Troublemaker

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Woke up at some ungodly hour, spent a little while trying to sleep again, but knew it wasn’t coming. I grabbed my book, headed down to Explorer’s and read through sunrise. When I finished, I thought I’d give sleep another go. The Do Not Disturb sign was on the door, and Ben had locked it. I’m sure I could have woken him up, but I probably would have been grumpy. I tried to nap in other locations on the ship as the morning wore on, but they were all too noisy, too hot, too windy, etc. I walked laps and laps and laps, and finally, after I’d just taken a shower at 11:30 to wake myself up, found the room unoccupied. I went up to eat brunch before bed, and found Ben with a hamburger and hotdog. He said I’d “caught” him – I guess I’ve made him self-conscious about his eating, though I’ve never said anything or even looked cross. Self-conscious by example? There wasn’t really much for me at the buffet, of course, either. We napped from 12:30-3:30. I really have no idea how Ben can sleep so long. He’d slept for over 12 hours the night before.

We went to the LGBT meet up. The bar was strangely crowded, and we had trouble finding chairs for everyone. Joanne, the retired attorney, got a little tipsy off her martini, but was delightful. One of the other gay couples I’d seen around the ship joined us – they’re from Seattle, so I might see them when I go up for Pride. At dinner, Ben asked about being vegan, and we talked about relationships and careers. Jeremy is maybe under his skin the way Tim is under mine, and I suppose the way that I’m under other folk’s.

It was 70’s night in the Explorer’s Lounge, so I put on my gym shorts and pulled my socks up, and went like that. We got a couple disapproving looks on the way in, but no one said anything. We got there just as they were finishing up the music trivia. Even coming in at the end, I got 8/10. The awful, awful, awful band Crimson started off ok, with “Hot Stuff,” but then moved to a bunch of slow songs. I finally agreed to go dance to “Dancing Queen,” and made it through two more songs before the same crew member who’d commended me on my outfit before told me he’d gotten complaints, and I needed to go put clothes on. I really should have pressed the issue. Asked for a written dress code, pointed out that I was wearing a swim suit, and not even a bikini, at that. But I didn’t think fast enough, so I left. We were just going to go up to Skywalkers, but I told Ben that I’d like to go put pants on, then come back and slow dance with him.

I held his hand while we sat and waited for an appropriate song, and I got a couple more flat looks and shaken heads, but again no one said anything. After our dance, I saw one of the crew members scowling at us, but he also didn’t say anything. We each had a cocktail, made sure to applaud after every song Crimson did, because performing to a small, unresponsive audience is awful, and then made our way back up to the room. I took a sleeping pill, my other pills, and cuddled up next to Ben briefly before squeezing into the corner of the bed. Ben murmured (in his sleep?) but I couldn’t make out any words, and finally dropped off to sleep myself.