More cruiseship daydreaming

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on September 4, 2001). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Work more or less blew today. It wasn’t really all that busy, but one of my machines went down about 9am and threw the whole day out of whatck. Didn’t help that I couldn’t get a tech in to save my life — eventually had to ask to elevate the service request to the managerial level. Theoretically I should be getting a call from a tech first thing in the morning — I just hope it’ll happen this time.

Was planning on heading over to Casey’s to toss all my Bumbershoot ramblings onto the webpage, but was tired enough after work that I just came home. After going strong all weekend, taking an evening to rest sounded like a good idea.

Ended up spending most of the evening hanging out on the porch (okay, it’s not really a porch, but that’s what I’m going to call it), talking with my neighbor Damon and his friends Erin, Cory and Patrick. Most of the time I was chatting with Erin while Damon and Cory wandered off to find Patrick. It’s been pretty cool — they’ve all been drinking since early afternoon, so Erin had a pretty good buzz going. Ended up being one of those free-form, rambling, everything-and-nothing conversations that go perfectly with a good buzz. I was sober, but I’ve been in enough of those conversations (both sober and not) to follow pretty easily.

After the drama queen hysterics of my other neighbor, Cody (the one that just bailed to Hawaii), Damon’s a pretty damn cool neighbor. Gotta say, though — and this is one of those horrid statements that just makes me feel old — he and his friends remind me so much of myself and my friends over the past 10 years or so. They’re all about 18-20, just a year or two out of high school, and fairly new to the “real world” of living on their own. This is Damon’s first apartment, and he’ll be starting school at one of the local colleges pretty soon here.

So, here we have a guy out on his own for the first time, away from parents (he’s from Billings, Montana), with a bunch of friends (also from Billings) also about to start school here, enjoying the last few weeks of summer. Up all night, joking around, tooling around the city during the day, taking advantage of every possible moment of minimal responsibilities…

…man, I miss that. :)

Of course, I have no idea how things are going to go for me in the near future. Every time I had to place another call to Xerox to see if I could get a tech to fix my machine today, the idea of spending six months — six months! — getting paid to spin for a club on a cruise ship sounded better and better. How many times is a chance like this going to come along? Many people pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to take a cruise for a few weeks — I might have the opportunity to get paid to be on cruises for half of a year, going who knows where, relaxing and touring during the day, and dj’ing for an upscale dance club at night.

Even if (assuming I am offered a contract) I do blow this chance at getting in good with Xerox, copy jobs and office jobs will still be around when I get back, and I’ll still have the experience to get one somewhere, if I decide that that’s what I want to go back to. The more this runs through my head, the more I think that I’d be a complete moron not to at least try for it. I’d spend the rest of my life wishing that I had.

So much of what Kevin’s done over the years I’ve been really jealous of — his seeming ability to just pick up and go, take a summer and go tooling around the states, take another one and go tooling around Europe. I’ve always been so paranoid/frightened of losing stability — be that an apartment, a job, a group of friends, or whatever — that I could never convince myself that I could actually do it. It wasn’t so much that I was tied down to where I was and what I was doing, but more that I let myself get tied down, and was scared to see what would happen if I let the ropes go.

Over the past couple years, though, those ropes holding me in place just didn’t seem as strong as they used to. And whaddaya know — after doing a whole lot of talking about it for years, I finally got the guts to pack up, turn my back on all the stability I’d built up for myself over the past years, say goodbye to my family and friends, and finally strike out on my own. Sure, I’d been out of my parents house almost constantly since I was about 18…but even with the slight ‘safety net’ of knowing a few people down here and having their help in the form of a couch to crash on until I found my own place, this move to Seattle has me much more own my own than I’ve ever let myself get before.

The best part is — I’m loving it.

And now, this possibility comes along. There are few times in my life that I’ve been as truly happy as when I’ve been in the booth of a club, looking out at a packed floor of people having fun, and knowing that I’m part of that. Watching people stagger off the dance floor, dripping with sweat and sportin grins wide enough to split their face because I’ve just worn them out. Feeling the enrgy flow through the room as a club full of people having fun thumps along through the night. Getting the grins, hugs, props, and accolades of people, both in the club during the night and on the streets during the days — some from people who didn’t know me beyond, “Oh, he’s that DJ,” and some from people who came out because they knew I was spinning and knew they’d have a good time.

If I never get to do that again, then the years I spent doing that will be some of the fondest memories for the rest of my life. But the chance to do it again has been a dream for a while now — and to do it like this? Cruising from port ot port, seeing places I’d quite possibly not otherwise see, and playing for people whom I’d most likely never get a chance to meet any other way?

I would be a fool not to do my damnedest to try and do this.

I’ll call the guy tomorrow.