Needing some normal.....and some ice cream.

I want a routine and some sanity. Yep. Almost a month in and the crazies may kill me! Well, first off, a normal person’s schedule would help. These late nights rolling over into getting up for an early afternoon set and trying to play music coherently in some bad venues are grating on my nerves. Not to mention the over abundance of hours. I fear for my wrists some days…..but enough about that!!!

   Imagine yourself at your workplace. Now imagine that the people at your workplace are a bunch of bored entertainers needing some excitement in their lives and the best they can come up with is to pick mercilessly at each other. I love the people I work with, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t get to leave my workplace!! One of the downfalls of ship life is I don’t get to get in my car, drive to Jamba Juice or take out Chinese and go home to a big couch in front of cable tv to unwind. Oh no. I stumble down several flight of stairs in my heels to the very tight living quarters Chris and I share in the midst of drama junction. I love being there with him….no doubt. It’s that reminder that the little closet is all you have separating you from everyone and everything else, and this is it kids. This ship is our world while we are here. When you leave your little closet, you spend your time trying to avoid being involved with the petty day to day things that living at work can incur, and then throw in the multi cultural aspect and it’s slightly mind numbing. That little walk you take to your fridge in your kitchen nicely stocked with exactly what you want to eat? Not a chance. Try putting on mildly acceptable public attire (think your entire workplace seeing you walk to the kitchen in sweats, a t-shirt and minimal make –up), making sure you have your identification tags, and taking a walk down a long stretch of the ship to the crew dining when all you want is some peanut butter on a piece of toast…aaaaand….no. Rice anyone??? Back to that whole multi cultural thing….when 90 percent of the people in the crew are Pilipino or Indonesian, rice is a staple, although I never touch the stuff. It can wear on you. I am finally here with Chris and now I can’t help but feel the urge for a few normal luxuries. A bath tub perhaps…..heck, a bathroom big enough to actually do my hair and make up in and not have to sit on the edge of the bed while Chris is still sleeping to do my make up! Having a phone that my boss does not have immediate access too….maybe not having my boss living a few doors down from me would be nice too. Being able to walk out of my door without having to attach my identity to my chest or wear jeans beyond the crew bar….maybe have an extra day or two where I had free internet or use of my phone so I could keep connected to the real world….sigh. The things we do to do what we love. We entertain for a living and these are the small luxuries we give up to do it and Chris and I are planning a few more good years at this. So for now we grin and bear the small inconveniences our life entails, and yes, they are small. I suppose in life there is always give and take. Ours are just a little out of the norm as far as a regular life would go and for some reason there are days when you forget what sort of world you live in here and want some normalcy. So today, I am sitting in Baltimore. It’s a gorgeous day, I have my handsome boy with me, we just had amazing sushi and are sitting at Starbucks with free internet and how much more normal can you get? Ahhhh the small pleasures you take for granted…..will cover more of those of course. But now off to do a little retail therapy and get ice cream! And then back to “work” on our floating home office of sorts. Later land dwellers!!!

 

 

 

Adjusting....as usual.

I’m lying in bed in the cabin with my computer…oh and Chris of course. It’s been almost 3 weeks since I started actually working. Believe it or not I am exhausted. People take for granted what entertainers go through on mostly a mental level to do what they do and I forget it sometimes myself. Today was my day off on this particular run and it could not have been more needed. So where to start? 3 weeks to catch up on so here’s the best I can do I suppose!

    First off, when you sign on a ship as a crew member there are all sorts of fun protocols you go through. This time around was a little strange as I had already been vacationing here for 3 weeks prior and the crew was already used to my face. Nevertheless, I had to show my face at multiple training sessions (which you go through every contract and know word for word what is going to be said) which were not too bad as I got to have a few familiar faces there with me. One of the bizarre and quite entertaining parts of ship life is the people you meet and make friends with who pop in and out of your life unexpectedly and know you in such different stages of your ship career. I reunited with Charlie (a sweet young dancer from Britain) and Greg (a Canadian piano bar singer) both of which were with me on the Conquest from quite a while back and knew me at a slightly awkward point of my life and then Laura, a host from Britain who was just with me on the Miracle and saw me as the very sad and hollow version of me desperately missing Chris and about to go home to have surgery and scared to death. She is seeing a totally different version of me at this point and it couldn’t be nicer to see her again under such better circumstances.  It ‘s been nice seeing all 3 of them again as well as a few other familiar faces who I had already been around the previous 3 weeks.

   As far as getting back to work, my schedule is on the cusp of being too much for me. A normal person would look at my hours and laugh at my even batting an eyelash at such little time on the clock. For me though, it comes down to this. I’m a classical pianist. I read what feels like a million little black notes crammed onto an 8X10 sheet of paper at a very quick pace. Doing that for hours on end is mentally taxing first off….well, you say, lots of people do office work for hours a day…..Ok, fair enough, but do office workers do their work in front of a LOT of very noisy people watching and listening to their every move in a performance based atmosphere where you are on display and open to immediate judgment? Then you take into consideration the level of what I am reading and translating to the piano….there’s no amount of transcribing or dictation that could match it. Probably not. So you have that aspect and then there’s the fact that I just had surgery on both wrists and am still a little sore and neurotic to say the least about it all. Any little twinge of pain freaks me out at this point. So the hours may need to be negotiated…..we shall see. My boss, the music director, seems like a nice enough person and now that I have completed both different runs our ship does it may be time for a chit chat. Some good rational logic should sit well with the guy. I hope. So there’s the negatives out of the way.

   I am thrilled to be playing at all, all things considered.  It’s thrilling to be able to do what you love after so much drama getting to the point of actually doing it. All frustrations aside. I have to keep it in mind on a constant basis, like when drunk 20-somethings ask for things like Free Bird……for the record….it’s a guitar solo. Give it up. Aside from the daily little annoyances with work, I am so happy to be with my boy. He has his frustrations too of course which will get covered at another time, but just being in the same place as him takes such a load off. He levels me out like no one can in those moments when I think I am about to lose my mind! On the other hand, I seem to have the same affect too when he finishes a show and has faced whatever anxieties it has caused. In other words, no one should have to go through this lifestyle without their significant other. And the little work annoyances are just the beginning! I will touch on the aspects of this lifestyle itself and they are already rearing their ugly heads here and there! But for now, I am exhausted. A 3 hour set later, it’s late at night and I a spent. I am going to lay in bed and stare at an episode of Seinfeld….it’s about my only option with our limited tv reception. More to come soon! I will be better at this I promise!!!!