance this afternoon. Yeah, I might have to stop by the 80s skate party on the ice rink at 4, but other than that I plan to be lazy!

Until I get Christopher, our Atlantis team member who works in the Apple store, to help me figure out why I’m having problems uploading photos from K’s camera, I can’t show you our latest, but will try to do so soon. Let’s just say that “Fish Net,” our costume for the “Under the Sea” party, was a huge hit. Oh, and I have a funny story to tell you about that:

So you know how gay guys can be squeamish about women’s, um, private parts? Basically, if you put a vagina in front of most of these men they’d run screaming, arms akimbo. And there is no shortage of jokes around here about such aspects of, shall we say, gynophobia. Well, for Under the Sea, Katie and I donned bikinis underneath full-length fishnet stockings, which were, as it happens crotchless (but, again, we had bikinis under). We safety pinned all kinds of stuffed and rubber sea creatures onto the stockings, along with Swedish fish (the candy) kind of woven into the “net.” With our respective sparkly and silver metallic heels, and bubble blowing from bottles around our necks, the effect was at once hilarious and oddly sexy.

After leaving the dance party, round 2 a.m., we ascend the curving staircases and are saying goodbyes to the fans. (No getting around that we pretty much have a fan base at this point.) Some guy at the bottom of the stairs starts hooting and hollering at me, so I lift one leg high onto the banister and wag my orange-bikini crotch at him through the, um, porthole of my crotchless stockings. He gasps and goes, “Honey, don’t ever do that again!” I laugh. And walking back Katie and I giggle about the amusing effect of flashing even a covered crotch at these Nelly boys.

Then, back in the stateroom loo, I go to pee and see that there is a blood spot the size of a silver dollar on the crotch of my orange bikini. I’ve bled through my tampon. We both burst into prolonged hysterics, thinking about the poor guy who lived out his worst nightmare right there on the staircase.

Now, if you’re wondering if we do anything on this trip but run around the boat, we do. Yesterday we docked in Naples and visited the ruins of Pompeii, which nearly brought me to tears. How amazing walking the cobblestone streets of a city that was destroyed in 79 (or thereabouts) A.D. and has history that reaches a thousand years before that. The mosaics, frescoes, and city fountains were so vibrant they sent my imagination reeling. My group’s guide, Sebastiano, who lives in modern Pompeii was so passionate, so warm that we all wanted to come back and spend a week with him.

The day before, Katie toured the Italian town, San Gimignano where they blow glass, enjoyed a 6-bottle winetasting in Tuscany (Katie, who is hugely allergic to red wine, thank you very much), and Volterra, another charming countryside town. She had a wonderful time, made lots of friends—I know because everywhere we go on the ship it’s just like DU, with people calling out to her every third minute, hugging her, wanting to talk to her and linger looking into her pretty brown eyes. I understand completely. Her magnetism is a great asset here.

Tomorrow we get to escape the stampede to Ilia, a gay beach in Mikonos, and instead enjoy an excursion to the ruins of Delios on another Greek island. Then dance party in Mikonos until the ship leaves with it’s drunken, delirious inhabitants at 2:30 a.m. Next day is a quick stop in Santorini, then I think another sea day on the way back to Rome. It’s already slipping by so fast.

Ok, so I’ll work on the photo situation, and try to post for classic disco, the Greek Isles party, and the white party before we’re done. Many hugs and kisses to all.

Good morning, or evening, or whatever it is over there. My computer tells me it’s 3 a.m. Colorado time, so I’m hoping you’re all asleep as I post. While Katie’s on a 9-hour Italian excursion after maybe 4 hours of sleep, I had the opportunity, due to a scheduling mistake, to catch up on sleep and tell you about yesterday. I wish I could post the video, but after five tries we have not been able to upload it to my computer and may have to wait until we get home. So you’ll have to settle for the few pictures that did upload. (By the way, if any of you have any questions about all this, feel free to comment and we’ll do our best to answer. We seem now to have figured out the wireless on the ship, but today will be the first day I glance at email.)

After France, yesterday’s sail away party was the famous “Dog Tag T-Dance,” which basically means people dress up like runaways from one of the branches of the military and dance their butts off for a couple of hours. Here’s the scene:

Much to my dismay, K. and I discovered we were scheduled to work the dinner greeting shift, which would mean missing the dance. I knew this could not happen, not only because Malcolm, the cruise director, insisted he needed me for the big dance skit, but also because, as some of you know, I had purchased and Katie borrowed special costumes for this event that couldn’t be missed. So we finagled a trade with Jaime and Jarrod and made it out to the pool deck in this:

Here’s what my naughty thing looked like from the back (with a lacy pair of shorts underneath).

Needless to say, we were a hit. People went so wild for the ‘sailor’ and the ‘army pinup girl’ that every few steps they were asking us to pose for pictures. We felt like Brad and Angelina, or at least Sonny and Cher. Unfortunately, though, while I went to rehearse for the dance routine, Katie got mauled by men who thought she was a gorgeous guy until they actually looked at her face. She had to fend off some nasty old guy who was feverishly groping her until a nice lesbian couple on their honeymoon intervened. Here’s the nice couple, whose names I think were Erin and Kara. Can you imagine going on an Atlantis cruise with 3,000 guys after you just got married in Toronto? At least they brought six female friends with them.

