The Castaway

I tried to start a rumor that we’re on the edge.

“You know why there’s a rumor problem on this ship?” My friend asks me. “Because no one ever knows what the f-ck is going on.”

It’s true. I, and many others, have abandoned all foresight- I left it in an Atlantis hotel room. I never know what each day will bring, or where I’ll end up.


Off the Canary Islands, I spotted some dolphins flopping around. Sea life! Oh finally. Everyone was stoked- really an analogue of the human condition. “Look dolphins. DOLPHINS!” And Sharks -the enemy- are actually our best friends: they challenge us to transcend ourselves. We are better humans because of sharks. Swear I saw him, Nicole! You know, that killer whale we adopted during the height of our Free Willy obsession. (I’ll refrain from another sardonic Michael Jackson reference.) But our lil’ leviathan, he’s looking good. It’s pretty perfect out here, like a Lisa Frank cartoon. But I miss swimming in our lost soul fishbowl, American Girls. Wish you were here. Wish you were here. Wish you were here.


I am banshee beat: looking for words in my dictionary, hanging by the pool, fish frying, and crying, wondering why I hang.
I spend a majority of my recreational time reading, playing volleyball or looking at the ocean. I’ve learned to tell time like a maritime, with the light on the water. Sunshine wakes me up at 6:3o am, and it feels really nice. And in my “carefully designed topless swim suite” I’m getting “an even sun tan on [my] back and [my] legs.” My Norwegian fisherman hands are no longer chap, my freckles are coming back.


My restless leg syndrome has led to many blood pumping karate kicks. We got a refill in Dakar, but didn’t leave the port. (Again I want some land, so says the insatiable colonist.) I ate my French fries and gawked at Île de Gorée, a picturesque view of a once nasty, nasty place. The collective gawked too, all shamefaced- blisters- in -the -sun. Senegal was so unbearably hot. I couldn’t sit criss-cross because my legs were so slippery with sweat. I'm in Africa, I thought. I had the chills.

The ocean makes people go nutty. We crossed the equator, and we went swimming in fish guts. But didn’t shave my head. I’m not that foolish. Malaria medication is causing people to hallucinate. Man overboard!

The world is so totally insane- I can’t wrap my mind around the idea of a globe- that it makes everything in the planet Earth seem that much more extraordinary. But I’m pretty sure the world is flat, and I’m pretty sure I’m half way off the deep end. The equator is a myth, a figment of the imagination- I have carte blanche to say it, because I’m “here” and have yet to see “it.” I am circumspect about circumnavigation.


The anarchy of international waters; the clandestine trouble this ship perpetuates; the monkeyshines ; the blind tiger bar. Our jokes are dry, there’s nothing to wash them down with. If this is jail, then count me in! I’m enjoying sobriety: I stick to a single glass of red wine, the Blessed Sacrement.



The sky is pitch black every night but Venus is so f-ing bright, a blinding white elephant. According to Science, the amphibian spends much time on land but develops into an adult in the water. I think that’s accurate. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime.

Marrakech Express

We arrived in Marrakech and sat down for mint tea, taking a break from our camel mission. Some wanted a camel ride, I just wanted to see one smoke a cigarette. We all fell silent as we listened to the call to prayer reverberating through the marketplace, crawling under our skin. I’ve never heard anything like it- a religious air raid, but moving! I wanted to stand up to sit down again, and hide beneath the pressure of immediate occasions.

We ventured into the market maze at daylight “Leather goods, get your leather goods!” A man rolled over my foot with his cart. No apologies, it’s all good. I ruined some shoes bootgoofin’ through the mess. I bought a pair of fuchsia flats- the soles were gone by the end of the day.

A street charmer threw his cobra around my neck. I screamed, and he charged me! I gave him six cents for his harassment and he threw the coins back at me. “Next time, keep it in your pants, Doooooood.”



