Tag Archives: boat

I know this is boring

I think I’m out of ideas. Yup. The best is behind me, everything that needs to be said, well, I’ve already said it, and that’s on top of all of the other stuff that totally didn’t need to be said, of which I’ve already said a lot. But that was that, said, done. All that’s left is to keep on going, saying anything, keep on keeping on as if I’ve got something, when really, nothing.

nothing

Like, what can I talk about, lunch? I had McDonald’s. I think I’ve already talked way too much about McDonald’s. So, yeah, I’m also drinking a cup of coffee. Nothing like a cup of hot coffee. Look, I know this is boring, and I could apologize, but what good would that do? I’ve said sorry before, it hasn’t changed anything, or added anything relevant to the discussion.

Nothing left to do but talk about how I have to go to work in a little while. Does anybody else have to work? Or is it just me? Me and all of the people that I work with. Is that it? That’s not much of a workforce. Maybe we’d make a good pro football team. Not in terms of skill or anything like that, but just getting a whole team fielded, and then backups ready. Or soccer I guess, yeah, there are a lot of people on a soccer team. But nobody ever wants to be goalie, and for some reason I find it so much more rewarding imagining all of the people I work with every day lining up to protect me from the onslaught of opposing linemen.

Because I’m definitely the quarterback in that fantasy. Whether or not my coworkers would agree with me, well, I guess they’re entitled to their own fantasies also. And since this is my fantasy, I don’t know why I’m settling for football, I can barely even throw a football. I mean, I can get it from point A to point B, or somewhere in the general vicinity of point B, but it’s never a nice throw, I’d say maybe one out of thirty times it’ll come close to that perfect spiral, the kind of smooth torpedo that everybody else in the world somehow seems to accomplish almost effortlessly. But mine are all topsy-turvy.

And that’s not even a real regulation sized football. I always thought the footballs in my parents’ garage were like pro footballs, but one time I came across an NFL sized football at the Sports Authority, and I could barely hold it with one hand. And I have giant hands. No, no more football fantasies. From here on out, I mean, I’ve got nothing to say anyway, so it’s right back to sci-fi fantasies, it’s me, I’m the captain of a gigantic spaceship, and all of those same coworkers that were defending me on the field before, this time they’re manning Ops, rushing toward battle stations or preparing the torpedoes for launch. “Ay-ay captain!” they’ll respond, sometimes just at random, like they won’t even have to necessarily wait for an order to say, “Ay-ay captain!” that’ll be something that’s encouraged on my ship, just say it whenever you feel like it.

Even my boss. Especially my boss. Maybe he’s cut out to be the boss at work, but on my ship, I’m the boss. And I’d call him boss still, but as a really ironic nickname, like, “Hey boss, remember when we were all back on Earth? How you used to be in charge? Haha. Go make sure there isn’t any space mold in between the engineering conduits.”

Or, I don’t know, that’s a lot of responsibility, managing that big of a crew. And in space. Maybe I’d prefer one of those really small boats, not tiny, but just big enough for one cabin inside, something quaint. I’d have cable still, but no Internet. Just me, the eternal ocean, and the incessant chatter of all of the twenty-four hour news channels. All of them, right-wing, left-wing, British, whatever, I’d watch a different channel every day and I’d try my best to completely alter my opinions accordingly, like not just an act, I’d see if I could really get myself to believe in whatever they were saying. I’d have plenty of time, and nobody to talk me out of it.

But then what if one of the channels started running specials, “This just in. Never, ever, ever watch another cable news channel, ever again, only us,” and even though I do my best to believe, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t, but for whatever reason on this day I really nail it, I so thoroughly absorb that message, I’m like, yes, just this channel forever.

But wasn’t I on a ship? I don’t know. Maybe the cable is too much. And maybe it’s a submarine. Although, I’m kind of tall, so I’d need one where I’m not constantly ducking underneath all sorts of low hanging pipes. And yeah I guess you need a pretty big crew for a submarine. Maybe I could just be like a consultant, or a VIP guest, nobody could boss me around, but I wouldn’t have to worry about management. And again, lots of headroom. I’ve banged my head on pipes before, and it sucks, it really, really hurts.

