Sea Daze

Paul and I taught the adult workshop Thursday afternoon and it was really fun. I had been nervous because I had watched the teen workshop the other day and it had contained some hateful and unimaginative twelve year-old girls. I feared they would be representative of the rest of the passengers, but the people in our workshop were all delightful and well-raised adults (I should say the teen workshop contained some very creative kids as well, but the two or three alpha females kind of railroaded things for a while).

That night we had our improv show and it was my turn to sit in on the ship's game show, which is a version of “Balderdash.” The improv show is only a half hour long, and serves as something for people to do between the two Song and Dance Extravaganzas that go on in the theater. The show went fine and was over before I knew it.

The game show was a lot of fun too, basically because doing it makes you feel like you're a 1970's cast member of “The Match Game”: there's witty banter and you get a free drink. The first week I had been on the ship I was struck by how playful it was, until my director told me they did a lot of the same bits each week. Sure enough, the jokes that I had been convinced were off-the-cuff were all trotted out again (there's an Oh God/O. Henry bit in particular that kills and is executed as if it's just occurring to the participants). The curtain behind the Wizard has been lifted, and I have emerged older and wiser.

We went out afterwards and ended up back in the disco towards the end of the night. This cruise contains a lot more younger passengers than the previous two and so the hormone level was nearly off the chart by the time we arrived. There was one young woman dancing with what can only be described as stripper-like abandon. She only knew about three dance moves, but she and her baby-faced partner performed them with enthusiasm. She wore Daisy Dukes and one of those halter tops that tie in the back, which meant you could see a good portion of her bra strap when she turned around/gyrated. I'm not sure if that's a fashion faux pas or not, but people seemed willing to forgive her for the error.

Randall made friends with an Irish couple on their honeymoon, and I got stuck talking to a drunk man who was confused as to why I had been on the panel for the game show (“I'm in a comedy group that performs on Wednesday nights. A comedy group. Wednesday. Nights.” This was repeated for a few minutes as I tried to avoid getting stabbed by his cigarette.)

A TAB update: Beth pointed out TAB to the juggler and told him how TAB hadn't liked either of our shows (I should also note that TAB has been almost conciliatory when I've seen him this week, and has made it a point to tell me that he's seen part of our show and then repeating a key phrase as if to prove his attendance). The juggler, who doesn't have the fear of confrontation as I do, went over to TAB, who was hanging out with one of his “honies,” and asked him why he hadn't liked the show. This caused TAB to go over to Beth and ask her why she told the juggler he hadn't liked his show (again, life on the boat is like a middle school dance). Beth quickly defused the situation, and when I made eye contact with TAB when he was leaving the bar, he enthusiastically pointed at me and was shouting what I took to be a greeting, so I think all is well. Unless he was shouting, “I'm going to kick your ass.”