I’m writing right now on board Delta Flight 158, JFK to Rome, and the in-flight movie is Prince Caspian. If I’m lusting after the actor who plays Peter…does that make me a pedophile? I mean, the actor’s eighteen already, I’m pretty sure, and really…what does a few months REALLY matter? On a semi-random note, I just spent the last half-hour practicing Italian under my breath, using that handy-dandy booklet that Greg lent me, and I’m pretty sure the Italian couple sitting next to me thinks I’m insane. Or a giant slut. (“Non non, faccio solo sesso secure. Ho molte malattie!”)
So we should all be aware by this point that, as part of my duties / services to Theatre at Sea, I’m going to Italy for a couple of weeks. In my capacity as Group Director, I’ll be trying to make sure that the passengers on our lovely ship, the Crystal Serenity, are taken care of as far as our Theatre at Sea events go. In this regard, I’ll be taking over for Jess, whose feet, small and dainty and lovely as they are, filled some rather monstrously large shoes. Did I mention that I’m looking forward to this event with a mixture of excitement and boot-quaking dread?
So let’s see…where to begin? Well, I suppose we could start with last night, where I very hastily packed up a few shirts, a few pairs of pants, and some underwear into the little luggage carrier that Myia left me before she went back to Ireland. Yes, I’m a last minute packer. I stuck my tuxedo and a few shoes into my suit carrier, which looked rather iffy, and I rather ill-advisedly decided to pack up all of my D&D gear into my carry-on bag. Yes, I’m a dork! And yes, I plan to be doing some adventure / campaign planning during the wee hours of the morning on board the ship! It’s a bloody cruise ship and nobody on board will be below 50! What the hell ELSE am I supposed to do? Anyway, my carry-on’s a bit heavy, and I’ll go into what happened to my suit carrier in a moment, but my checked bag weighed in at a very sensible 20-odd pounds.
I stayed up rather late last night after packing, and I honestly don’t remember why. I suspect Guitar Hero had something to do with it, or maybe some random fact-checking for D&D, or maybe I was messing with my last bit of e-mail and finances before I left. Whatever. Point is, I woke up slightly later than I’d intended, dropped into Theatre at Sea ‘round 10:30 am, and, in short order, was told to transfer all of my things into a larger suitcase so that we could drag some of Patricia Neal’s books onto the cruise with us. Ummm…okay…
So in between copying all the files I would need for the trip, I was stuffing Pat’s autobiography, each of which feels like a gold brick, into the rather large suitcases that Philip had provided for just this purpose. They ended up a combined weight of 100 pounds, handle like a Mack truck on skis, and overall are a pain in the ass. I love working for Theatre at Sea. Adding to the fun of this last day, Kevin needed a check from me for the security deposit on the apartment we’re moving into. Since he was filming in upstate New York , I had to take an hour to run down to Martha’s and drop off the check, getting back just in time to leave for my flight.
Oh. Now I remember what I was doing last night. I went to see the apartment that Kevin and I are to move into. God…I’m moving to Brooklyn. With Kevin. (Heh – just kidding. Hey Kev!) I’m actually really excited about the prospect, because a) I’m getting tired of living like a college student, b) it’ll be nice having some company I can actually relate to for once and c) it’s new, I guess. I’s fond of new shinies.
Back to the matter at hand, I can’t say much about the cab ride over, except that I crashed somewhere around 73rd and Park and woke up just as we were pulling into the Delta terminal at JFK. Along the way, however, I had this interesting dream where George Dubya was visiting the New York Library at Bryant Park and I got caught trying to smuggle a gun in through customs. My subconscious is terribly anvicilious. I snuck a peek through my luggage before going in, just in case I somehow stuck a Beretta in there without noticing, and proceeded through check-in without much ado. Given that there were a couple of hours before my flight, I went to have some exceptionally bad Chinese food and do a bit of reading before my flight. About halfway through the meal, I got a text from Sherry that read, “Please tell me the flash drive in the computer isn’t the one you’re taking to Venice.”
Aww, fuck. This trip is starting real well.
Philip had left an hour earlier, so there was no way to pick it up again. After entertaining some fairly wild options, the best of which involved Sherry fed-exing the drive to Rome and the worst having her fly it over in a hot air balloon, I realized that there was nothing on the drive that couldn’t be e-mailed to me or uploaded onto our file server. So that was done and, crisis mostly resolved, I proceeded to almost miss my flight, largely owing to a very well insulated toilet stall.
But for the sake of everyone involved here, I’ll skip the specifics of that story.
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