"I wish you the best you snake, you are self-professed you snake, my heart's in my chest you snake, you can have the rest you snake." -Wolf Parade

There are many little shops of bootleg Moroccan pop playing from lifted karaoke machines. Moroccan music is the best! It’s against custom for women to dance, so I did the Harlem Shake. I couldn’t resist! Moroccan-do! To the untrained eye, the Harlem Shake is simply a muscle spasm. Someone called me Billie Jean.

Guys named Muhammad wear plastic bag tuxedos to work, where they plough bumper crops and whip their mules. Their son’s shake change in their fists, and carry drugs in their pocks. Their sons are mules too. “Hi. Hello. You like? Feesh and chips, feesh and chips.” Little kids steal scraps from our tables and play games with Splenda packets. I watched a kid twirl sugar in a puddle of orange peels and dog hair. It was a game. The experience seemed as fake and saccharine as the sugar itself. I would’ve played a long but doctors strongly advise against such water contact. I think I could see the protozoan parasites, the insect saliva, the blood meals thriving in the confluent cobblestone swamps. An infectious disease as clear as mud.

The Moroccan thinks I’m from California. I ask why and they say it’s the hair. Can’t you tell I’m American, I smile superficially. “Californie? Yes, yes.” My friend Simi played Californication on his mp3 phone. We sang it together. I bought a shirt from him because I liked him so much. His brother warned me, “Simi is a player.” Simi looked all of but 16. They ask what’s up with LA, and I tell them they aren’t missing much, it’s not worth seeing. “I never said I want to go,” Simi corrects me. Touché.


When we came up for air, the sun was nowhere to be found. The city -abandoned and dangerous- designated us to our hotel rooms huddled around a blackberry, listening to Katy Perry cover Electric Feel. We executed a mosquito trying to dish us some marsh fever. It was entertaining and annoying. (The mosquito, entertaining; Katy Perry, annoying.) I slept head to toe in the clothes I wore all day. Shoes included, hood zipped over my “California hair.” I shivered under a layer cake of cholera blankets. I held my breath again. The dawn prayer shook me from my non-sleep reminding me We’re not alone; there are things beyond. But where the hell am I? My dreams, though absurd in their own right, are more realistic than the reality I’m currently living.

The Hassan II Mosque of Casablanca is the rough city’s crazy diamond. Shine on. It’s the third largest mosque in the World! It knocked the wind out of me, my jaw dropped. My neck hurt after 45 minutes of straight up admiration for this exotic place, literally some high regard. The hanging mezzanines, the minaret, the movable roof, the celestial view. I mean, my god! Take care, look up. I had to pick up my face. I didn’t know what the expect, but it certainly wasn’t this. You can be a virgin in travel the same as in sex. I’d never felt so minor, I felt like I was encroaching. Slice of humble pie, right there.




I busted out my French. I had no other choice. Without French or Arabic, we would’ve been busted ourselves. Still, my French accomplished very little. Lost in translation is not the best place to find me. A mapping of discourse. Like the time I volunteered to fill out my custom form in French coming home from Canada and consequently, was required to prove myself to immigration en Français. It made the officer very angry to see me so incorrectly fluent, shifting in my pants in uncertainty.The essential is to talk things over. They were pissed. Je ne comprend pas! If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it… I don’t remember how the saying goes. Hey, at least I tried.





The clique departed to the gare prematurely out of pure exhaustion. How defeated. In 1968, Graham Nash wrote “Marrakech Express” after traveling from Casablanca to Marrakech. He told Rolling Stone that first class was “f-ing boring.” I disagree. We drank bottles of wine out of paper bags in our compartments. We sang “Leila” for our Moroccan friend, Leila. She sang for us in Arabic. She and told us in French that We were American pigs, our candy wrappers and empty bottles. She laughed and said the three-hour train ride was incroyable, she’ll remember Us always. Leila wouldn’t like Crosby, Stills and Nash anyways.

We all pointed at foreign things that flew by our train windows: horse and cart, kilometers, desertification. I finally slept.


