The first rule of cruise ships: you do not sleep on cruise ships.

Part 3 of my travelogue about my cruise aboard Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas.

Part 1: Jill Cruises.
Part 2: Meet Your Cruise Director, James Andrews.

Day 2: Saturday, July 3
At Sea

I hear a voice. It is a familiar voice. But is no one in this bed. I hear a familiar voice, it is no one in this bed, and it is quite possibly a talking piece of furniture. I think it’s the armoire. The armoire is speaking to me! And it is LOUD! And PERKY! And it wants me to play BINGO!

And I’m not so sure that the sun has risen yet.

There must be a button. There must be a button to make it stop. I drag myself out of the bed. I stumble toward the happily articulating piece of furniture. And just then I recognize the voice.

It’s Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Yes, of course. Cuba Gooding, Jr. has given up acting. And now he is moonlighting. As an auctioneer! On amphetamines!

Show me the bingo!

No. Actually, it’s the Assistant Cruise Director. And apparently his boss wakes his ass up really early. And now, he’s waking the rest of us up. Really. Early.

I turn the dial on the speaker to “off”. I do not know who this James Andrews character is, but Julie McCoy would never have woken me up like that.

Mind you, I know this sounds cranky. But by this point, I believe I’ve earned the prerogative to be anti-perky. I’ve spent four years floor-managing a movie theater, another two in audience services at a big-name late night television show, and another one after that at a not-for-profit arts complex. Not to mention all the short term festival and event assignments. After more than a decade of professional smiling and people-herding, I'm allowed to exercise the "off" position on the professional perkiness switch. Especially when I’ve gone too long without sufficient sleep. And especially especially, when it's not my job.

So, if you don’t mind, Misters Cruise Director and Assistant, I’m going back to sleep now. If you know what's good for you, you'll chill out until I flip the switch myself.

*****

Things to do at sea when you don’t want to play nice with the staff or your fellow vacationers:
Sleep.
Bathe.
Eat breakfast.
(Oh shoot, we’re in the dining room, and they’re going to want us to be social. Leave.)
Soak in Jacuzzi.
Swim.
Sit by pool.
Bathe again.

*****

Mid-afternoon of my first day without caffeine. Cruising is now like being rocked to sleep all day. I open the balcony door, curl up on the bed not two feet away, and fall blissfully asleep. The breeze, paired with the air conditioner, cools me, so I grab the blanket. Ah, sweet naps.

But it’s not just staff on this ship that likes to wake me up; it’s anything with a Y chromosome. The BF has returned from his massage appointment (mine is tomorrow), and he is standing over the bed laughing. “What are you, a taco?”

I look at myself. I had grabbed the far edge of the bedcover sometime during my nap, and pulled it only halfway over my body, leaving most of me exposed to the ocean breeze. Did I mention blissful? What would be the problem here? Can men on this ship really not let a sleeping woman lie?

Well, fine! As long as I’m awake!

I may be resolved to avoid “organized fun!” but there’s no way I’m going ten days without a workout, especially considering the 24 hour availability of all things icy, creamy, and chocolatey. And given that I‘ve been uncharacteristically handling this particular case of jet lag like a total amateur, I figure I’ll ease back into my routine gently with a stretch class. I don’t consider time spent with a necessarily perky fitness instructor a breach of my resolution

But if I did, I’d still be safe. Perky? Anything but. In fact, the phrase “militant life-sized Barbie” comes to mind. Though my obliques get a good stretch, and that’s really the priority just before donning the bikini. Still…afterwards, when I inquire about yoga classes, I ask who will be teaching. Just to be mentally prepared. And apparently, it will be an Eastern European martial arts champion! Fucking fabulous. I’m pretty sure he won’t let me sleep, either.

*****

Note to all of you arriving here via web-search for Royal Caribbean and/or Cruise Director James Andrews: Though I have not yet finished publishing this serial, I will state that I have nothing but the best things to say about my cruise experience and only the highest praise for James and the job that he does. My sarcasm is strictly for entertainment purposes.

Meet Your Cruise Director, James Andrews.

This is Part 2 of a travelogue about a cruise I took aboard Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas in 2004. Read Part 1.

