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Cruise Review: Disney Cruise Line

by Bart Leahy, posted in Uncategorized
Disney Destiny outside the Meyer Werft Shipyard (Image credit: Wikipedia.org)

I could have sworn I wrote a review of one of my cruises, but apparently, I haven’t. Today I’ll try to rectify that, focusing on the most recent Disney Cruise Line (DCL) voyage Mrs. L and I took to Alaska. Full Disclosure: Mrs. L and I are both former Disney cast members (12 years for me, 15 for her), so we’re a bit more critical about some things; that said, given that we no longer work there, the opinions written here are mine and do not reflect the policies or opinions of Disney Cruise Line, etc., etc.).

First of all, those who know me might ask, “Why are you going on a cruise if you’re such an introvert? And why Disney, for gosh sakes?” or words to that effect. Indeed, there might be good reasons for an introvert not to choose cruising (or specifically Disney) as a vacation style:

  • Do you dislike large, rowdy parties (i.e., “party boats” or “fun ships”)?
  • Are you annoyed by screaming children (a definite DCL risk)?
  • Do you just want to go somewhere and don’t really care how your cabin looks?

Okay, fine. So why should you consider a Disney Cruise?

  • Do you have warm, fuzzy nostalgia for Disney entertainment (movies, TV shows, live entertainment)?
  • Do you appreciate attention to design details and environment theming?
  • Do you appreciate “family-friendly” entertainment?
  • Are you not fond of gambling?

If you said yes to the first group of questions, DCL isn’t for you. If you said yes to the second group of questions, you might give it a look. And while the entries are a few years old now, I have developed ways for introverts to enjoy touristy places.

The Booking/Pre-Cruise Experience

For DCL, you can work through a travel agent, book online directly (and hand it off to a T/A w/in 30 days if you want), or call the cruise line ((800) 951-3532). Booking online directly allows you to see where your cabin will be, so that’s worth doing, in my opinion. Once you book your cruise, you’ll get a friendly, “You’re Bibbidi Bobbidi Booked” email from DCL providing your confirmation number and highlighting other stuff you can book for your trip.

A word, though, about price. There’s no getting around it: Disney cruises are not cheap. In fact, my observation has been that the same itinerary (say, Port Canaveral to Nassau and the cruise line’s private island, which all of them seem to have) will set you back 1.5 to 3 times as much or more. There is a bit of apples-and-oranges comparing that needs to be factored in, of course. A newer ship on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL) will be more expensive than an older one. Then there are the relative sizes of the ships. Disney’s largest ship, aside from the Disney Adventure (I’m leaving this one out because it’s based in Singapore), which was purchased from another line, can handle up to 4,116 passengers while RCCL’s Icon-class behemoths are the largest cruise ships afloat and can handle up to 7,600 passengers. And there’s a lot more stuff on RCCL’s ships in the way of restaurants, activities, and so forth. What they might lack in the way of intellectual property they make up for with busy-ness on board.

All that is to say when you pay 2-3X for a Disney fare, you’re paying for the name recognition, the characters, the theming, the family-friendly atmosphere, and (if you have kids) Disney-property IP-related entertainment on one whole deck of the ship.

The part Mrs. L and I dislike the most about DCL is the check-in process. You check in 35 days out from your cruise to upload your passports, photos, and emergency contact information (varies by your “Castaway Club” membership level…we’re creeping up on Platinum, which will improve how soon we can check in). The earlier you check in (after exactly 0000 hours Eastern Time), the earlier your boarding group to get on the ship, much like the way Southwest Airlines handled their check-in for flights. The reason we dislike this part of DCL is that there’s pressure. You have to check all of the boxes, make sure the image of your passport is acceptable/readable by Disney’s system, and add a credit card for incidentals. If you’re slow or your computer/internet crashes, you’ll move from boarding group 6 to 12 or so just from a few minutes’ delay. If you’re staying at a Walt Disney World Resort and taking Disney’s buses out to Port Canaveral, you have a boarding group assigned to you so you can check in at a more leisurely, stress-free pace, but otherwise…ZOOM!

You also go through a similar, class-based competition close to departure day to book your shore excursions or other special activities, so be prepared.

The Boarding Experience

It’s rare that we’ve encountered a hassle-free boarding process (though MSC does a good job at Port Canaveral using the same facilities). Inevitably there’s some problem with parking or “cast members” give us conflicting information, or people are just rude trying to get on the boat. Like I said, this is not unique to DCL, it’s just vexing.

