What’s good: Riding in the bow of a ski boat that’s going so fast you can’t hear anything but the wind, or see anything but the water, and you forget how you got so stressed out in the first place.

What’s bad: Riding at top speed in that same boat moments later, after hearing your name screamed in distress, to rescue your entire family, who have just tipped over in a sailboat in a Titanic-like scene in which your mother is clinging to a piece of wood that I believe was a floorboard from the vessel. Everyone is drenched and shivering in nearly freezing waters, your boyfried has stripped down to his underwear in an attempt to jump in and save your kin, the sailboat is filled to the brim with water and barely staying afloat and you are pulling on arms and legs to throw people to safety. Reminds you what it’s like to really be stressed out. Something along these lines, except without the wetsuits, and everyone floating in the frigid water is a loved one. Yay.

Driving home from Lowe’s, new air conditioner in the back. Sun’s out, warm enough to drive with the window’s down, not so hot you need the A/C. Listening to music, there’s no traffic on the BQE. Riding shotgun with my head resting back on the seat, looking out the window. Listening to friends chat beside me, I’m hit with the briefest, yet most real and perfect happiness for a fleeting moment. Then just as quickly it is gone. I still feel fine, but I can’t hold on to those few seconds where everything feels just right. I will spend the rest of the day hoping to feel it again.

I’m a little junkie for my happy. I don’t get the perfect high very often, and afterwards I spend my days chasing after it. I don’t know what makes it come and I don’t know what makes it go, but I’m definitely ready to ride it as far as it will take me.

Honestly, the only things that are the same about these two people, besides the fact that they are both Courtney Love, are the lipstick and the purple eyeshadow. She’s almost unrecognizable. Do you think she’s had any plastic surgery?? Very un’hole’some, if you know what I mean. And I’m pretty sure you don’t.

Here’s Courtney.

Here’s some plastic lady with a giant black flower growing out of her sternum.

The bathroom at my “new job” stresses me out. It has not been remodeled, or perhaps even touched, since the mid-70s. It looks exactly like the bathroom did in the mall when I was a kid, when that bathroom was brand new. It’s got a carpeted seating area with couches, and mirrors all around with ledges on which to place one’s makeup, or handbag, or stapler. Whatever. The toilet seats are those really old black ones that look like they might be actual sanded ebony. The kind of toilet seat that’s so old it is a completely different shape than the paper toilet seat covers offered in the dispenser. So when met with said cover, about 40 percent of the toilet seat is still bare. The flushers are about eye level, and the paper towel holders are chrome boxes with slits in them…like a napkin dispenser at a diner. This is ‘the ladies’ that time forgot.

I’m struck down with nostalgia every time I walk in there, because it reminds me so much of shopping with my grandma as a kid. Watching her re-apply her lipstick while I fondled a new Barbie doll. It honestly makes me kind of sick to my stomach being in there. And no, the smell of untouched 30-year-old toilets doesn’t help.

There’s also this broken hot water knob on one of the sinks. I know this very well because I don’t pick up on things very quickly and I still go to the same sink EVERY TIME. It’s this old clunky silver thing that kind of resembles a dulled ninja star, and it just comes off in my hand whenever I grab it. I fear that out of extreme fatigue and long hours I’m just going to keep it in my hand one of these days and accidentally hand it to the cashier to try and pay for my lunch. But usually I just drop it and it clangs against the pedestal porcelain sink.

I’m thinking of asking my boss to meet me in the lounge area as the conference room for my next review. At least then when I don’t get that raise I’ll know where to find an easily accessible weapon to throw at his head.

We meet eyes across the Entenmanns rack. One eye Clint-Eastwooding each other down, the other fixed on the one register with no line. My third eye, had I one, would have been staring down a stack of All Butter French Crumb Cake. Now there’s a product I can get behind. It advertises itself as being at the same time ‘all butter,’ yet with ‘zero transfat.’ That’s like making a dessert called ‘Zero Calorie Lard Nibblers.’ Ballsy Entenmanns, I like your style.

So anyway, there we were, with the staring. Me and this blue haired old broad. She was closer to the register, but I knew I had youth and speed on my side. So I booked it, carefully balancing the birthday cake for my co-worker on one hand. I barely beat her to it, but wimped out at the last second. Had I been in just a slighty bigger hurry I might have been able to bring myself to push an old lady out of my way. But as luck would have it, I was actually running early. So I give her the, “No I insist, you go first.” And she gives me the gentle old lady thanks that really means, “No durr, bitch.”

She throws down her plastic to-go container holding a total of one piece of lettuce from the salad bar, and a bare nekkid roll that is not wrapped in a bag or nothin. The cashier tells her he’s not bagging it for her, because he doesn’t want to put his hands on her food. I thought this was a rather nice gesture on his part. I’m not sure I was conveying that message though, through all the foot tapping and heavy sighing.