We’ve missed all the welcome aboard food, and I’ve signed us up for the late dinner seating at 8:30—because the main seating is at 6, and who’s ever ready to eat dinner at 6? Certainly not me. Unless, of course, I’m jet-lagged and over-caffeinated, in which case I’m starving at 3:30. But this is a cruise ship, isn’t it? Aren’t they, like, notorious for an overabundance of food? Not so much when they’re expecting you to be mustering and learning how to put on your life vest. We inspect the room to kill time. I take the sleeping area; BF checks the bathroom.

Bed bolted to the floor? Check.
Gratuitous tropically-flowered bed covering? Check.
Chocolate on the pillow…accompanied by some sort of informational brochure that—
Hey, what’s this?
“Cruise Compass”.
Apparently, some sort of daily schedule.
They print a daily schedule?
Well, duh.
If they’re telling you to “get out there”, they’re gonna tell you where to go, right?

Notwithstanding my inclination to converse with myself, I’m a pretty savvy traveler. So why the publication surprises me, I have no idea. Except maybe that I’ve left my brain at the Accademia, gawking at Michelangelo’s David. (Now that is one fine specimen of manhood. Albeit made of marble. And a bit unproportional where it counts. And now, across the ocean.)

I begin reading: welcomes and activities and showtimes and…is this really necessary? An insert with key staff bios? Sure, glad to know that the Captain has extensive experience in the Norwegian Navy, but do cruise-goers typically wonder about this stuff? I peruse the sheet with all the twisted fascination I usually reserve for published writing with deplorable grammar, other people’s journals, and cereal boxes.

I can’t. stop. reading. I become more and more convinced that we’ve unwittingly infiltrated some microcosmic galaxy that manufactures celebrity regardless of the place’s insignificance in relation to the rest of the universe.

Like Disney World.

No, worse.

Rather than trying to convince us that we’re being hosted by a human-sized mouse costume, the people behind the Compass actually assume we’ve come on vacation to talk to other humans. And not only do they expect us to keep up civil dinner conversation with people we haven’t pre-screened, but they urge—nay, insist—that we get to know Your Cruise Director.

And that’s how they refer to him, on every page, in every announcement. “Your Cruise Director, James Andrews.” Apparently all activities are brought to you by Your Cruise Director, James Andrews—in case you remain sober enough to wonder who to thank for the daily over-abundance of fun and sun-frolic. I wonder: when he (Your Cruise Director, James Andrews) returns home after a long stretch at sea, does he forget he’s no longer at work and automatically type “Your Cruise Director” on his email?

Or leaves notes to his family:
Out to run some errands. Be home by 6.
~Your Cruise Director

Maybe he just signs them “YCD.”

I turn my attention to his headshot. Broad smile. Relatively young. Rather thin. Possibly naïve? Blandly eager to please. Not really what I expect. Then again, Ricardo Montalban probably isn’t in the market for a second job at his age.

Yes, I know he was on Fantasy Island. But, take note: Cruise Director = smarmy. Love Boat’s Julie McCoy—way too cool. Besides, I’d always pretended I was her. I am nothing if not un-smarmy. At some point, my idolization of Julie must have become disjointed from my image of a Cruise Director, and I’d subconsciously inserted Montalban in there instead.

James Andrews doesn’t appear to be anywhere near Fantasy Island… But Julie? I don’t think so. She was a (fictional) Cruise Director when kitsch was cool. He is working on a floating epicenter of sincere American kitsch in a decade dripping with irony. How cool can he be?

*****

BF emerges from his inspection of the closet-sized bathroom and miniscule shower. “Bigger than I expected,” he half-approves, “but I don’t know how they expect you to wash your feet.”

My eyes dart to his lightweight cargos and slightly worn Adidas that I had, at some point, spent a good deal more time at the mall picking out than I really should have.

“I didn’t turn it on!” Apparently my eyes darted in too accusatory a manner.

He does look dry.

“There’s just no room to bend over,” he continues, then smoothly changes the subject. “So when can we get some food?”

The onboard Johnny Rocket’s opens at 6, so we forego the dining room and gorge on burgers and cheese fries. It is only after my coffee buzz wears off that I realize it has been my first fast food in over a month. But it’s too late now: I am jet-lagged, lethargic, and delirious—with indigestion. We return to the room. I swear off French fries and caffeine, and toss myself on the bed. When the BF suggested alone time, this probably wasn’t what he had in mind.