Despite the perpetual French nose blowing, the bootleg umbrellas, the peels, the hair, the squalor, I’m going to move here.

“Here’s looking at you, Kid.”

Cabron, Cabron

Spanish mussels taste like perborate and a sock full of brackish water. I washed them down with a shared pitcher of sangria in the park comme Lou Reed. I’ve reformed my “vegetarianism” for the sake of adventure. I can’t wait to watch Planet Earth again. I’m going to eat every animal featured.

Cadiz is a dead horse. I’m not going to beat it, but I’m not going to lie. I watched an old man fish. Cadiz is also very beautiful, the Mediterranean is my favorite shade of blue. But donde esta la playa? The city might as well be a distant constellation, neither here nor there. So we made our way East.


Cadiz, home of Hercules

I can say without hyperbole that my sense of direction is good. Ran to many bus stops, and got lost like Magellan thanks to my Spanglish. Fell asleep on the bus, didn’t put up my armrest and fell out off my seat. Am I the Seated Harlequin? I feel so rushed, with no time to process these adventures. Am I living Dali’s Persistence of Memory? I envy the lazy Spaniard.





The role of line leader is a demanding responsibility. The traveling wolf pack was so fun, but I wanted to be alone per usual. I led the group astray to the bars of Seville with boys in dress flops and Jager bails. I’m sorry!

We found Granada and it’s Alhambra easily, and left it how we found it. We tired easily. The magnitude of the fortress was all but overwhelming; a jigsaw puzzle of shapes and elements intended to help you consider another shape or element. I just got puzzled. I fell deep down its rabbit hole. I ended up watching people admire the arabesques by virtue of colors, the blues, and the reds. It felt too cinematic, and I can never sit still during a movie.





I wandered from the group and of course I got in trouble for touching everything. The lone wolf gets the “shit end of the stick.” “Don’t touch the 500 year old Lapis Lazuli tiles;” “Don’t cross the red rope and smell the Moorish roses;” “Don’t wash your face in the Birka Pool;” Rules, rules, rules. The effort to preserve art always elicits an amount of distance, and I hate that. I don’t want to be a passive participant. I want to make some art. I need some things tangible. And I’m tired of this out of reach business.



I couldn’t sleep in the hostel’s cluster muck of really bunk, bunk beds with the street sounds, and the neon bible glow on my face, dying my hair orange. I kept thinking about the band of gypsies, their sagebrush bouquets and their ancient curses they brandished in my face. I should’ve slept on a park bench. It’s against the rules, but whatever. I would’ve saved myself a few Euros.

Before we reached Casablanca, I woke up floating on the Straight of Gibraltar. A man looked in my window from the neighboring oil vessel. “Can I get some unleaded?” I wrote on my window. I’m running on empty. I smelt Moroccan phosphate from the deck. Morocco’s the second largest Hashish producer in the world, but I don’t smell it (so I don’t believe it.)


I smelt a perfume in a Plaza de Medina bano and had my first European Proustian moment. When I was 14, I bought the smell in a Parisian perfumeria. I wore it when Cole and I went clubbing in Barcelona. It smells baroque, just god-awful. I know why I forgot it. But it’s better than tennis- shoe- ash- tray. That’s how most of us smell after three days of backpacking Andalusia.


“Writers are traitors to the human race,” says Henry Miller. Am I a traitor? Am I a wolf? I hope I don’t ruin any fine places with my own two cents. Traveling will make an introvert out of me. My collection of maps will someday fill the ocean.

You make me sad, Spain.