Once you hear your boarding group called, you go through (or dodge, as we do) the family photo area, wend your way up the boarding ramp, and step into the ship’s atrium. You are greeted by a cast member who scans the QR code from your boarding group paperwork you received 30-45 days out—you DID hold onto your paperwork, right?–and then you are handed off to another CM with a microphone who asks your names. We just say, “The Leahy Family,” though the urge to say “Bartman and Robin” is strong. The CM then shouts your name over the speakers so everyone on board now knows that you’re in the house.

Introverts do not like this practice, by the way, but we’ve learned to keep it short and duck out of the atrium ASAP.

Usually, if it’s before 1:30 p.m., your room isn’t ready, so you end up carrying your carry-on luggage with you wherever you want to go. The restaurants have a plated meal or you can go to the buffet or a fast-food option on deck. Or just head for one of the saloons that’s open. If it’s after 1:30 p.m., you can head for your stateroom, where your room key cards are in sealed up in an envelope that you rip along the perforations to access. As with most cruise lines, that card then becomes your room key, room charge card, and ID for leaving or reboarding the ship.

Life On Board

Most cruise ship cabins I’ve experienced are approximately 150-250 square feet (14-23 square meters). The big difference is usually whether you have a window, a verandah, or none of the above. They have a few suites in the concierge area, but otherwise, you’re paying for the privilege of boarding first, a private snack/refreshment room, and a team of really excellent guest service staff.

The rooms are comfortable, nautically themed, decorated with Disney photographs or art, and have plenty of drawer and counter space for storing your clothes and other stuff. Plenty of room under the bed for storing your luggage, and plenty of lighting. Where the rooms tend to fall down for us are the electrical sockets and the bathrooms. As someone who uses a CPAP machine (go look it up), I need an electrical socket next to the bed, but such things are seldom available. Fortunately, my machine has a very long power cord, which sets up an efficient trip wire in the middle of the night. The bathrooms have two styles to them: one where the shower and commode are in the same room and one where there are separate rooms for each. This past cruise was our first experience with the two-room configuration, and it did not do much for us.

Once you’ve dropped off and/or put away your stuff, you’re ready to meander some more. Unlike many cruise lines that do their lifeboat “muster drill” electronically (watch it on your phone or the room TV), Disney still has people show up for their muster station in person and the whole process is not complete until EVERY passenger has appeared. All guest services are shut down during the drill, so for gosh sakes, finish your snack or beverage and get down there. The rest of us don’t like waiting.

The online “Navigator” app is helpful for showing your plans and where they’re located. However, if you are looking for random things to do (say, a nice game of Star Wars trivia or BINGO or a Disney character dance show), not everything shows up on the app. Go figure.

Dining is broken up among three different dining rooms. The servers you have on the first night you have throughout the cruise as they rotate you through the themed locations. Seatings are at 5:45 and ~8:15 p.m. Fewer small humans at the later seating, but 8 p.m. is really late for some of us to eat, so request your seating preference accordingly. If you don’t get the seating you want, I’ve had very little trouble going to the maitre d’ stand right as the seating begins and requesting a change. The front desk also can handle that.

The dining rooms are themed based on some Disney story or other (examples include Princess and the Frog, The Avengers, Frozen, etc., and they usually have some sort of story/musical entertainment during the meal. Some of that is participatory–usually for the young ‘uns. The entertainment, if it includes people dancing down the aisles between tables, slows down dinner service. I do my best on the first night to ask the server to hurry things along because we just want to eat and roll, not necessarily watch the show.

(You might be asking, again, why we bother doing DCL when we’re not big on small humans or entertainment geared for the same. I’ll get there, I promise.)

Keeping Yourself Entertained

Some people are really big on seeing the ports, others really enjoy on-ship, at-sea time. As I mentioned earlier, DCL has an entire deck dedicated to entertaining small humans by age group, from nurseries right up to 17. For adults, there are spa treatments, adult beverage/food tastings, and the occasional educational lecture, which we attended on our recent jaunt to Alaska. A year ago or so, Mrs. L and I realized we’re really bad at Caribbean cruising because we’re not up for the usual activities: scuba/snorkeling, drinking adult beverages, or hanging out at the beach. We are happier with port time, though I have yet to meet someone who’s happy visiting the city of Nassau. Europe works for us because we’re intellectual dorks who like to get some education or cultural exposure on land. To each their own.