*****


Note to all of you arriving here via web-search for Royal Caribbean and/or Cruise Director James Andrews: Though I have not yet finished publishing this serial, I will state that I have nothing but the best things to say about my cruise experience and only the highest praise for James and the job that he does. My sarcasm is strictly for entertainment purposes.

Jill Cruises.

In 2004, I went on a cruise. Then, I wrote about it. Then, I revised what I wrote about it. Then, I revised what I wrote about it again. And again. I could never make it work the way I wanted to. I recently decided that the only way this essay is going to see the light of day is if I revise as I publish. It's long, so it will be posted in sections. You are welcome to comment, reply, discuss, and speculate upon the content of future installments. If it wasn't for you all, this would probably stay on my hard drive for eternity.

Day 1: Friday, July 2, 2004.
Departure: Cape Liberty. Bayonne, New Jersey.


“Oh my God, it’s like the freakin’ Death Star!”

You see, I tend to get right to the point when I’m jet-lagged.

We’re driving toward the Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, New Jersey, and Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas looms in the distance. It’s big—even in comparison to the just-passed Bayonne Bridge.

Especially in comparison to the Bayonne Bridge, normally the focal point of this less attractive side of New York Harbor, now reduced to… Welllllll, “the ugly friend of the hot chick” comes to mind, especially since sleek feats of engineering are always referred to as women. But for me it’s more like “that dork I dated in high school until his mommy made him dump me, but just in time for me to hook up with the hot drummer.”

Yep, that’s Voyager of the Seas. Totally the hot drummer. Or the Death Star.

My boyfriend marvels at (or is it “mocks”?) my ability to make anything relevant to sci-fi; my father, our chauffeur, laughs. If I had stopped to consider the logistics of a floating fifteen-story hotel with my math-loving geek mind, I ‘d have realized how imposing it would be before we were barreling up the Jersey Turnpike. But the past month has been nothing but writing, the Italian Renaissance, Tuscan food, and shopping—in other words, heaven. I’d somehow gotten the bright idea that a post-graduate study trip to NYU’s campus in Florence would afford me ample time to write. It hadn’t taken much convincing to get my friend Kim—also a playwright, and my partner in all things procrastination—to join me. Not even two days home, and all that’s on my mind is the Italian fashion lovingly rolled, tucked, and packed in my small bag, and the two notebooks of nonsense that need revision.

*****

I had wanted the BF to join me in Florence so that I could show him around the city that had been my favorite since my first trip abroad in college, but it soon became apparent that his work commitments wouldn’t allow that. I still felt a pull, though, and spent a whole lot of time trying to convince him that he shouldn’t take it personally, and a whole lot of time trying to convince myself that I shouldn’t feel so terrible about the situation. So we decided to set aside some “alone time” upon my return. We researched all-inclusive resorts and Caribbean destinations, none of which I had ever been to. I couldn’t choose, so BF suggested a cruise with multiple ports to cure my indecisiveness. Though I generally consider “tourist” to be a four-letter word (and what’s more “touristy” than a Caribbean cruise?) the idea did seem intriguing. Next round of research: cruise lines.

Of all of them, Royal Caribbean seemed… ummmmm… the least likely to… uhhhhh… their ships are the prettiest?

No, seriously. I’ve spent a lot of time stuck in traffic all over New York City, with views of the ships cruising into the harbor. Royal Caribbean’s are absolutely the best-looking ships at sea. And they don’t require a spokesperson who’s a child-labor-exploiting saccharine-oozing morning-television-bobblehead Stepford wife. Oh crap, did I publish that?

And even better… to have mainstream America, blissfully ignorant of the actual lyrics to Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life”, humming along as if it were the theme song to The Mickey Mouse Club? Yes, I would give these people my money, if only to perpetuate the irony.

