The kids and I went cruising at the end of July. In the end, cruising is about swimming, sun, and food, so now I know, it is not necessary to fly halfway around the world to go on one. A solo backpacker traveling through a foreign country may be able to envision themself as a sort of culture pirate, but when you are on a cruise, these delusions do not even cross your mind, as it feels more like a six-day field trip with an adult preschool.
Our trip started in Venice, a city exploding with tanned, shirtless men in jeans carting things about on a dolly with a cigarette hanging from their lips. Thousands of Streetcar-Named-Desire-Marlon-Brandos are busily moving about this city, making it gorgeous and functional.
My kids were confused by the prevalence of cigarette smoking. They come from a generation where they’ve been conditioned to think smoking is as bad as shooting a rhinoceros. It was effectively nonexistent on TV for the last fifteen years, and if it weren't for vaping, it could have been wiped from young people’s lives.
After Venice, we got on the cruise, and it was fun in the Mediterranean sun. We’d go on exciting excursions, hot-tub at night, and have meals in the restaurant with our two exotic waiters. One of them loved Miami, Florida, and he’d loom around our table like a new kid at school wanting to pull up a chair. I’d feel him looking at me, and then when I’d look up, his eyes would dart away. I couldn’t tell if he was socially awkward or if it was me.
Around the fourth day into a vacation, I have to suppress the desire to say, “That was fun, I’m ready to go home now.” Because I don’t want to flip a switch where everything goes from exciting and new to old and dull, I prefer the gradual change of a dimmer knob.
I don’t drink, and my companions are twelve and thirteen years old, who will climb into a game and start talking about Bomb-bomb-bombing-goose and Tee-tee-tee-gas-whore, where I have no idea what's going on.
I’d go to the gym in the morning and walk around in the afternoon. Sometimes I’d sit in a chair on a deck that was in the middle of the boat. It looked out to the endless ocean. I’d drink coffee and feel like I was getting in touch with God, sending him a mental email that wasn’t about much more than the awe of vast nothingness.
I’d come back into the boat, and the exact opposite state of mind would take over. The ship, like an ant farm, appears choreographed. Walking on the pool deck in the evening, the swimming pool was the same color as a clogged toilet. The tanned, bloated bodies fanning out from the pool, splayed like gunned-down soldiers. A No Doubt cover band is taking care of the five-gun salute. This is humanity, I thought. This boat could sink, and it would make no difference in the world.
The trip home was an epic disaster. I will spare the play-by-play, but eighteen hours of flying was stretched into forty-eight. I didn’t get any sleep and looked like I hadn’t seen a shower in days. When we set out on this journey, I put on my cleanest clothes, but they were clean for a reason. My Jorts, oversized low-rise jean shorts that go below the knee, are something Gwen Stefani wore in the year 2000. I find them fashion-forward; my daughter finds them nauseating.
When we were back in the States, I could call my sisters again. They tether me from a complete collapse of self, and they make me laugh. I told Lacey I was looking like a cactus-faced bum, and she told me to send her a picture. Kiki took a full-length shot of me, and the response was immediate. “Oh bitch, you’re wearing Asics!”
My older sister is a brain surgery nurse (I don’t know the technical term, but some high-pressure bad ass shit) and the only TV she watches is Disney Plus with her three kids, but for some reason, she has the banter of a seasoned RuPaul contestant. She saves this hilarious part of herself for her family. Sometimes our phone conversations are like finding buried treasure. I greedily cram as much of it into my memory as possible, knowing no one else will get to enjoy this.
My younger sister and her family went on a cruise out of San Francisco, and jealousy pulsated through my veins because they didn’t need to get on an airplane. When she came home, we compared our notes, and she commented on the number of people who were rascal-fat, incapable of walking, but zipping into that buffet room. I told her it sounded like the Steve Jobs movie, Wall-E, where they make fun of fat people for an hour and a half.
My cruise didn’t have that. Maybe it is just an American thing, and the flight would certainly kill anyone that size. There are a lot of people still smoking in Europe. Not vapes, but good-ol ciggies. Maybe the obesity epidemic in the US is correlated with the decline of cigarette smoking. It seems more likely to me than fast food because fast food isn’t just an American thing; it’s available all around the world.
This will all start to change with GLP-1s, and to be honest, I’m fucking jealous. I wish I could get on one; it would be amazing to have no appetite, one less thing to think about. I don’t care if I become terrifyingly thin like Karen Carpenter, so fragile I’d need to use a rascal for fear my bones would snap when I swat a fly away from my decaying body.
After we came home from our trip, I had a month before my summer vacation ended. I’m working on multiple writing projects that I planned to tackle, but without a deadline, I flailed. I watched eight hours of TV a day, read ten books, and snacked like there was no end to my appetite. I chew my stupid nicotine gum with such ferocity, I’ll probably end up with the jawline of a pit bull.
On a cruise ship, it is an effort not to dwell on the thought that the ship could sink. I fell asleep each night thinking about it. My plane route home resembled a bulletin board in a CSI room. I had no control, and after a while, I succumbed to the thought that this could all be leading up to my plane crashing. This all makes smoking a cigarette very appealing.
I spent the last month lying on my couch like a sunbaked sea lion. I never truly enjoyed it, afraid I was making myself more and more creatively stunted with every minute I delayed writing. However, like a switch being flipped, I woke up this morning in a different state of mind. I go back to work tomorrow, and there’s so much for me to get done.
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