Part 5
The upper deck was like an open-air morgue with the soon-to-be-corpses dressed in bathing suits, greased and glistening under the oppressive Caribbean sun.
I'm only kidding (I got carried away by Yakimba's Lord Jim comment). Hanging out on the Sun Deck during the "at sea" days was one of the highlights of the cruise. It really is relaxing. And we had great weather the entire time. If I was a "sun worshipper," I probably would have enjoyed it even more. But because I am a pale face and a "sun scoffer" ("Fuck you, Sun!"), I would apply my sunscreen and scurry about the deck with my book or ipod seeking shadows (after I got scorched in New Orleans years ago and ended up looking like the Elephant Man, I've been a little more careful about getting burned). I was successful for the most part, but one day shade was hard to come by and I ended up with red knees and shins. No big deal. They would return to their regular luminescent white soon enough.
The one mistake I made was bringing a book I hadn't even started yet. In this case it was Richard Ford's Independence Day. I had read and enjoyed a couple of his books years ago (especially his short story collection Rock Springs). I had picked up a remaindered copy of Independence Day at B & N a while back and finally decided to read it when I recently saw it included on the NY Times Best American Novels of the last 25 Years list.
Ever read a book where you find yourself saying, "No, No, No, No?" No, people don't speak this way. No, people don't behave this way. Every thing in this book just feels unbelievable and wrong to me. And the first 100 pages in which the annoying main character Frank Bascombe, a real estate agent from NJ, tries to sell a house to an equally annoying couple of grumps from Vermont, may be the most tedious and frustrating 100 pages I have ever read. And the crazy thing is I'm determined to finish this book (I still have about a 100 pages to go) just so I can claim to have disliked it from beginning to end (and, no, I won't be jumping into the sequel any time soon).
But even with a crummy book, hanging out on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean Sea is a pretty good thing.
I'm only kidding (I got carried away by Yakimba's Lord Jim comment). Hanging out on the Sun Deck during the "at sea" days was one of the highlights of the cruise. It really is relaxing. And we had great weather the entire time. If I was a "sun worshipper," I probably would have enjoyed it even more. But because I am a pale face and a "sun scoffer" ("Fuck you, Sun!"), I would apply my sunscreen and scurry about the deck with my book or ipod seeking shadows (after I got scorched in New Orleans years ago and ended up looking like the Elephant Man, I've been a little more careful about getting burned). I was successful for the most part, but one day shade was hard to come by and I ended up with red knees and shins. No big deal. They would return to their regular luminescent white soon enough.
The one mistake I made was bringing a book I hadn't even started yet. In this case it was Richard Ford's Independence Day. I had read and enjoyed a couple of his books years ago (especially his short story collection Rock Springs). I had picked up a remaindered copy of Independence Day at B & N a while back and finally decided to read it when I recently saw it included on the NY Times Best American Novels of the last 25 Years list.
Ever read a book where you find yourself saying, "No, No, No, No?" No, people don't speak this way. No, people don't behave this way. Every thing in this book just feels unbelievable and wrong to me. And the first 100 pages in which the annoying main character Frank Bascombe, a real estate agent from NJ, tries to sell a house to an equally annoying couple of grumps from Vermont, may be the most tedious and frustrating 100 pages I have ever read. And the crazy thing is I'm determined to finish this book (I still have about a 100 pages to go) just so I can claim to have disliked it from beginning to end (and, no, I won't be jumping into the sequel any time soon).
But even with a crummy book, hanging out on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean Sea is a pretty good thing.
posted by BayonneMike at 9:05 AM
2 Comments:
sumthin bout cooperstown? all i remember.
Yeah, he takes his barking kid (with nary a mention of Tourette's) to the Baseball (and Basketball) Hall of Fame.
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