Besides, their “get out there” philosophy was encouraging: yoga, rock wall, in-line skating. BF and I had recently begun rock-climbing together, and I had eased him into yoga (trying to avoid mention of all the same-sex attention he’d be getting), but I hadn’t yet convinced him to let me teach him to rollerblade. (Hey, two out of three ain’t bad. Unless you're counting that... ummm... do I really have to call it a song? How about "wrist-slittingly power(fully torturesome pseudo-)ballad"?) If nothing else, the trip would be like my life at home. Only, with a Jacuzzi. With a state-of-the-art theater that I could nose around in. Without New York City public transportation. And at sea. I’d never been at sea—which is strange, because I’ll try anything once.

And I fucking love the ocean.

*****

A Caribbean cruise: probably a third of what I spent in Italy.
A stateroom with a balcony: several hundred dollars more per person than an inside room.
A stateroom steps away from the ship’s library, with internet connection: priceless.
My geekdom knows few limits.

*****


Note to all of you arriving here via web-search for Royal Caribbean and/or Cruise Director James Andrews: Though I have not yet finished publishing this serial, I will state that I have nothing but the best things to say about my cruise experience and only the highest praise for James and the job that he does. My sarcasm is strictly for entertainment purposes.

Final Jeopardy

The answer was something like "Starting in Ohio, if you dug straight through the earth, you would emerge in this body of water."

The question: "What is the Indian Ocean?"

I knew it as a matter of course. Though I often know Jeopardy answers and will announce them to my living room and whoever happens to be in it at the time, for some reason, this struck my family as a "Why the hell would you know this?" situation.

I thought that anyone who knew me would think this to be a perfectly reasonable thing for me to have researched previously. Why?

Have you never thought "What is the furthest on this planet I could possibly get from this place?" and then immediately tracked down the nearest globe and tried to pick the exact location most diametrically opposed to where you were?

Or is it just me?

Though the blogging populace very likely represents a highly skewed sample of the public and this wouldn't qualify as a scientific poll, I just have to know.

AND PLEASE, I don't want to hear about how, if at all, the extended width of the earth at the Equator would skew my arbitrary "furthest place from here" definition.

T - 30 Seconds

We all have unstated assumptions lurking in our subconscious. We don't know they are there, but they color our vision. It is a revelation each time one is exposed, a colored wire peeking through the slice in the insulated covering. It looks delicate, but cut through it and you just might fry.

Here's my revelation for today: GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE.

Well, that's the just the conclusion, not so much the revelation.

In 2005, I passed one of those milestone birthdays so infamous for their tendency to throw the most "together" person into a tailspin. And I wouldn't really have called myself "together" before the birthday, so you can imagine where it left me. It wasn't the number that bothered me, but that's about all I could discern. I had several different groups of people throw me parties; I had a meltdown nonetheless.

Here's my revelation from my birthday: GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE.

I think I'd always assumed that I would be "settled" by now. I'm not disappointed because I am not; I am actually terrified that I will become settled. Here. In a place I never wanted to live*; living a life that I never wanted on a conscious level, but am suddenly realizing that my subconscious believes is THE WAY IT WILL END UP.

WHOA THERE, little subconscious! If you're not with the rest of me, how the hell is the rest of me going to get anywhere?

You see, the plan had always been, live as I please while I'm "young", (whatever that might be) and when I settle down, great. But it's taking me a bit longer to get to the living as I please part, and as it takes up that time, it's inching closer to that time that subconsciously was the upward limit on when I would "settle down". So, when my birthday came around I had this panic attack (though I didn't know why at the time) that the time I had allotted for "living as I please" would be GONE before I could do the aforementioned living, transitioning WITHOUT ESCAPE into the settled stage, leaving me, effectually, living a continuous life in a place I never wanted to be in the first place.

It's time to reprogram the rocket.

I've been around the world and back again. It's still not enough. I need my travels to be my lifestyle, NOT the escape that vacation is to the faces I see all around me. And I need my subconscious to believe that it's actually going to happen.

I DON'T WANT to WANT TO ESCAPE my life. So I'd better make a life that I'm happy to stick around in.

*For those of you not familiar with the NYC area, I live in Staten Island, which is a borough of and therefore technically a part of NYC. Technically, it's not "a suburb" but the population is working-to-middle-to-upper-middle-class families. The focus is on making families. I could go on, but I won't. Please just try to make the appropriate analogy with an area in a city near your home so I don't have to type what I am really thinking. Thank you.