Mermaid Avenue

We shipmates are squirmy for the rain in Spain. There is only so much Miller Lite and sham-pagne one can knock back. There are only so many laps around a cruise ship. Except we’re not supposed to refer to this journey as a cruise. It’s a sail or a voyage- with all the benefits and amenities of a cruise. Yeah, that’s it. Make sense? You can get your hair Keratin thermal straightened for $400, but you can’t get a waffle. It’s an endeavor, a voyage. I eat potatoes and drink a tea for every meal; my Irish blood is happy. No signs of scurvy yet, so that’s good. Only skippers of the Royal Navy, fighting the Napoleonic Wars get spongy gums. Paulie says she takes her tequila with lemon because Spain has no limes. This doesn’t make much sense to me, considering Spain has several ports. C’mon now! Even pirates have access to lime juice: they add it to their daily ration of water-downed grog. Lemons and limes are not interchangeable, Spain! One needs their greens. So how about it, Modernity?

Archaic

Haven’t met oh captain, my captain yet- though he meets every stereotype: British, portly, an expert in algebra and alcoholism. Pigeonholes aside, I want to reiterate that this is NOT a love story, interrupted by an iceberg. It’s a voyage.

I saw something in the water yesterday. “Hey look everybody, a narwhal!” It was a boogey. I am reminded daily as to why I am not a marine biology major. I doodled a map on my knee and my art history professor applauded; my zoology professor did not. While the class diagrams mitosis and meiosis, I sketch the dorsal, posterior and ventral of a kitten. Signs of other life are far and few. But we are close-I swear I can smell the Portuguese.

This is a narwhal

I wrote fortunes for fortune cookies over breakfast with new friends. Happy Chinese New Year! When I got back to my room, a self-fulfilling prophecy was taped to my door. It read: you will see the world in a new light.

Intuition’s only what you take from it. You were there, and I was fortunate. I’m hunting for mermaids, when everyone else is looking for land.

Sea Change

In Port

We don’t have gills or flippers; we don’t have the innate ability to swim. My roommate and I are convinced the Gods will have their way with us. Will it be a giant squid (“10,000 Leagues Under the Sea”) or a freak tsunami (“Ghost Ship?”)? The stars are more and more vivid, and the ocean, placatory. My seasickness is on its last legs. I think about the pirates who once threw horses overboard to lighten the load. I stay up late thinking about these kinds of things. One can’t help it. I want to be a seafarer, not fearer.

I’m wrapped up in a certain, special flannel each night- it’s my comfort blanket. I wrote a message in a bottle. You should be expecting it any day now. My dreams are bizarre, but I think REM is off the hook.

Freud, my dream catcher

I wake up and- in preconscious thought- believe I’m in the trunk of a car. Our room is small, dim, and above the ship’s engine. It rattles my bed; a guy a few doors down made an off color joke about quarters and vibrations. I shrugged it off. He’s not getting any play. I fell asleep in class, later woken by the sensation of drool down my chin. I might rub my face in coffee grinds, in hopes of a) staying alert through osmosis and b) blending in with the pirates. And if it gets hot enough, I’ll boil coffee on my cheeks. Three birds, one shotgun.

I’ve been elected to the student council. The first amendment I propose is that the intercom system wakes the shipmates up with Brahms or Respighi every morning. Is that archaic? The majority want to hear Coldplay, and I don’t blame them. The 300 crewmates are seemingly from the Philippines or Jamaica. They all sing like birds. Maybe they can wake us up with their chirps. This fool plays the Counting Crows on his guitar all day. He has a large following, his flock of seagulls. Everyone here loves him. Everyone here also loves Michael Jackson. More birds to kill. I shared my box of Sweetheart candy with the Jamaican bartender. He’s never had the candy, but ensures me he’s had many sweethearts. Chuck has become a friend of mine.

Some Choice Jams

And as a disclaimer, I’ve befriended a couple of guys from the Dirty- Dirty. They don’t believe in Global Warming. I’ve been biting my tongue. I've been cornered. As much as I want to hate them, I can’t. They open doors for me and call me 'M'am'. They let me put- put their golf balls into drinking glasses. It’s quite the challenge on this teeter-totter ship. I tell them I don’t golf, I don't care for it but they don’t understand. Maybe I do hate them.

