so yesterday, after a couple of weeks planning and anticipation, we went out on a boat cruise from chelsea piers to the statue of liberty and back. going on a boat ride was a mutual idea, but taking the Schooner Adirondack in particular was my plan. actually it was J’s idea, though J is someone I rarely talk to any more. about 3 years ago J and i were discussing happiness, and whether we thought it was possible in new york city. i tried to think of the happiest time or place i’d ever had in this town… and i can’t remember what i said at the time, but today i might say that the early days of my first real job at 9 West 57th Street were pretty flippin’ awesome (not that I’d want to re-live them). but this anecdote is not about what i said, but what J said. she said the happiest day of her life in New York was riding on the Schooner Adirondack, a beautiful old vessel that offered a Manhattan river cruise of classier mettle than the Circle Line or the other booze cruises. (i actually like the Circle line. it is corny but under-rated.)
i kept the Schooner cruise in the back of my mind for these 3 years, assuming i’d just go out on my own one time. but the girl i’m seeing these days has a wya of saying “Let’s go” whenever i suggest anything, and her no-questions-asked enthusiasms are infectious.
we took the sunset cruise, this again my decision based on my sleep patterns of late, though there was no real reason to debate the particular choice of sail. the only reason it became an issue was that rain came right around the time of sail, but the rain passed. it got cold, though.
the cruise got off to a rough start, but i was, amazingly, well-prepared. we sat right by the steering wheel, at the captain’s perch, and without any suitable warning we were told that we might want to move our bags off the floor because some sea water was about to rush in. the water came about an eighth of a second after the captain issued the warning, and it nearly subsumed my leather bag in which i carry my Sony dslr and other gear. as annoying as this was i managed to yank the bag up from the torrent of sea water and dry the bag off. it is leather and, as i considered when i bought the expensive-as-fuck bag, it repelled and deflected the water like a champ-een, absorbing not a drop and keeping the innards of the bag dry as bone, or rather as dry as a $2000 DSLR should be.
i actually bought the bag anticipating getting caught in the rain at the big cemetery (where there is just about nowhere to hide from the rain). the rush of sea water, as annoying as it was under the circumstances (an earlier warning would have been appreciated) nevertheless proved that the mighty Italian leather satchel can withstand the elements about as well as i had hoped.
once we were on the water it felt nice. the boat seats about 80 people total, i think, and i for one felt like i could lie back and soak my hair in the the Hudson, for the seating situation seemed that close to the water. this was an interesting feeling, and without provoking any drama it reminded me of some nightmares i’ve had the last few weeks, nightmares involving wickedly volatile seas and floating shopping centers capsized by tsunami.
the initial aggravation of the rush of sea water over my precious leather man-purse passed, perhaps forcibly so on my part, since i did not want to be a sour date. everything prior to the boat leaving the pier had annoyed me on this day, though, — everything. we went to the High Line Park at 10th Ave and 20 Street, a place which I ironically enough had written about on one of my web sites last week. the place is stupidly crowded, narrow and scary, a tourist hole like no other, and even if the space was not like a scene from “The Mark of Gideon” episode of the original Star Trek it would be of only superfluous interest. a principal interest in this space seems to be the eco-hipster sustainable bullshit by which a bunch of junk was turned into a public space, but the greenery and “park” features of the place are unremarkable at best, and the seeming relentless crowdedness of the narrow passages are scary at times. once in a while an asshole parent will think it is cute to send their 3 year old child out into the walkway, where pedestrian traffic must come to a halt until the child can be taken safely back from the onrush of towering, glowering adult humanity.
so the High Line annoyed me, and the Chelsea Market annoyed me as well. i wanted a slice of pizza with meat on it but as i expected (because it is Chelsea) the place had nothing but hipster/hippy sustainable bullshit organic cheese and tastelessly-spiced whole wheat slabs of bland grub at $8.50 a slice.
so i gave up on finding pizza with meat on it and thought i’d settle for a fucking hot dog, but that, too (from a stand at the Chelsea Pier) was an emoty-tasting tube of near-beef that went down like cotton candy. i asked for a chili dog and was, of course (because it is Chelsea), told that they were out of the chili with meat and had only veggie chili(and what the fuck is the point of that? veggie chili? that’s like decaffeinated coffee. what the fuck is the point?) and to further pique my annoyance whilst deciding upon and then deciding to order the chili dog (which, as i said, was available only with meatless chili, and which probably had as much real meat in the wiener as a pint of Guinness) — to further pique my annoyance i opened my mouth to place my order just as a potheaded hippie fuck flower child stepped up and yelled “the children won 8 lemonades!” the dude working the hot dog stand saw that i was about to place mny order but he was all “children are angels” and “children are awesome” and so he took care of this fucking tye-died (sp?) hippie head of me, carefully and slowly pouring her 7 or 8 (i lost count) glasses of lemonade for the children, for the children who were on some kind of scavenger hunt at The Frying Pan restaurant/bar/s&m club/whatever-the-fuck-The-Frying-Pan is nearby. god alive, i swear i would have eaten hipster shit on a bun by this point, i was so fucking hungry and irritated.
