Day Five – Who’s Cruising Now?

Today was better. Either I had enough meclizine floating through my system at this point to stun a bull elephant, or I really was getting used to the motion like the nurse said. Either way, I decided it was time to venture up to Deck 9.   

After the plumber came to my room to unclog the toilet I had somehow managed to break, that is. That wasn’t embarrassing, no no. Not at all.  

Nor was it weird when the steward came to my door and I answered it in my big cushy robe, hair tussled, having just gotten out of the shower, and when asked if I needed anything, somehow felt the appropriate response was, “We’re okay”. We are okay. Why I said “we”, I’ll never know, but I got a little sad wishing there was a reason for the entire scene that had just played out in that steward’s mind to make any sense in real life.

At any rate, despite the weird and embarrassing start, I actually had a great day, kicked off by the Hairy Chest Contest taking place as I ate my lunch. Then I spent a few hours sitting on the penultimate deck, staring at the ocean, soaking up some much-needed Vitamin D, wondering who does this, and attempting to read for the first time (since the nurse had told me reading would make the vertigo worse).  

By the way, “Skinny Bitch”. Read it. It’ll change your life.

Later that night I forced myself to partake in karaoke, and chose Aretha Franklin’s “Baby, I Love You”. I was a bit nervous about this, more than my usual karaoke nervousness, because a woman had just, two songs before me, done a rendition of “Inseparable” by Natalie Cole, that knocked everyone’s socks off. She wasn’t just good for a local karaoke crowd (by the way, the quality of the singers on this ship was noticeably, and interestingly, higher than any other karaoke event I’d been to), she was phenomenal, period. No joke.

Thankfully I didn’t have to go on right after her, but the woman that did, did get a lot of applause for having had the guts to do it. So then it was my turn, and I started out by asking the crowd to be kind because I’d been suffering through severe motion sickness for the past day and a half. Thought I’d play the pity card. Turns out I didn’t need it. As soon as the song started, a group of black people, one of whom was the phenomenal singer, started whooping. And I immediately turned to them and sang the entire thing right to them. It was the most fun, most interactive, most liberating karaoke experience I’ve ever had. Because I wasn’t just reading the words on the screen, I was acting the whole thing out, just for them, and they completely ate it up. I was filled with gratitude to them for allowing this skinny little white girl to attempt to do any sort of justice to The Queen Of Soul without booing me off the stage. I actually heard one guy say as I was singing, “She’s putting some soul into it!” And then they came over to me as they were leaving and told me how much they enjoyed me. And the guy who’d made the ‘soul’ comment made a point to tell me directly. It was very sweet.

I then tried to push the envelope by going to the dance club, but the music blew, so I headed back to my room, feeling like I’d nonetheless had a triumphant day.