Saturday, April 21st (evening)

There is a transient nature to ship life, natch. Contracts end, people decide not to re-sign, folks get transferred to a different ship, etc. In what has been such a fantastic surprise, we have grown quite attached to some of the crewmembers beyond just our little Second City family. In what has been a not-so fantastic inevitable, a lot of them left right before we began the crossing. All of these lovely girls (except the blonde, amanda, on my left) are gone. They are youth coordinators, and we love them, especially Junkyard (on my right) who colored me a t-shirt.

On Saturday night, we went to dinner with Kyla (pictured here between Jennine and what looks like a Katie who is overdosing on cough medicine) who is one of the principle dancers/singers. She will be going back to her home Vegas. Accompanying her
will be Nick (pictured here with my uvula) as he will be trying to see what Vegas is all about while living in Kyla’s spare bedroom. Martini also left (blog trivia: what item of Katie’s does Martini always steal when drunk? Answer at the end of the entry!) to go back to New York, where he was the dance captain for the musical “Hairspray.”

After dinner, we went to see the mainstage show in the Stardust. We mostly went to support our friend Nate, who is also one of the dancers, and who would also be leaving the next day.

Nate is a gymnast who does very impressive and ridiculous aerial feats, as you can see here. During this show, he accompanied his “How Can a Human Being Do That?” tricks with a bit of a more traditional theatrical performance. He told a story about how he always loved gymnastics, but like most people, went on to college and did something completely different – business school. He got a great job and became one of those insurance suits whom you call when a loved one dies. Nate’s job was to take all of the deceased's assets and literally determine the value of his or her life.

Well, Nate feared someone else determining the value of his life, so he quit, went back to what he loved to do, and never looked back.

And that is what I’m going to miss most about these people - they are doing what they love to do, making sure their lives are worth the most to them and no one else.

Ship goodbyes are weird because I feel like you didn’t really know these people for very long, but it was an accelerated pace at which you got to know them. You saw them everyday, whether you wanted to or not, and they became a part of your landscape.
It didn’t really set in until we went and saw the new dancers perform their first show. They were great, of course, but it wasn’t the same. It looked off, like when, unbeknownst to your little child mind, one of your uncles or teachers would dress up as Santa for Christmas and it just seemed weird. Like, okay, that’s Santa but it also isn’t and I can’t really pinpoint why. I missed my new /old friends.

(Trivia answer: Her bra. Which he would happily wear over his clothing)