Rockin' and a-Rollin'!

1:38am ???/September 22, 11:08pm EDT

I don’t have any idea what time zone I’m in right now.

My brain is on shuffle it would seem, so pardon if this post is very disjointed.

So! It’s been a few days, no? Don’t worry – you haven’t missed much. But your nagging for updates makes me warm and fuzzy… Glad to know I have some readership.

Ever watch any of those “movie magic” documentaries… or the “making of” special features on DVDs? I love that stuff… When they’re making cheesy disaster flicks (or even some good action movies), they have a thing called a gimble. It’s a big hydraulically controlled section of a plane/train/ship/whatever, and they can rock it to and fro and knock the actors around… The last few days on the ship have felt kind of like that. I’ve never had issues with seasickness… Til 2 days ago. Whew. Managed to keep my lunch intact, but I felt pretty much like hell. Seasickness pills don’t work too well after you already feel it, either… They really only work when taken ahead of time. So I spent a lot of time laying down Saturday. Yesterday was better… Today had its ups and downs (HA! Get it!?) but I still feel fairly crappy and like I might tumble out of bed at any second… Even now.

There is really only one comfortable position for me to lay with my laptop in bed and after a while even that becomes uncomfortable. The fact that it’s a lot easier to read than it is to type in bed is a big contributor to my relative lack of posting lately.

I’m reading “The Stand” by Stephen King. I like his writing – very much in the vernacular most of the time… He writes like people talk, and I like that. I like to think that if I were a writer, my style would be very similar to his. Anyway, I’ve seen the miniseries with Gary Sinese and Molly Ringwald a few times, but wanted to read the book… And found it for 99p (‘bout 2 bucks) while in Dover… Which is a great segue for…

We were in Dover on the 17th – I wanted to see the castle but didn’t. Was able to pick up some essentials at local stores though… Soap, a washcloth… Nail clippers. Pulse pounding stuff, lemme tell ya.

After that, we were at sea for a day, and in Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands – which are north and a little east of Scotland. Boat drill in the morning and an early all-aboard… and something else – can’t remember what now – let to me sleeping most of the day. Igor took some pictures and said he’d share. It looked cool from the ship and from the pics I saw but nothing that I would really call an “attraction” and I didn’t feel too hateful about staying on. Another day at sea after that (if you’re counting, that’s Saturday the 20th) and Iceland on Sunday.

I need to shave, my chin itches. I should’ve today but didn’t have time. Beard seems to be coming in a lot faster lately… or maybe it’s just because I’m used to having a lot more facial hair so I notice it more when it’s coming in…

The ship creaks a lot, which I find amusing. And I can hear the outside surprisingly well from my cabin. Sometimes a big wave gives you that feeling like when you go over a hill real fast in the car, or on the drop of a rollercoaster. And sometimes it’s fun and other times not so much. More on that later I think… Back to Iceland.

Iceland was gorgeous really. Mountains in the mist in the distance. The weather was crap. It was in the mid-40s, overcast and windy, and rained off and on. And the big church tower that everyone goes to see was wrapped in some major scaffolding and under construction. Lame. I spent most of my time wandering around looking for that. Got a few things for friends and family…

I’m hearing some kind of siren – probably from a TV or something – but it made me think… The kind of thing you’d hear at home and not even give a second thought to. Sounded slightly like a car alarm. And then you stop and realize you’re on a ship in the middle of the North Atlantic and there ARE no car alarms…

I noticed this in… uh… probably Stockholm… A lot of Scandinavia reminds me of the Pacific Northwest… Like Seattle. Hilly residential areas and… I dunno. I dig it a lot though. Makes wandering around through a foreign country not so intimidating. And most Icelanders speak English so that was ok too.

Anyway – at sea today and tomorrow, and Halifax the next day. Yay. Note the lackluster sarcasm. No, I’m excited to be back on this side of the globe. Well… THAT side of the globe I should say. I’m still far from there. I think we have another stop or two, but New York on the 28th (Igor leaves that day, if I’m not mistaken) and Boston on my mom’s birthday, the 29th.

