I'm Thinking. I'm Thinking....

There's an old joke told about Jack Benny.  One day he was attacked by a mugger who put a knife to his throat and said:

"Your money, or your life."

Jack paused for a minute, and the mugger shouted:

"WELL????"

And Jack said:

"I'm Thinking.  I'm Thinking...."

In real life, Jack Benny was a very generous fellow.  And Jack had to give his friends money to pay restaurant bills when he was around, as too many people on wait staffs wanted to be able to say that they were "stiffed by Jack Benny."

So what does Jack Benny have to do with this post?

Like Jack, I can say "I'm thinking.  I'm thinking!" in regard to booking my Hawaii cruise.  Tonight, I had dinner with a friend, and we talked for hours.  She thought that I had already booked this cruise, and I said that at a current price of roughly $6,000 for an inside cabin, $6,450 for an ocean view cabin, $8,350 for a balcony cabin, and $11,250 for a mini suite, putting money down over a year before the scheduled sailing seems a little risky to me.  

I am hoping by the time this cruise sets sail that I will have another travel partner. This will allow me to save $1,400 to $5,100, not having to pay for a second person not sailing in the cabin with me.  So far, I have some good signs that I may have one or two people who may future travel partners.  But none are ready to make any commitments yet.  And that's OK with me.

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This is another cruise I'd like to take.  Starting at £3,300 pp (dbl. occ.), it is a little steep.  But then, this is a luxury cruise on a small ship able to reach Iceland's smaller ports. 

If I have a sudden influx of cash, I will book this cruise before I book a Panama Canal cruise.  Many people I know have made either partial or full transits of the Canal.  But not many people I know can say that they've been to Iceland and enjoyed the nation's hospitality.  Like Hawaii, not many ships give travelers a good idea of what this island is all about.  In Hawaii, it's because American law gives one ship a monopoly of sailing both in and out of Honolulu on the same cruise.  In Iceland, it's because this island is only a stop or two on a longer European cruise.  

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There are two more bucket list cruises I'd like to take: (1) Antarctica and (2) The Galapagos Islands.  But these cruises will cost even more than going to Iceland.  So I haven't even bothered pricing them out for this post.  As you can guess, I have a healthy travel bucket list, and I may just be able to cross a couple of trips of this list within the next 2 or 3 years.

 

It's hard to believe how much things have changed.

There's a certain timeless twisted quality in the movie UHF that defies description.  It's a great spoof of the nature of (then) UHF TV, where most stations made their money by showing reruns.  Today, all broadcast TV is digital, and there is no physical difference between what were UHF stations, and the original VHF stations - they all share the same area of spectrum reserved for broadcast TV signals.  Yet, when one gets past the technology used to deliver media to people, the gags still work. In the image above, the man at the right is asking for "change"  One man gives him a penny (later found to be a valuable 1909-S VDB penny), while Weird Al's character gives him $1.00 in change, and receives a $1.00 bill in exchange for it.  "Change?" My favorite gag from the film involves a shipment of Badgers for "Raul's Wild Kingdom."  When Raul sees the Badgers, he says: "Badgers?  Badgers?  We don't need no stinking Badgers!"  Raul's show stinks, but it's popular - just like many UHF shows of the past.

Why do I mention "Change?"  Well, I never thought I'd be working in female mode.  Now, I'm employed for the second time as Marian.  If I had been able to get another technology job, I'd have worked as Mario.  But, since these jobs are not open to me right now, why not work as a female and enjoy how many people react to me? If the ex had stayed in my life, I never would have taken this step - romance was always more important to me.  She never understood that, and never will. But that's water under the bridge now.

Because of my new job, I have started wearing clothing more typical of the average American female.  Instead of wearing dresses all the time, I'm wearing tunics with leggings, or long sweaters over trouser like garments.  I seem to be blending in better than I did in the past.  I truly have a foot in each of the male and female worlds.  And this is a good thing....

 

Even when things go wonderfully right, they go wrong

 

Over the past few weeks, I've been trying to compose a letter I want to send to someone who once was special to me.  Inside this letter, I mention something important - if we ended a romance when we should have, I'd be asking my closest friend for important advice instead of feeling sad about a friendship that ended poorly.

Why do I mention this?

This weekend, I had dates with two ladies. Both of them are interested in me. Both would be good choices for me.  Both know about me in my masculine and feminine presentations.  And I was reminded of this joke:

Shortly after Utah statehood, a young Mormon man was in love with his two prospective brides, Katherine and Edith, and wanted to marry them both.  However, he was not aware of the most recent revelation coming from the church in Salt Lake City when he brought his two fiancees to the local LDS church to be married to him.

He approached the minister of his church and asked him to perform the marriage ceremony.  The minister said that he couldn't perform the dual ceremony. And the young man asked the minister

"Why?"

The minister replied:

"Son, you should know that you can't have your Kate and Edith too."

Yes, this is a corny joke, but it illustrates the dilemma I now have.  On one date, I ended up in a very heavy petting session, where if we had been at either of our apartments, we'd have been going at it like rabbits.  On the other date, we were about to break up, as she found my Marian Mode personal ad and was upset at me - but wanted to stay friends. This would have solved my dilemma of having one too many girl friends.  However, we went back to her apartment, where I showed the physical connection that this woman was looking for. So we ended up chatting, and not breaking up after all

As I said, either woman would be a very good choice for me.  But I can't have them both - none of us are polyamorous. If my dad were alive, he'd tell me what I could do without providing me a solution to my problem. Sadly, I no longer have him to ask for advice.  And this is a time I really wish I could ask him for urgently needed advice.  How do I figure out which one is best for me?

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