As for the dance routine—well, it’s hard to put in words. It was the same routine we did on the Rio cruise, a medley of “In the Navy,” and “Hey, Mickey,” complete with rainbow pompoms and a fabulous kick-line finale. However, because Malcolm insisted I stay in my outfit instead of donning a white sailor suit with the five other guys, and because women are a novelty on the ship, and because, hey, I worked it with all my might, the consensus seemed to be that I stole the show. I have never in my life had hundreds of people fawn all over me and tell me I was fabulous. Truth is, I think most of them were jealous of the outfit. But, as Katie put it afterwards, there’s really nothing better for the ego than being treated like a queen for a day.

Back in February when I tried to explain to Katie that the Rio cruise, for all its intense fun, was often incredibly exhausting, she poo-pooed me with comments along the lines of “Yeah, right. I’m sure it was really rough hanging out on a cruise ship on the coast Latin America.”

Last night at about eleven, after a thirteen hour embarkation day spent entirely on our feet with our mouths constantly opening to direct people, answer questions, chat, and soothe anxious gay boy egos, her perspective had shifted. Let me allow her to put it in her own words, as she lies prostrate in our stateroom after a desperately needed afternoon medical nap:

“Oh my god, I can’t feel my feet…I can’t even think right now…The words ‘Drama Queen’ have taken on a whole new meaning; I didn’t realize how much drama would be involved solely in the process of getting people through check-in, onto a gangway, and into a boat. Seriously!

“For example, there was Alex who came up to me rather calmly at the port saying, ‘I think I’ve just left my wallet in the back of my taxi.’ I said, ‘it had your passport in it?’ He said, ‘yeah, passport, money, ID, credit cards…the only thing I did not leave was my car keys.’ Alex’s little “friend,” Jerry—who probably shouldn’t have been let into the gay male club given how nerdy he looked in his high khaki shorts, with belt, his snow white skin against his white socks, with black Reeboks—had already taken it upon himself to return to the Barcelona airport, from where the taxi had just come, and track down the taxi driver. My attempt at calming Alex by saying, ‘you know, I think all Italian taxi drivers are really honest,’ did not pay off when he reminded me that we were in Spain. After I talked to Atlantis’s producer, who called the port manager, who in turn raidoed all taxis in Barcelona, I waited, worrying, with Alex, until, two hours later, Jerry the Nerd, who’d been studying the Catalan language from a textbook for months, shows up with the passport and wallet, having actually tracked it down personally at the airport. Then I’m the Drama Queen, jumping up and down hugging Alex in celebration.

“Our ship, the Navigator of the Seas, is a beast. My first impression upon entering the Royal Promenade, which spans three levels and is the length of two football fields, was that I’d died and gone to Las Vegas hell. So much freaking lights and noise and stimulation, that you feel like you’ve been trapped inside a casino, and you have no idea what time it is. And then instead of seventy and eighty year-old grannies sitting around wasting their money, all you see are hunky guys in tank tops—did we mention 2,800 of them (minus 37 women)? The reason we can barely walk today is that we criss-crossed the length of this mother about twenty times last night in the span of six hours.

“Every time we got in the elevator, some genius would make a deck/dick joke. Someone pushes a button and goes, ‘Dick eleven; I wish!’ But Nancy got ‘em all back during the safety drill when, with everyone’s necks jammed uncomfortably into orange life jackets, she goes, ‘this is like: too much cunnilingus!’”

Okay, sorry moms for that one.

Don’t get me wrong; we’re having a fantastic time, but the activity exhaustion/sleep deprivation factor has its undeniable side effects. Today, after maybe five hours of rest (albeit in a fantastically dark, windowless stateroom with the potential to render fantastic sleep) Katie and I were lucky enough to take excursions to the charming town of Aix en Provence. (With one Atlantis person per bus required, we had to ride in separate buses; a small concession.)

I stumbled into the bright morning sunlight from my bus and blinked at the huge 17th century cast iron fountain near the central square. How could I possibly be in France at nine on a beautiful Sunday morning? Katie’s bus nowhere in sight, I wandered up the street as artists set up their tables for the weekly arts walk. Selecting one of many shady sidewalk cafés, I managed to order and pay for a hot chocolate (chocolat sounds more delicious, doesn’t it?) in French—well, sort of. After the warm deliciousness brightened my senses and I thought about how much the town seemed right out of the movie Chocolat, I wandered tight, angled, old streets along walls and buildings whose 2,600-year history shows in the pockmarks of its signature limestone. At a tiny and fragrant corner bakery, I found myself a quiche and devoured it cold. Mmm.

Two corners later I lucked upon Katie’s group admiring a famous fountain festooned with greenery, and Katie and I then ambled around together until our buses departed. My goal was to limit myself to ten Euros today, nearly all of which I spent on succulent treats. I wish you could taste the chocolate mousse, half of which I have tucked into our stateroom fridge for later. Or the fresh croissant and raspberry torte Katie got. But, perhaps best of all, the fresh cherries, nectarines, cantaloupe, apples, and peaches we sampled at Aix’s Sunday food market, so fresh, juicy, pesticide-free perfect. We may have been practically sleepwalking, but what a sumptuous daydream it was.