YCD, this is yours, wherever the heck you are.

january 1995. tokyo, japan.
on a layover from bangkok, we wait in narita airport. our return flight is delayed; no reasons are provided the passengers. we are traveling in a large group. we tie our backpacks together, take turns walking around the terminal in pairs and threes, kill time by playing a card game whose rules i can't remember. gazing out our glass enclosure, we spy mount fuji in the distance. moments before exhausted by three weeks climbing pagodas and trawling the red-light district, we're now edgy, restless, taunted by the thought of being stranded in a world we won't get the opportunity to explore.

five hours later, maybe more, all our liquids are confiscated as we get one step closer to boarding. due to an apartment fire in manila two weeks earlier, authorities have uncovered a plot that would have resulted in the explosion of up to eleven u.s. aircraft departing narita on this day--an early phase of ramzi yousef's project bojinka. we get home in one piece, and i've still not been any closer to mount fuji.

august 1995. new york city, usa.
at midnight when we close the theater, we change our clothes and meet in the parking lot at midland beach. so many of us, in concentric circles of cliquedom, all but few loyalties shifting with the sand. but keri wants to dance tonight, and i'm with her. if we leave now, we'll hit the dance floor just as things get interesting. then we can lose everyone else in the crowd, and the darkness, and the trance.

july 1996. new york city, usa.
at work. again. i've stopped counting the hours, but i continue to think. if i have to change one more tank of CO2, count out one more cash register, or inventory one more case of straws, i just. might. kill someone. i can't believe they let barely-post-adolescents run this place. yet every major tenet of management that i will find valuable in the next decade, i learn here.

the next day.
lollapalooza music festival, randall's island arena. thousands upon thousands upon thousands stream in. a humid new york city summer day. metallica. the ramones. and some good younger bands, like rancid and the screaming trees, as a bonus. baggy pants and ripped jeans, goths and ravers and hip-hop kids. i wonder which locales of which multi-billion-dollar conglomerates they'd been running yesterday--whose doors they will unlock tomorrow morning without having slept.

april 1998. london, england.
i climb the steps on the monument in trafalgar square. marble beneath me, i mentally commune with the inanimate admiral nelson. then i gaze at big ben and think, "it's big ben. do i really need to get any closer?" just now, i'd rather watch the pigeons, and the people relaxing or strolling under the momentarily clear sky. i wonder how many of their paths might have crossed mine elsewhere, or might yet again, on some ordinary day in the future.

july 2001. key west, usa.
there's a tremendous, gnarled willow near the hemingway house. i run my fingers over one of the knots on its trunk, wondering how long the tree has lived before me, for how long it might continue after me, and how soon it will be before i see it again.

june 2004. fiesole, italy.
seated high in an ancient amphitheater, i look down upon the outdoor stage installed for the summer festival. its modernity--sleek and black and minimalist--contrasts starkly with the curves of the cypresses and the richness of color in the small valley harboring the etruscan and roman ruins. paradoxically, the presence of the stage, the curtains--the lights, even--doesn't seem paradoxical at all. this amphitheater is what spectacle was; and that stage is what spectacle is; and i want both their spirits in my work. i survey the performance area, imagining all i could do with a theater like this, all i could bring to life on that stage.

july 2004. bayonne, usa.
a native new yorker never can head south without seeing a familiar face. i board a caribbean-bound cruise ship expecting to encounter at least a dozen people i know. it turns out that two people at my dinner table share my zip code, yet not a face on board do i recognize. certainly, someone aboard this ship must have crossed my path at least once before. but who?

and who else might have missed such a crossing by moments or minutes, days or decades; treading the same steps, yet never at the same time; harboring the same spirit, yet never in the same hemisphere?

Feels Like Home

Blog Portland tagged me for the five things you don't know about me meme, but because he decided to give his a thematic link (being tortured in many sadistic but entertaining ways by his older brother), and because I can never do anything exactly as assigned, I've decided to thematically link mine as well.

