I’m full. I think Sandra is too. We had a full day, dinner aside. A rewind:
read more ↓Sandra’s plane was delayed and delayed and delayed, so she didn’t actually get to the hotel until 3am. At one point she texted me and said, “Just so you know, I’m getting all our delays out of the way now.” I told her that was fine – I was sitting on the couch watching Victoria Beckham Coming To America, so I was content with that.
A word about the room – amazing. Another word – major (thank you, Posh.) I sat in the living room and watched TV in a way that I haven’t in what feels like forever, then retired to the bedroom and curled up in a bed the size of a football field and slept like the dead until I felt the air conditioning turn on. I’d turned it off because it was making the room feel like a meat locker, but I awoke several times to find myself feeling like it was muggy and gross... but couldn’t bring myself to crawl out of bed to turn it back on. I knew wishing didn’t make it so, so I wandered out and saw Sandra on the couch, hugged her hello, and we proceeded to have the kinds of conversations you have when you and your girlfriends are having a sleepover and are staying up way past when your parents told you to.
This morning started out with room service and a four-handed massage. If you ever have the means, I highly recommend it. It is so choice. In a way it’s incredibly relaxing, but sensory overload all at the same time. I had more than one moment of, “Wait, what the hell is going on? How did they do that?” before falling into another subconscious state. Follow that with a trip down to the beach and I was in heaven, as was Sandra. We alternated between tanning and floating in the ocean, where we discussed several stars’ love lives and decided how their issues were best solved. We may go into a therapy consulting business for Hollywood. Okay, not really. But it passed the time when the guidos next to us were annoying the crap out of us, talking about “getting drunk and f*cking some b*tches!” Right on, dude. Sign me up.
Afterwards we wandered down Lincoln Road in search of a bookstore. When I’d first invited Sandra on the trip she warned me that all she reads on cruise ships are trashy romance novels. At this point I started foaming at the mouth. In the last… well, several years, about 98.9% of all the books I’ve been reading have been of a spiritual/life betterment/deep nature, and her suggestion of trashy romance novels brought me to a realization – I had no idea what was going on in Jackie Collins’ Lucky Santangelo series past Lady Boss.
A word about Jackie Collins – I heart her, but for a very special reason. When I was a tween my dad took away my Sweet Valley High books because he felt they were too adult for me. In retaliation, my mother let me read Hollywood Wives. I learned more about hot tub sex than any other tween in my school knew and proceeded to tear through all the other Collins books I could find, knowing I’d hit the jackpot. Most kids in my school were still reading Clan of the Cave Bear or Forever for their softcore. I was miles ahead of them thanks to Collins.
So seeing as it had been roughly an eon since I’d read Lady Boss, I hunted through Amazon to see if anything new had happened… and indeed, three books had happened since I put down Lady Boss. I immediately became giddy about the number of brain cells I was planning on destroying next to the pool on deck 900... or whichever deck it was on. So when Sandra and I finished sunning we set out to find a Barnes or a Borders or something. What we came across was a place called Books & Books. We hunted high and low and though we found a table full of chick lit with titles like, “How Not To Marry A Jerk,” I was not finding the Collins cheese as I had hoped. Books & books actually had an incredible selection of books, the caliber of which I expect to coat the walls of my library with some day. But in terms of trashy romance novels to digest while on a cruise? Nada. So I walked up to the front desk, where a feisty Irish woman was chatting with her co-worker.
“I have a probably odd question for you,” I said.
“I get a lot of odd questions.”
“I bet this one is odder.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Okay, go.”
“No offense,” I started. “But where is there a bookstore that sells crap?”
She blinked, digested what I said, and told me, “That would be Barnes and Noble or Borders, and there are none near the beach.”
“Damn!”
“What we have is a bit too cerebral for you, is it?” she asked, smiling slightly.
“Normally, no. For this week, yes.”
“Why don’t you try something else? You might learn something.”
I shook my head. “Learning bad! Crap good!”
She laughed, and I relented (she also admitted that I won for oddest question of the month.) I decided the universe was telling me that Collins crap was not in my immediate future and settled for two cerebral numbers that will have my head spinning with thought and theory for quite some time. I suppose it’s better in terms of enriching my life, but sometimes it’s good to disconnect and chow down on some junk food. Variety, spice of life, etc.
Anyway. After napping and getting ready in record time – two women, two showers, two blow drys and two make-ups in 40 minutes – we went downstairs to Social for dinner with Dan, where we chatted about everything from relationships to middle America to the time Madonna cooked thanksgiving dinner in her former home in Los Feliz and had to go out to the store to get butter. And after a walk on the beach and dipping toes in bathwater-temperatured ocean, Sandra and I retired to our room once more, where she’s reading the Jackie Collins book she picked up prior to leaving New York (Lovers and Players, an oldie but a goodie), and I’m getting work done.
Tomorrow? The ship. Can’t wait.
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