Ugh. I hate being seasick. Actually, no, scratch that – I hate this feeling of being halfway between seasick and not quite seasick. I don’t really feel that nauseated, but the constant rocking back and forth is giving me one of those annoying headaches that feels like someone is trying to stuff a massive amount of goose down and cat dander into my skull. It’s also making me incredibly sleepy, so it’s hard to focus on anything that I’m trying to get done. It’s SO incredibly annoying. You know how you feel when you’re stuck in the car for a long, long road trip through New Mexico and the A/C is busted and you can’t open up the windows for whatever reason? Yeah, okay, well even if you don’t, it feels like that, minus the overwhelming heat. Count my blessings, I guess.
I’ve got very little to mention today, except that I spent another couple of hours rattling off e-mails in the morning, many of which Philip insisted on overseeing, which never fails to make me want to grind my teeth down to powder. Why is it the perennial prerogative of managers to hang over their workers’ shoulders and make sure every task they do is slowed down to a crawl? I could’ve rattled off three or four e-mails in the time it takes for Philip to dictate, review, and shuttle out one…and at least half the time the e-mails being sent out aren’t even strictly necessary. Do we REALLY need to know who’s signed up on the Baltic trip while we’re still on the Navigator? Are we going to be able to perform some mystic feat of advertising gymnastics to suddenly increase our return rate while we’re still trying to wrangle out the details of Funchal, Malaga, and Barcelona? I think it’s an ultimate point of irony that the part of me that makes me good at what I do also happens to be the part of me that wants to strangle myself with a giant stinky pile of pig intestines every time Philip and I have a meeting onboard this ship.
Stewart ran tea time trivia today, which resulted in some absurdly difficult questions. Team Istanbul didn’t win, and we all puzzled over how obscure some of the answers were. The man sailed overboard and touched down a good mile away from the ship when he googled out that particular set of trivia.
About halfway through the afternoon, Donna gave me a call to let me know that there was no advertising for her book signing, and that she had absolutely no idea how to get her books moved through the ship’s system, which was great, because I’d had nothing to do with the advertising up to this point, and I also had absolutely no idea how to get the books moved through the ship’s system. Unfortunately, when one of the stars has no idea how something is meant to work onboard the ship, and I have no idea how that something works either…guess who gets to go and find out? So I spent a good two hours trying to hack out a time and method by which Donna (and by extension Pat and Lewis) could get their books signed, preferably after their respective shows. That ended up running right smack against Shirley’s show, which I arrived slightly late for.
I do have to digress here to mention that Shirley Jones is probably one of the most elegant ladies I have ever met. She is always impeccably dressed, her manners are always exquisite, and she has never had a negative word for me. In fact, not only has she been ever pleasant when I’ve talked to her, she has never demanded (or even asked, for that matter) anything of me. It probably seems a mite skewed that my opinion of someone is partially dependent upon how heavy a demand they make upon my time while I’m on this cruise, but considering just how LITTLE time I seem to have to do anything for myself, that seems considerably more reasonable that it initially sounds.
Anyway, Shirley gave an excellent and enlightening talk about her experiences as an actor, mother, and wife in film, television, and Broadway. The Show Lounge was as packed as I’ve ever seen it. It fascinates me when I consider how full the theatre is to be a measure for the relative star power of each of our performers. It always forces a certain existentialist contemplation from me, as I wonder what it is that everyone in the audience finds so specifically fascinating about a celebrity. Is it the perception of success? Wealth? A strange sort of mob mentality or popularity contest where the amount of adulation any given person might receive becomes a measure of how interesting that person is perceived to be? I think Shirley’s life was fascinating, but at the same time I think that Dotti’s experiences have been equally interesting. She’s traveled around the world, cruised on multiple ships, and seen things I couldn’t have dreamed of. What quantifiable factor makes Shirley a more interesting figure than Dotti, or hell, than David or Sumrall or Philip? She’s eloquent and charming and exudes this certain maternal sweetness, but what in the length and breadth of her life makes her necessarily a more interesting figure than, say, my grandmother, who lived through the Cultural Revolution? Most of these questions are ultimately rhetorical, and I don’t quite know why I contemplate them or what I think I might be able to learn if I can arrive at some arbitrary answer.
I went back to my room and felt like napping after Shirley’s show, but instead I forced myself to go through chest, shoulders and triceps. This is the third and last week of Phase Two P90X (well, technically the recovery week is the last week, but I don’t really count that.) I think I’ve made some very decent improvements in body shape and general physical fitness, and I think it’s encouraging that I can sort of view the fact that I haven’t always advanced in the numbers with a certain grain of salt. Before I got onto the ship, after all, I didn’t really eat enough to gain much in the way of muscles. Still, I’m already looking ahead and wondering whether I’ll continue with P90X or try to do something else to improve muscle mass after the twelve weeks are over.
Wow…I just read over the last paragraph and basically floored myself with how utterly inane I’ve become. Even more than usual, I’d say. I think that’s a fair sign that I should probably heading to bed. Another at-sea day tomorrow, with more shows and still more inanity to come, I imagine.
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