Five Cities That Feel Like Home
(in chronological order of my discovery)

1. Sure, New York feels like home because New York is home--in terms of the conventional "where you sleep" definition. But what I am talking about is an inexplicable feeling of connection to a place, and I have that connection with my hometown. I feel connected to certain boroughs and neighborhoods more than others; certain locations and attractions never fail to put me at ease. (But that's a list for a different day.) During my extremely abbreviated college hunt, someone asked me why I wanted to go NYU and my immediate answer was "Why would I want to go anywhere else?" I won't always live here, but I'll always feel that draw.


2. Whenever I talk about Florence, I sound like a starry-eyed teenager with a crush. Florence is the way to my heart. Enough said. For now.

3. Laura and I are wandering aimlessly about Europe. We know we want to stop somewhere in Switzerland, but can't decide where. She befriends some random person while I'm asleep on the train, and wakes me up.
"We're getting off the train."
"Where are we?"
"Basel."
"What's in Basel?"
"Lots of stuff. Get up."
I obey, and then I thank her.

Actual excerpt from my notebook: The cleanest and most efficient bathroom I have ever seen, complete with machines to make change from your francs, coin-operated turnstiles, and complimentary packets of moistened toilet tissue. Clean streets, Swiss flags everywhere, policewoman in little cup in large intersection controlling traffic. Home.

What any of those details have to do with my love of the city, I have no idea. It's like when you have an amazing conversation with someone and your friend asks you what exactly made it so, and you think of random things the person said, and then realize that none of them separately or en masse really have any relevance to why you woke up the next morning with that stupid smile on your face. It's more than chemistry; it's recognition. (I had chemistry with Prague--all sorts of chemistry--but no recognition.)


4. Key West. For some reason, I can't currently locate any of the photos I took in Key West. This might somehow be related to the fact that my living space looks like the aftermath of a tornado. So here's the cover of the notebook that I bought at the Hemingway House.

And here's a page from the actual copy of A Farewell to Arms that I attempted to read for my high school English class, excerpted from somewhere around the place where I decided that I could skip...oh...eight to ten chapters, give or take five more...and not feel guilty. This is not something I would normally do, but the idea of reading every word of this book was worse than the thought of getting paper cuts in my eyeballs.

Which is why I found it curious to feel such a strong connection to the neighborhood where this man chose to build his home, to his actual home, and to the lighthouse that helped him get his drunk ass back to that home every night.

This is a city that throws a sunset party every night. What's not to love?

5. ????? From the very beginning of this post, I knew that this was a four-item list, but I chose this topic anyway. Why? Because in the same way that I feel such a connection with these places, I feel inexplicably sure that there is another city I will want to call home. I just haven't figured out which it is yet. If you have any suggestions based upon this list (though I know I've not adequately explained what I...ummm...find attractive, alluring, and arousing in a city), do call them out. No need to raise your hand. This isn't your high school English class.

If you hate Hemingway, or feel inexplicable tenderness toward cities you've only just arrived in, consider yourself tagged. Or not.

Marco Island, Florida

I don't know about you all, but I could really use some of this right now.

Hula Dancing on the Deck in the Rain

Yes indeed. So Sunday evening, I found myself hula dancing on my uncle's deck in the rain. My cousin Lauren graduated college a few months back. She decided she wanted to have a luau for a graduation party. I, unfortunately, had to miss most of it because we had rehearsal for the show Sunday afternoon. By the time I arrived at the luau, all the mai tais had been consumed and the skies had opened up. The downpour had passed; it was more like spring rain. Some concoction of Don Ho and Elvis was playing.

The invitations had specifically mandated "luau attire." For my part, I would have been more than happy, if I'd had the time, to weave some tropical flowers into my hair and throw on a grass skirt. But that really wouldn't have worked for the four hours I had spent in a midtown dance studio, staring up at the ceiling and praying someone would let us refocus the damn frontlights.

(They won't let us refocus the frontlights! If you come to this show, and you know ANYTHING about tech theater, please DO NOT think we focused those things like that ON PURPOSE!!!)

So as I was not dressed appropriately for the shindig, I thought the least I could do was provide some entertainment. And that's how I ended up on the deck, in the rain, hula-dancing in my over-worn cut-off cargos and what my mother likes to call my "wishful thinking" t-shirt. It's this purple t-shirt I bought in the San Lorenzo market in Florence; I have since cut out the neckline and done other things to make it fit more comfortably. It has the Florentine symbol used on the city's flag and coat of arms.

