Friday, June 28, 2007
I’m home in good old Elyria, Ohio.

We went to Cedar Point, a lovely amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio.

Once you enter the park, there are photographers waiting to take your picture to sell to you later. It felt like the cruise all over again.

I almost said “No thanks, I’m crew” as I walked by. At every gangway at every port on the ship, the photographers would await your exit and try to take your pic with a dolphin (for Dominican Republic) or a gnarly pirate (for all Virgin Islands) or a creepy faux-astronaut (for Port Caneveral). These costumed guys would man-handle you into the frame pretty quickly, so we’d scoot around them saying “Crew! Crew! No thank you, Crew!” to keep their mitts off of us.

My favorite ride at Cedar Point was the Millenium roller coaster. The first hill was tremendousouly steep and long.

Cedar Point is really great as far as theme parks go—it’s perched on a peninsula in Sandusky Bay, surrounded entirely by the blue waters of Lake Erie. When you ride a ride, you don’t see a highway and boring burbs and outlet malls, instead you see water and trees and a beach. I really love it there so much.

Here’s some rugrats who came along with me.

Ad it up

Saturday, June 22, 2007
Last night, I met out some old advertising friends for Happy Hour at Pontiac in Bucktown. A lot of musicians and artists live in Bucktown, and then a lot of yuppies who gravitate towards those areas, because it’s cool, hip and they like to be around artistic types.

The Pontiac has a big outdoor patio with great people watching. A middle-aged man with a scowl on his pucker and a parrot on his shoulder walked by on North Avenue. Another lady walked by with a young man—who was either her son or her young lover.

I had a great time re-connecting with some of the advertising folk. They work really long hours and remind me a lot of the crew on the ship---they are in this career, and don’t see another option that involves a bit more work/life balance. When I worked in advertising, I regularly worked 12 hour days, for multiple days in a row. That’s how it is for the crew on the ship, too. Even though they’re dressing up in their little 70s wigs and churning out theme parties, they are still working a ton of hours.

Consequently, in both industries, they embrace the idea of “Work hard, party hard.”

It’s also tough to grow older in both industries…it’s very rare to find someone over 50.

And they sure all like to drink.

I left after about 2 hours to ride my bike home. Sober.

Condo Clean -up Day

Tuesday, June 19, 2007
It’s been a busy week—I participated in a benefit with Gayco (in the most minor of ways—singing in the final number with a chorus of 20), had a few breakfast dates with friends and Andy and I had condo clean-up day.

We moved into our place in October, but with both of us soon departing for boats, we never completely settled into our place. Consequently, there are weird areas of storage with weird things in them---need plastic cutlery? Look in the picnic basket high above our refrigerator! Wondering where the toolbox is? Look under the leather ottoman in the dining room!

The day was a success—we got a lot done and also learned a bit about each other. As it turns out, Andy doesn’t like cherry cloth tablecloths on the dining room table or any items on the bathroom sink. I don’t like mannequins or life-sized stuffed dummies in our home, or cups with remnants of protein-powder shakes and oatmeal-encrusted bowls left next to the kitchen sink, unrinsed. But, we both love having balanced checking accounts and are giving away our extra computer monitors.

Any takers?

The Lakefront of Chicago is very nice

Tuesday, June 12, 2007
I went walking on the Chicago lakeshore with fellow shipmate, Jeremy Sosenko.
Jeremy and I are both suffering from the boredom of post-ship life--neither of us are working, and are just...bored.

To alleviate the boredom, and save money, we went on a long-ass walk on the lakefront.

It was a stunning day with lots of sun.

Later, we went out for cheap beers with Amy P.

I am fake jogging in this picture. I don't run.

I need to get back to work.

Party like a Swede

Midsommar fest in my neighborhood, Andersonville.

http://www.starevents.com/mid_fest.html

Hello, that there is my first link in this blog. Please tell me how to make it prettier if you know how.

I’m a true Midwestern gal, because my instinct in starting this entry is to talk about how lovely the weather was. But dude, it was such great weather! It was like a freakin’ day in St. Thomas in February—blue skies, puffy clouds, sunshine and in the 80s.