A semester at sea

When I was in college I spent a semester at sea. I thought it would launch me into the fields of like marine biology and aquatics and stuff. I imagined myself really learning the nuts and bolts of life out on the open ocean, but it wasn’t anything like I had expected. Nothing I could have read or studied would have helped prepare me for the challenges of living on a boat.

semester at sea

Like, for example, I thought that there’d be like a big disembarking, like a “Bon voyage!” type of farewell. But no, they kept us in this stupid inflatable room on campus inside the Olympic sized swimming pool for two days straight. “What’s the point of this?” we all asked, “When do we get to go out to sea?”

The faculty explained that they were giving us a couple of days in a controlled environment to develop our sea legs. I told them that this was unnecessary, that I’d been on a boat several times. I was lying, of course, but come on, people have been travelling on boats for forever. Do you think that the pilgrims who crossed the Atlantic were forced to sit on some glorified pool toy for two days straight?

The worst part was that the swim team still had practice. The inflatable only took up like three lanes, so we had to just sit there and watch them all staring at us like this was the stupidest thing anybody could have ever decided to come to college and actually pay to do.

I was just about to give up, thinking about all of the regular classes that I’d have to sign up for after I backed out of the whole semester at sea, but one of my classmates, or shipmates, or potential shipmates, he backed out. I thought to myself, what a wimp, I can’t believe he quit. And then I realized how ridiculous I sounded, criticizing this guy for a decision that I was just about to make, so I doubled down on my commitment. I was going to earn those sea legs.

We finally made it to the boat and everything was just, again, not at all how I had imagined it to be, certainly nothing like the brochures from the student center made it out to be. I was pretty sure I’d have a roommate. One roommate. Not three. And I hesitate to even call them roommates, because it was hardly a room that we were forced to share.

These guys were a bunch of total nerds. Everybody had the same pair of knee high rubber boots from the first day, I was like, “Guys, what did your moms all go shopping at the same boat store?” and I turned to the first mate, he was checking us all in, and that guy was a huge nerd too, he hadn’t even cracked a smile. One of the nerds was like, “These are the boots they told us to buy. You don’t have any?”

And I don’t know how it was possible that I was accepted into this program, how they let me sit on that tube in the pool for two days, but nobody sent me like a checklist of stuff to buy. “They sent it to our campus email,” one of the dorks said, but I didn’t even bother replying, I never set up my campus email. I was still using my AOL email at the time, I’m not going to bother sharing my old screen name, but it was something lame, childish, you know, I can say that looking back now. Fine, it was SpleenHarvester6834. I don’t know. I thought it was badass at the time. I think I just saw the Hellraiser movies or something.

So I was totally underprepared without the waterproof shoes. But that’s OK, because I bought this pack of novelty eye patches and pirate swords from a party goods store. “Come on mateys!” I passed around the plastic trinkets, nobody took any, what a bunch of weirdoes, seriously, you’re going to spend a whole three months on a boat out on the open ocean and you don’t want to have even the slightest bit of fun?

And that’s what it was, three months of no fun, of performing a bunch of boring calculations. All of the ship’s work was mostly done automatically and, I guess reading the brochures would have helped, but it was all just lab work, just pointing stuff at the sky and taking seawater samples and eating this disgusting packaged food. I didn’t have a cell phone yet, so it didn’t matter that there wasn’t any service, but no TV, just a deck of cards that I brought that got wet with sea spray almost immediately after I busted them out.

I didn’t do anything, not that it mattered, you pay the price for a semester at sea and you don’t do any work, apparently the price tag has an included C+ minimum grade. I’ve never since spoken to any of my shipmates. It’s like, you know when Facebook came out and all of the sudden you start reconnecting with kids you went to Kindergarten with? There was nothing from any of those guys. Maybe they’re all back at sea, back at the open water, who knows, bunch of nerds, I bet you they have no idea what Facebook is. Still, I always find it strange that there’s basically no digital record I ever even boarded the ship.

The absolute worst part was, while I didn’t have any seasickness at all while on board, as soon as I touched dry land again, I started to feel the waves. After a couple of weeks I went to the doctor and he diagnosed me with Phantom Wave Syndrome, something about the brain and waves and, I have no idea, but everything’s always a little wobbly. I asked him, besides medication, is there any relief? “Well,” he told me, “You could always get back out there, back out to sea, I’m sure you wouldn’t feel anything if you were back on a boat.”

But fuck that, fuck the sea, fuck marine biology. I put my heart and soul into the water and it just sank, like it was encased in a cement defibrillator, a whole big vast ocean of nothing.