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Supposed Fun Will Be Happening to Me
Sep. 20th, 2007 06:04 pmIt's now official. In spite of David Foster Wallace, I'm taking a cruise.
But see, I have several advantages over him:
1) Seven cool people I know are coming with me. Can you believe it? Both other couples who expressed interest are coming along! Plus the parents of one of them are also coming, even though they have to fly in and so it's not so cheap for them. And not only that, every one of those people actually likes cruises even after having taken them. Poor Mr. Wallace was all alone with his cynical future readers.
(If you wish you were coming, too, you can! It's a public place! There is rather a lot of space. Contact me for details.)
2) I am not agoraphobic. I will not feel the need to rush back to my cabin on a regular basis.
3) I am paying for my own trip. This overall is not a benefit, but it does make it more likely that I will enjoy the trip because otherwise there will be cognitive dissonance, and the human mind doesn't like cognitive dissonance.
4) I am spending some serious energy in preparing myself for way too much service and for dealing with the ugly American syndrome so that I can have fun in port anyway. I read that in Cozumel, the only source of income is tourism. So they can't just hate all of us; at the very worst it's a love/hate relationship. Besides, it really doesn't matter what I think of the whole cattle call thing. It's a reality; it exists; I'm just going to work with it rather than cower on the boat in disgust.
I've already researched things to do at each of the ports and I have already found at least one thing in each place that sounds both fun and affordable to me. So my biggest fear of feeling like I'll be wandering around lost and ignorant in foreign and alien countries has been mostly appeased. (I will be lost and ignorant within a well-run tour group.)
5) There's a really big winding water slide on this boat. Here's a workout idea I have: run up the stairs, slide down the slide, and repeat until tired.
However, Mr. Wallace may also have some advantages over me:
1) Being on a different ship, we probably won't have that magical combination of a ridiculously strong air vent in the bathroom plus an insanely powerful blow dryer which together allowed him to get his hair to go straight up in the air. (And in the picture on the cover of the book, he looks like he's wearing a ponytail and thus has long hair.) And playing with his hair in the bathroom just might be the most fun thing he did the whole time, so missing that is not inconsequential.
2) I may get seasick. I've never been seasick before (unless you count the barf-o-rama--ahem--spinning rides at amusement parks) except for once: on a whale-watching boat in the Pacific. The cruise ship is a bigger boat on a calmer sea (unless perhaps there's a late-season hurricane), so I'll probably be fine. If not, I'm bringing ginger, I've read up on things you can do like look at the horizon, and they'll have more serious drugs available on board, plus it usually goes away after a couple of days. (Or I could learn to love the feeling of seasickness, because after all, I am paying good money for that feeling.)
But see, I have several advantages over him:
1) Seven cool people I know are coming with me. Can you believe it? Both other couples who expressed interest are coming along! Plus the parents of one of them are also coming, even though they have to fly in and so it's not so cheap for them. And not only that, every one of those people actually likes cruises even after having taken them. Poor Mr. Wallace was all alone with his cynical future readers.
(If you wish you were coming, too, you can! It's a public place! There is rather a lot of space. Contact me for details.)
2) I am not agoraphobic. I will not feel the need to rush back to my cabin on a regular basis.
3) I am paying for my own trip. This overall is not a benefit, but it does make it more likely that I will enjoy the trip because otherwise there will be cognitive dissonance, and the human mind doesn't like cognitive dissonance.
4) I am spending some serious energy in preparing myself for way too much service and for dealing with the ugly American syndrome so that I can have fun in port anyway. I read that in Cozumel, the only source of income is tourism. So they can't just hate all of us; at the very worst it's a love/hate relationship. Besides, it really doesn't matter what I think of the whole cattle call thing. It's a reality; it exists; I'm just going to work with it rather than cower on the boat in disgust.
I've already researched things to do at each of the ports and I have already found at least one thing in each place that sounds both fun and affordable to me. So my biggest fear of feeling like I'll be wandering around lost and ignorant in foreign and alien countries has been mostly appeased. (I will be lost and ignorant within a well-run tour group.)
5) There's a really big winding water slide on this boat. Here's a workout idea I have: run up the stairs, slide down the slide, and repeat until tired.
However, Mr. Wallace may also have some advantages over me:
1) Being on a different ship, we probably won't have that magical combination of a ridiculously strong air vent in the bathroom plus an insanely powerful blow dryer which together allowed him to get his hair to go straight up in the air. (And in the picture on the cover of the book, he looks like he's wearing a ponytail and thus has long hair.) And playing with his hair in the bathroom just might be the most fun thing he did the whole time, so missing that is not inconsequential.
2) I may get seasick. I've never been seasick before (unless you count the barf-o-rama--ahem--spinning rides at amusement parks) except for once: on a whale-watching boat in the Pacific. The cruise ship is a bigger boat on a calmer sea (unless perhaps there's a late-season hurricane), so I'll probably be fine. If not, I'm bringing ginger, I've read up on things you can do like look at the horizon, and they'll have more serious drugs available on board, plus it usually goes away after a couple of days. (Or I could learn to love the feeling of seasickness, because after all, I am paying good money for that feeling.)