Since I’ve come back from the cruise, I’ve been very protective of my base coat tan. I’ve never been much of a tanner—more of a burner. In fact, when people who know me see the tan—they are literally shocked and then amused at how bronze I am. It amuses me, too, and I’m trying to keep the tan rolling along. And on Saturday, at Midsommar fest, in a tank top and skirt, I got some more color. End of self-indulgent tanning paragraph.

Dori swung by and picked me up at my pad, then we met up with Margaret, John, Starks, Ross and the McGarry brothers. We ran into Colan, Sniffers, and several other lovely improv peeps.

Sniffers twirls with ROTC, an all-male Rifle twirling group. For some god-forsaken reason, I always miss their show by 5 minutes. I’ve tried to see them at Pride, or Market days, but I always get there just in time to see them packing up their big gay rifles and greet their adoring fans. Same thing happened on Saturday. Though for this one, I blame Sniffers who kept the show on the DL for some reason and didn’t tell me they were performing.

Later, we watched one of the Denny brothers perform greatest hits of Dave Matthews and then headed to Andersonville’s long-standing Simon’s for copious amounts of beverages.

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Thanks for Amy and Sean and Ross for assuring I got home safely and for letting me march and sing along the way.

Now the underdogs have overcome, hop hop. They got their funding and they had some fun.

Hello Chicago!

Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Out of the house for the first time since Saturday.

I finally did it. I left my house. Now, keep in mind, I LOVE my house—it’s airy, filled with sunlight and sits on a bustling corner where I keep watch on the neighborhood from my second floor office. So, by staying in my house, I’m not holed up away from humanity…plus, Andy’s around, too. But, it was time to venture out to see the world.

I met up with my friend Lis at Mystic Celt, a bar on Southport. We then went down to Lange’s, an old-man bar, down the street.

Lis has a new job, so she went home at a decent hour while I traversed the wilds of Cornelia to go meet up with Jeremy Sosenko, formally of the Spirit. We went to Twisted Spoke, a pseudo-biker bar in Wrigleyville.

We chatted about the boat, his trip with brother to Atlantic City and general impressions of our return home.

Jeremy kept saying “No one exists. No one knows so and so, or this person. They don’t exist in Chicago.”

It’s true—you just entirely leave the Spirit world behind (and by Spirit, I mean the ship, not celestial plain kind of stuff). I have pics of these people, but no ongoing encounters with any of them. It’s so strange….and so liberating.

A few of our mutual friends came up to the Spoke, and in what seemed a blink of the eye, I had spent $40 on cabs, beers and general revelry.

I do miss $1 beers and no cost for transportation and food.

I do not miss Raffles Buffet.

Home again home again diggity dog

Monday, June 4, 2007
Home again home again, diggity dog.

Back home. The last week on the boat was really fun—we had a rocking Stardust show, a good scriptless show and a really fun Karaoke party on Thursday night, and then a long, luxurious last night dinner at Cagney’s Steakhouse with the cast. Final event was a bizarre last night in crew bar and then departure for home.

I always knew that the cruise was like a machine---every week, the same parties, events and shows. But I didn’t realize how non-plussed the crew would be on our last morning. We, too, were like cogs in the machine. Upon reflection, of course it’s that way---and I did make some nice friends. But, there’s a certain amount of cynicism that has to exist. I’m sure you get used to saying goodbye if you are on the cruise for a while…but it’s still fresh and new to me so it pained me a bit.

But, thankfully, Jeremy’s brother, who I call brother, picked us up and took us to lunch in Queens and then LaGuardia. Once I was in the air, I shifted from feeling melancholy to enthusiasm for my home.

Arriving at my condo, I was just relieved and thankful. I walked around and touched everything and chatted a mile a minute with Andy and was just happy.

We met up with Heather and Judy and the baby, and had ice cream and a long walk through my beloved Andersonville. Beers on the roof deck, overlooking the skyline and early to bed.

Sunday morning, I woke up, had coffee in a souvenir mug and listened to NPR. I was so thrilled to be in my pad and listening to my beloved NPR. Oh, Bob Edwards! I am not immune to your charms.

Cyn and Andy had a bbq for me Sunday afternoon, and it was positively great. Just the right amount of friends to visit with and hang out and drink sangria, eat burgers and relax.

Today, unpacking and laundry and activity planning. And now, sitting on my couch, Andy’s gone and it’s my first moment alone since I’ve been back.

It’s good to be home.