Trying hard to relax and have fun I’ve been a grind for many years, chained to my oars, and I am in serious need of frivolity, so last Friday my wife and daughter and I boarded the Queen Mary 2 in New York and sailed out of the harbor and under the Verrazano Bridge bound for England with a dance band on board, a casino, deck chairs where one can lounge and doze and do nothing meaningful whatsoever. A big band plays nightly in the enormous ballroom and there is a multitude of serious dancers on the floor who know the jitterbug, the foxtrot, the tango — really know them, don’t just stand and sway rhythmically — and a handsome Irishman belts out “Night and Day” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” There are impenetrable Brit accents everywhere and elaborately polite service — waiters who say “Thank you” at every opportunity. The bottle of English ginger ale says, “Upend before pouring” — when was the last time you saw “upend”? The sign in the toilet says that the plumbing does not operate on a “cistern system” but a pressure system so do not flush while seated. There is the sunny aft deck where I can lie and not read a book. So what do I do? I think about work. It’s easier for a carpenter. Security personnel will not allow you to bring a power saw aboard a ship. But a writer brings a laptop and a briefcase with him and he is right back where he started. This is why I write limericks. They’re trivial and nobody will publish them, so writing them is not like actual work with a purpose, it’s more like throwing flat rocks sidearm to make them skip on the surface of a lake or river. I left my home on the prairie To sail away on the Queen Mary In black tie and tux With big muckety-mucks Fred Astaire and Cher, maybe Cary Grant, hiding in the library. I’m paying big bucks For six days deluxe In salt air, enjoying myself On the Atlantic Where the Titanic Sank back in nineteen and twelve. Read the rest of the column >>> |