Still Here, I Ashore You

Your e-mail's historic folders can be saddening at times, depending on who you are.
Like, for dudes who went to school with Scarlett Johansson and kept in contact during college, but who never 'made a move'.
"I could be high on the hog right now, making Colin Farrell jealous."
For those who have no friends and save their spam mail as though it's from actual people.
"Oh! The diamond miners wrote again! Gee, for guys who mine diamonds, they sure need a lot of my money."
And for those who are bad at keeping in touch. Like myself. I have so many replies that begin with, "Sorry I took so long getting back to you..."
Anyway, sorry for taking so long to get back to you.
I think I have eczema.
"Eczema? Gross!"
I spelled that correctly on the first attempt, without ever dating one pharmacist.
Pharmacists are sexy.
And I'm not just saying that because one of my cousins is a pharmacist.
I did a gig once with Brian Aylward and Bryant (pronounce the T) Thomson for graduating pharmacy students.
Beauties. Just out of this world.
That's because the lady pharmacists know both the skin creams that actually work, and those that just give you eczema.
Anyway, I'm on a boat.
Ship.
I have to remember to call it a ship.
If you're asking "What's the difference?" and to be fair, I suppose you should be, the difference as explained to me is that "Ships carry boats."
This one carries...three, I think.
It also has at least two cranes. Not that anyone will let me operate them.
Yes, I'm on a boat, and no matter how many times I say it (aloud, alone in my cabin), it doesn't put me on land.
To be fair, land is currently just a gangway away, but that land is Lewisporte.
No offense to the finite people of this town, but Canadian Tire is closed, and I'm not sure where else I'd go.
On Friday, however, I'll be going to The Pub (that's the name of the place. It's a flamenco studio [I'm kidding; it's a pub]).
Fridays are bumping at The Pub. I'll be going there with sailors. Real ones.
I suppose I'm a real one now, also.
I was on this thing while it was careening about forcefully enough to move all of the chairs to and fro in the crew's mess - while the crew were seated in them.
And I didn't vomit once! Ya hear that, world! Not one time!
Knock on bulkhead. I really don't want to vomit while I'm sober enough to enjoy it.
The short answer to "What are you doing on a boat? Ship?" is: maintaining sanity.
It pays well and it'll allow me to sit around during the summer and catch up with all of you fine ingrates.
At a real desk. The desk is already situated and it exists somewhere in the world right now.
But more on that later.
Sailors!
They're fascinating, kind of.
The whole process is fascinating.
In essence, I live and work with these people in a steel, three-storey apartment on the ocean, which is housed above several million liters of flammable liquid.
I'd type all of that out a second time, just for effect, but this is the 21st century, so I'll copy and paste it:
In essence, I live and work with these people in a steel, three-storey apartment on the ocean, which is housed above several million liters of flammable liquid.
It's great and terrible, as you can well imagine.
Drunken sailors being obnoxious and eventually ejected at a bar makes perfect sense to me now.
Made perfect sense within days of joining them.
I hope it happens to me, particularly in Montreal.  
Sailing on an oil tanker is sort of like being in a very small prison.
The only difference is that in prison you're able to play basketball sometimes.
We're all dudes. There are no women. We can't escape, and even if we could, there's nowhere to escape to. We all eat together. There's no alcohol allowed on board. No drugs. Either are searched for and confiiscated.
The similarities are there.
It's not so bad, though.
I have access to several pounds of baking soda, and I've never been able to say that before.
Let me tell you a bit about the boat.
Ship.
Umm...let's see.
It's 161 meters long, for any engineers who may be reading this.
It does usually have wi-fi, but it appears that, once you go far enough out to sea, even sattelites won't bother with you.
All of the doors are quite heavy, and I believe they're water-tight.
Despite its tremendous size, it does not just 'float on the water' like a 'cruise ship'.
And that's just the first of its many dissimilarities from cruise ships.
It has rolled back and forth so severely that I have feared for my safety.
Not for fear of it capsizing, mind you, but for fear that the small potted ivy I purchased to 'spruce the place up' might careen across my cabin and hit me in the head.
That chair thing I mentioned before?
That happened while we were all eating.
The chairs (and men) all slid one way, and then began to slide the other.
I panicked and hopped out of mine, only to have several heavy chairs come barreling towards me.
I had to do a little backup hop onto a table, the way referees scoot to avoid pucks sometimes.
Then the chairs stopped moving and I said, "Now what do we do?"
Everyone laughed.
The water that comes out of my tap is slightly yellowish, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to brush my teeth with it, but I'm too embarrassed to ask.
We have traversed through melting ice floes.
Some of them had seals on them.
And we beat them with our clubs and we sang our jolly tunes.
That last part I made up.
There were seals, though.
The same boat (ship), while on an Arctic voyage, encountered a polar bear. The lads threw a rope overboard, and played tug-o-war with it.
That's true. I've seen footage of it.
Four men couldn't move the bear, by the way.
Everyone has hard-drives dedicated to porno, and most of them seem willing to share these.
We stay on Newfoundland time, despite the time zone.

I have a life vest and an immersion suit in my room. 

I miss sex.
These are some of the basic details of the boat (ship).
I've been keeping a log of my travels.
I'll start including those because the tone is really fun and it gives me a reason to continue writing them.
You give me a reason to continue.
I suppose I forget that sometimes.
...
I'll upload some pictures because I never do that.

Oh! One last thing, and I'm not saying this to be funny or whatever.
Whenever we pull out of a port, I get Barrett's Privateers stuck in my head for a solid hour or two.