Every time I show up somewhere in this, someone tells me it looks like I'm wearing a Superman t-shirt.

Superman doesn't wear purple.

And if I were wearing a superhero symbol, it would be the Bat.

I don't think I would hula in a Batman t-shirt.

The Objectification of Men: Now, Drunk, Never and the Australian Football League

I wanted to write about this on Friday, but this weekend got totally out of control. Though it’s good that I put it off, because yesterday’s events tie in rather well.

Friday afternoon, I take a break from the website, the articles, the play, the book…I take a break from everything. My brother is watching tv. In the days before cable television, when he was still tiny enough to fit in my grandmother’s pushcart, my brother would often wake up at sunrise, flip the dials on the television, mess with the antenna, and find soccer. In Spanish.

We don’t speak Spanish.

He does not play soccer. But he’ll watch it. He’ll watch anything with a ball.

Friday afternoon, he’s flipping stations and discovers the Australian Football League. Well, he already knew it existed, so it wasn't technically a discovery for him...(He went off on a tangent about not confusing different sports, and rugby terminology, and "league" and "union" and random Australian slang. He then pulled out a Playstation 2 Rugby game and suggested I play it.)...but this sport had never previously entered my consciousness. I had no idea what I’d been missing.

I relate to sports on two different levels. First, there is the fact that I do enjoy doing insane things and very much enjoy watching other people do insane things. So: no protective gear, and people taking each other down? That's sick; that's sadistic; that's fun! And then there's the level that you just knew was coming: impressively athletic men running around, doing impressively athletic things? Yes please. This was a whole new league of men that I'd never seen before, and we were watching a round-up of the week's action. Which means, I got a quick look at nearly every team. Player for player, the Kangaroos might be the most attractive team in international sports. But, as I said, it was a quick look.

Competence--my girl friends and I have been on this particular topic for quite a while. As Kim said, "Competence is so sexy." It was so quotable I wrote it into one of my travel essays. And then Joy read it and said "Can we have t-shirts made of that?" There's nothing better than watching an attractive man do what he loves to do. Competently. Don't care what it is. If he loves it and he's good at it, it's exciting to watch.

So I call Kim. Immediately. "Remember all those soccer players we saw in Florence last year?" Friday was June 24--La Festa di San Giovanni, the feast day of Florence's patron saint, which is celebrated (of course) with soccer--calcio storico to be exact (that link is in Italian). It was one year to the day that we had discovered the parade of men who had returned to their city to play an historically violent game which pitted the each quarter of the city against the others. Though the game didn't actually happen last year, we got quite an eyeful anyway.

"That's a rhetorical question, right?"

"Well, have you ever seen the Australian Football League?"

She apparently has not.

I have one word. "Competence."

Fast forward: it's Sunday afternoon. We've just finished a read-through of the play; because our one male actor couldn't make rehearsal (though he did, in fact, return from Mexico), Sunday was all estrogen. We decide to go for a walk and get some food. Fifteen minutes into our wandering, Megan asks me, "have you ever played 'Now, Drunk, Never'?"

If you've never heard of it, it is what it sounds like. You evaluate passerby, deciding whether you'd do them now, when you are drunk, or never. The game's character depends on who the other participants are: if it's just friends, you get to critique your friends' taste; if, on the other hand, you play it in a group that includes someone you're actually interested in (and the feeling is mutual but as-of-yet unexplored), the game could escalate into some all-out battle-of-the-sexes psychological warfare. (Ok, so clearly it wasn't my first time playing the game.) Either way, it's damn entertaining.

So we spend the next hour walking, eating, and evaluating men. If I had to quickly estimate an average, I would say the percentages seem to work out this way: 3% now; 17% drunk; 80% never. (Only slightly different than a typical bell curve? I'd have to break down the "nevers" and see if they distribute like the typical bottom half of a bell. Yes, I've been brainwashed; everything is a GMAT question.) Are men quite so picky? My immediate reaction is "no way," but I don't want to underestimate you all.

The Australian Football League? The nows skyrocket. But I didn't get to see them as up-close-and-personal as I did those Italian soccer players.