but enough of that. the schooner cruise got off well enough after the inundation of my leather bag. the closeness to the water was sexy. sensuous. water is a symbol of sex to me, and my interpretations of my recent nightmares involving tsunami and tidal waves reflect anxieties over a relationship into which i may or may not be becoming inextricably intertwined. (the sex is awesome, though, for what that’s worth, not that you asked, and not that you heard it from me). we sat right up front, and the captain turned out to be really cool, she knew everything about the coastline and was obviously a skilled sea-farer. she asked us where we were visiting from and A said “nowhere”. i think i said “we are out for a night *off* the town” but i might have only thunk that.
part of the reason i chose this cruise was that i had the idea that it was more generally populated by New Yorkers, versus tourists. alas, as the captain implied, this particular voyage happened to have been booked long ago by a tour group, and from what A and i gathered there were either Russian or Polish. i mean nothing nationalisticc by this but as one who speaks not their language and who was already irritated by High Line pretentiousness and exorbitantly priced “pizza” and parents shoving their 3-year-olds into heavy pedestrian traffic and meatless chili dogs (what the fuck is the point of meatless chili?) the tour group sounded to me like a gaggle of jabbering seagulls, whatever fucking language they spoke.
the water felt nice, though. the first 40 minutes or so on the water felt really nice. we made out, she looked beautiful, and i took pictures, but this time around i made a conscious decision to actually see things instead of just taking pictures of them.
the Schooner Adirondack is advertised as *not*being a booze-cruise, but a few rounds of drinks were served. i think i got my first glass of Pinot Grigio about a half hour into the cruise. i don’t drink that shit too often, nad i only chose it to make things easier for the amiable and very nice waiter/second in command guy who A said looked like an actor from some movie the name of which i can’t remember right now.
i have never been seasick, but in retrospect i think it was the wine that did it. cheap white wine, too sweet, from a plastic cup, almost immediately had me feeling warm inside, but not in a drunk or buzzed way. the soothing, sexy, sensuous feeling of water so close to me started to feel like nausea itself. not quite nauseating, and i never quite felt like barfing, but something felt airy and polluted in my brain. the wind grew stiffer and the air colder when the brilliance of the Schooner Adirondack management brought out blankets. that was awesome. i wore only a t-shirt and pants and feared frigidity as we got to the Pier and the rain came and the temperature plunged.
the blankets were awesome. i took 2.
as we got to the statue of liberty i started to feel seriously dizzy and floating. i have never felt quite like this. it was neither happy nor sad, but commanding.
and around liberty island is where the wind hit us hard. the boat tilted a solid 40-degrees, the captain scrambled, she quickly did this or that, and seemed comfortable with her trust in the vessel, when the ropes she had just wrapped around the thingie at the tip of the boat came undone and she almost jumped overboard to grab the rope and restore it to it fitted position around that thingie (sorry for the “thingie” talk but i obviously don’t know my ship anatomy).
i grabbed at inner part of the boat. if i earlier felt like i could tilt my head back and wash my hair in the Hudson then i now felt like i could extend my tongue lick up a mouthful of that colorless, opaque water. i thought we were going down, but i attempted to rationalize the situation by looking around. i saw that no one else was concerned. the russian/polish/whatever tour group was yakking it up as ever, swilling cheap wine and laughing like this was a wedding and not the jaws of death that i imagined. what a way to go, right? crushed by a schooner at the statue of liberty with a bunch of fucking tourists.
the winds settled and the captin earned my respect for saving us from what seemedlike certain doom.
i was reminded of the times when i used to fly in airplanes more frequently than now. one day i might fear take-off, panicking and sweating like this was it, this was death. the next day, on the same plane on the same airline on the same path, i would be as calm as if i was crossing the street.
the winds calmed and the boat stabilized. i may have panicked unnecessarily, but seriously, the boat was tipping pretyt hard, and looked to me like a capsize threat.
the fact that i was scared should prove, i think, that there was no danger. for when the danger is real, we humans become passive, serene, resigned. i talked to someone last month about her experience at the Deutsche Bank building on 9/11. she looked up, saw the gash in the side of the tower, and just moved on. no fear, no panic, no hysteria, just orderly movement. i had similar conversations with others who were in those towers. no panic, no fear. no hysteria. when the threat is real there is little of that.
i was nauseous for the rest of the cruise, but i tried like a cham-peen to be a good date, and we had a good time. the night wen ton and on, and it was (as always with her) an adventure. i got just about no sleep last night and at present i am tired and punchy like a metaphor i can’t complete, but it’s all good.