That’s kind of what’s up in the travels. Oslo didn’t really work out the way I wanted – believe I mentioned that. Spent too much time just putzin’ around, and didn’t really get to do the things I wanted to do. I was happy to have company but in retrospect, I’d do it differently if I had the chance. Or rather – WILL do it differently next time. There will be a next time. Oh yes. I did make it to Kolbotn – where Pamparius Pizza is – and even got the girl at the gas station to draw me a map on a piece of receipt paper… But I didn’t have time to walk there, eat there, and walk back to the train. Norway is an expensive place – we were talking to the girl working the merch shop at the Hard Rock Café and she was saying she makes the equivalent of about 20 bucks an hour… But she pays 35% in taxes and stuff is SO expensive there… That the standard of living works out about the same… for example, 5KR = 1USD… Roughly of course. A whiskey drink cost 98KR. Nearly 20 bucks for a drink. I passed on that noise. Anyway, kind of a disappointment but… It’s my fault really, and I’ll find my way back there eventually… At least I was there. And to quote the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “that’s all I have to say about that.”

The job continues to be easy. I find myself having to do a lot of wardrobe-related things lately, and that kind of makes me laugh. I’ve never had to help a man put on a belt or take off a jumpsuit before – but that’s a couple of things I’ve been doing during the Band on the Run show. They don’t allow videotaping but I kind of wish I had a recording I could post so y’all could see what I’m talking about... But… Then the show last night was a violinist playing to backing tracks and also with the band. She had a regular, acoustic violin with a mic and wireless pack… And then an electric violin with another wireless pack. So twice during her set, I had to go out on stage, help swap violins and get the cabling situated. She said she’d have it on the back of her dress, no problem. I assumed by that, she meant OUT of her dress… But no. So I go out on stage and am basically digging in the back of her dress while she’s talking. It was rather amusing and the guys in the booth weren’t helping any. They were on the com like “make sure you don’t undo her bra! Or maybe you should!!!” – it was most entertaining. I guess tonight I didn’t have to do any wardrobe stuff. I did have to lift a woman up and put her like a board between two chairs – that was interesting.

That violinist… Ugh. She was playing to the beat of her own drummer, that’s for sure. Not so much with the track or with the band, when it came to tempo. Which is frustrating enough but when it’s a VIOLIN. Whew.

Tonight’s show was a hypnotist. A very seasick hypnotist. The first show was a little rough – a combination of just not-so-good volunteers and a lot of people distracted by the ship’s motion… Hypnosis is very centered on calm and relaxation and it’s hard to be relaxed and focus and calm when the ship is nearly about to pitch you out of your chair and shit’s bangin’ around behind you at the bow of the ship like Moby Dick himself is knocking and wants to come in. The second show was much better. One lady took to it really well. But the finale of her show is self hypnosis and she has two guys – in this case myself and Alex, one of the other backstage guys – lift her up after she’s in the trance, and lay her across two chair backs. Think of a board laid between two sawhorses. Same thing. And then a guy gets up and stands on her for 3-5 seconds. It was pretty cool and she stayed rigid the whole time. She was kind of a weird person, but nice enough…

I’m coming to the end of my 3rd page in Word. I suppose that’s enough. My brain has settled from its earlier randomness and I’m kind of tired… Crew party again last night. A little different because we were underway, not docked overnight. So not as big, but still a good time. They put it back in Spinnaker again so it wasn’t frigidly cold… I talked to some people, mingled a bit, and just kind of hung out. And had too many rum and coke’s. Oops. Humorously, the rocking of the ship didn’t seem NEARLY as bad while intoxicated. I’ll tell ya one thing though – it makes your legs real damn sore. Shawn told me but… I really experienced it last night. My hips and knees had been aching for hours and I couldn’t figure out why until… I had a light bulb moment when I was standing waiting for… something… And felt my legs shifting with the moving floor beneath me. And then DUH. No wonder I hurt.

Yeah. I could probably ramble on for 3 more pages. But I’m tired now… I’ll try not to space my entries so far apart next time… Til then…