I watched a girl run on the treadmill. She held on for dear life. The ship should provide bungee cords, so we can strap ourselves in. That’s my second proposal: bungee cords.

I fiesta-siesta by the pool when I get a chance. The rims of my ginger ales taste like salt after 30 minutes. My nose is burnt red- but then again- my nose is always red. We are in the Tropic of Cancer, the air and the water, a nice 72 degrees. The word Tropic derives from the Latin word tropos or turn, according to my dictionary. Everything is transient. Nothing is stationary. “I could watch the waves all day. There is no change in shape, size, color or rhythm,” I was wrong. It really is a sea change.

The Mariners

At Sea

The flight from the Key West to Nassau, Bahamas was comparable to a decent episode of “The Magic School Bus” in that there were only 20 of us, elated and childlike, ass to ankles on something less like a jet and more like a something that miraculously takes flight thanks to fairy dust or the invisible hand of God. Or Adam Smith? Never in my life have I seen anything as picturesque the Floridian sunset that night. (I took many photos and will post them at some point.) But the sky turned black and the turbulence begun. We plunged and everyone screamed. My reflexes locked arms with the guy next to me. I could taste 2 of the 20 oz of Samuel Adams I chugged at the Chili’s Margarita Bar 15 minutes before takeoff. Another man in front dropped his copy of the Times, with the Hudson River plane incident adorning the cover. I have never been afraid to fly; I actually enjoy airplanes. But during this flight, I was scared—for lack of a better term—shitless.

The Atlantis resort was another mind-trip. By the time Martha (the Lewis to my Clark) and I arrived, we had been traveling for 12 hours straight. Exploring the hotel for a bite, I realized that delirium is as cheap and dangerous as any other hallucinogen. We played the slots once. I kept thinking to myself, “Why are all these people playing poker when it’s gorgeous outside?” I was more fascinated with the aquarium and the yachts, a fleet reminiscent of Puff Daddy’s greatest hits. We collected shells on the beach and got buzzed on yo-ho-ho pina colada rum. When in Rome, right?

Puffy, King of the Castle

I’m at sea now. And yes, I am seasick. I eat ginger candy for breakfast and drink ginger ale and Dramamine for dessert. But other than the sick and the salty breeze, I am also sea-stoked. The ocean lulls me to sleep each night and wakes me up each morning.

My roommate and I have one of those large, mass-produced avant-garde prints hanging above my bed. We stick post-it notes on the frame whenever one of us deciphers it’s motif. Yesterday, I woke up with “itinerant hobo” attached to my face. It is a Semester at Sea tradition to write words of wisdom on the back of these paintings. Ours says, “Don’t be a SAS-hole.” The boys down the hall were told to take apart their refrigerator vent. In it, they discovered a pruned, coiled cobra in a bud vase.

Man w/ a Plan

I could watch the waves all day. There is no change in shape, size, color or rhythm. I’ve been getting headaches because I’m always squinting at the horizon. I don’t know what I’m looking for, though I’m always looking. I half expect a dolphin to surge from the blue and high-five the sun; I half expect Darwin’s H.M.S. Beagle to sail from the grave and introduce all one thousand voyagers to tortoises and rare fauna.

A marine biology student told me that hundreds of thousands of eels are currently spawning in the subterranean depths. I can’t believe it!

We loose an hour as we had east each night. I am in a trance, another dimension.

Lemmings to the Sea

I've read modern pirates generally attack commercial vessels that carry safes full of cash-money for shipping tolls. However, in lieu of this recent swashbuckling renaissance I am taking precaution. Perhaps I'll purchase a pistol. Or a riffle. Not quite sure what they're called.

Gnarly

The Original Itinerary

"Lay Off; Don't Stress; Well, My Kinds Yr kind; I'll Stay The Same! Pack up; Don't Stray. Maps. WAIT! They Don't Love u Like I Love u......"

-Yeah Yeah Yeahs