I thought for a minute she might just take the roll and stuff it in her pocket, for her and the birds to snack on later. But she bagged it herself…really…really…slowly. Then there was some confusion about why she was being charged $7 for a $2 purchase. Maybe, the cashier told her, it was because she requested $5 cash back. Ding, light bulb goes on…really…really…slowly. First of all, when did I become designated birthday cake buying girl at work? And second, next time nanna is getting pushed out the way.

I started a new part-time job today in addition to my normal job. It means a lot more hours and a lot more putting up with me acting like a cranky old man. When I shout, “Wipe my ass! Put on cartoons!” at you, it is not that I don’t love you, only that I’ve worked 13 hours without a break on 5 hours sleep. I will try to drink lots of this to keep my spirits up.

The work seems interesting though. There’s lots to learn, and I even get to brush up on my HTML. Score. It’s still not what I want to be doing, but it involves thought, and I get to write! Did you hear that world? I’m going to get paid to write. Granted it’s like a sentence here or there. But a published sentence, so back the hell off. And, most importantly of all, this little sugary sweetened detail should not go unmentioned. This job is on a floor that is above ground. Unlike my office down here in the basement, it has windows. Glorious shining see-through to the sky windows. I was working up there today and I was thinking, what is this strange glare on my computer? The sun y’all. Apparently southern twang is a side effect of sleep deprivation. I could go for some skrimps right about now. See?

The rest of the cruise pictures are up on Flickr if you want to take a gander. I will probably be gazing at them longingly as my little vacation drifts into a distant memory and I nod off at my desk. This photo is not only the best of the batch, but it pretty much summarizes how I’m going to handle juggling two jobs.

Returned from the cruise yesterday barely alive. No one told me that cruises are just big floating bars. You should have seen me walking from the ship back to my car. I was dragging my backpack on the ground behind me, one shoe off, limping down the parking lot with both hair and teeth un-brushed, gravel blowing into my eyes. Behind me the cruise ship loomed, laughing and pointing at all the beaten soldiers crawling from its depths. It’s impressive how much you can drink when it’s free. Eventually Justin had to throw me over his shoulder and just carry my limp corpse back to the car.

The ship was impressive to say the least. It was huge. I was yelled at on several occasions for not knowing where I was going. More so the more I drank. Got to watch a lot of people eat shit on the “flowrider,” drank kir royales like they were grape juice, stuttered and looked for hidden cameras every time someone tried to give me free stuff, sat in a hot tub overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and won $.90 at the slot machines.  The highlight I think though, was when leaving port from New Jersey the ship’s captain took us right next to the statue of liberty and then u-turned that bad boy right at the base of Manhattan. I will never have a view like that again in my life. From the 12th deck of a cruise ship you’re pretty much face to face with Lady Liberty. And even she seemed to be handing me some sort of flaming cocktail.

I have a few pictures posted now that we took on the phone, and more to come from the disposable camera (the digital is still busted from the New Orleans debacle). And yes, I have a different drink in my hand in every picture. Oh, and the cherry on the hangover Sunday (yes, I pun) was trying to drive home after docking. Little did we know this was happening, resulting in every street running West to East being blocked off. I just put my seat back and took a nap while Justin basically circled the entire island of Manhattan to get us back to Brooklyn. No sleep ‘til Brooklyn indeed. Pics here.

Apparently I’m incapable of turning down free stuff, as potentially disastrous as it may be. I mean, I run with a crowd that prefers art openings to bars on Friday nights because the hootch is free. So I’ve been trained pretty well to just sign my name next to anything that has the word “free” on it. I think I may have accidentally signed a ‘free Charles Manson’ petition last week. Oopsie.

Royal Caribbean is taking their newest cruise ship, Liberty something, out for a preview sail and my work is filming it. Ergo..free weekend cruise for anyone who works on that show. So, Er-goes on a cruise. Bing with the pun. Here’s how my boss put it to me, “I don’t know why in God’s name you’d want to, but you’re invited on that cruise.”

While being locked on a boat in international waters with my coworkers makes me want to breathe into a paper bag, come on dude, it’s free. There’s like pools and casinos and…and…food and stuff. I don’t know, I’ve never been on a cruise, and I sure as shit ain’t never been on any all inclusive vacation, so I’m taking the plunge, hoping Justin and I can avoid the work crowd by getting him really drunk and having him scream “I’m king of the world!” to anyone who approaches us. The trip really could go either way at this point. I’m hoping we make the best of it and have an amazing time. I mean, it’s only two days. I need to look at it as two days of relaxation with my boyfriend with free food and drinks and gambling, and not look at it as a weekend stranded in a confined space with that camera guy who once told me he collects Tigger memorabilia. I hope we don’t have a cabin next to that guy. I don’t want to have to bust out any lines like, “Jumping overboard is what Tiggers do best.”

Whenever Justin says anything that could even slightly scare someone away my immediate response is, “Save it for the boat!” I’m sure after having said all this I’ll be the one who ends up getting drunk and puking in the surf simulator. I just need to stay away from these and I should be ok. Ahoy dudes, catch ya port side.