The entertainment on Disney ships ranges from character greetings and shows to a movie theater to full-blown, Broadway-quality live performances drawn from one of the Disney movies. Sometimes we watch the shows from the room, sometimes we go in person, but the Moana show on the Disney Treasure was definitely worth seeing live.

A lot of people ask about the food. You’re a captive audience most of the time, so the cruise lines know they need to provide good variety and quality. Mrs. L and I started cruising together in 2022, and the food quality has slipped from a solid “B” to a solid “C”–okay, but nothing to write home about. The food was slightly better on the Disney Wonder out of Vancouver, so we’re left to wonder if it’s just a matter of different suppliers, better-quality ingredients, or both. On days where the menu selections did not wow us, we’ve eaten “deck food” from one of the stands near the pool or gotten room service. I will say this for the room service on the Wonder: it was impressively FAST! We’ve done the specialty restaurants once or twice but as the menus get more sophisticated (in my language, weird), we’re less inclined and stick with what’s free.

So aside from the occasional show or shore excursion, why do we keep coming back to Disney? The fact that we were both long-time cast members explains part of it. We both moved from up North to work for the Mouse because we had happy memories of the films, TV shows, and theme parks growing up. We appreciate Disney’s attention to design details, quality, and guest service. I answered complaint letters for the Walt Disney World Resort for five years, so we are not shy about sharing when we think the staff dropped the ball or did a good job. (You should, too! DCL is very good about responding to issues if you report them.)

Anyhow, a couple of middle-aged, introverted adults with no kids can still manage to have a good time on a Disney cruise. It helps to walk around the ship and look for places where people are not. If you’ve got a cabin with a verandah and the weather cooperates, relax out there. Or, if you’re in port, find something to do there. And really, if you’d like to wish upon a star, the ship’s whistle on the Disney Magic will play the tune.

Guest Post: Scent Review of Azalea Park

by Bart Leahy, posted in Personal, Writing

Today I’m reluctantly handing over the blog to my junior hound, Hiro Protagonist, so she can write about what she wants. –Bart

Sniff! Or, as you talky humans put it, hello!

Daddy finally realized that I was gathering research material so I can start “writing,” as he puts it. I just want to savor the glorious scents found on our street and the others around Azalea Park. This is still a work in progress, as our weekly walks are frequently interrupted by Mommy or Daddy interrupting my attempts to capture a very intense and exciting aroma from a recent neighbor’s business or a ripe garbage bag. My sister also likes to go chasing after cats, at which point it’s alert time.

It’s a shame Mommy and Daddy don’t take us out for walks more often. We learn so much and love the exercise. Plus, if I’m to understand Daddy correctly, we’re all overweight. What does he think is going to happen when he sits in front of this silver box poking the keys all day?

But I digress. I find exciting aromas in the grasses in our neighborhood, especially the taller ones where you humans haven’t been using your noisy machines to flatten them. Chickens, cats, and other friends (don’t tell Sister I called cats friends) enjoy the concealment so they can do their business. My report includes sniffing three cats, two of which we actually saw on our walk, mostly the stripey variety. They’re all rather standoffish because Sister is still a hunter at heart. I think she spent more time fending for herself than I did before going into the shelter, poor dear. Anyhow, one of them has had kittens, I’m pretty certain, and another has something wrong with it. I know these things just by sniffing, why don’t humans?

Oh! I did manage to find a couple of snacks, even though Mommy pulled me away (boo!). The cat business was particularly yummy–I think she was eating salmon, which I love! The other snack I’d never had before, but I think it was egg, if I had to match it up with other things my humans have made in our house. I even had some on my nose to carry around until I finished it.

Squirrel (Interrupting): HI, HIRO! WHATCHA DOIN’? CAN I PLAY? <Lick>

Sis, stop it.

<Lick, lick, lick>

WHY? LICKING IS FUN! ARE YOU WRITING ABOUT OUR WALK? THAT’S HILARIOUS! CATS ARE NOT FRIENDS, SILLY! <Lick> NOW I WANT A SNACK, LOL! BYE! <Lick>

Sigh. My sister can be a bit much. She drives Mommy and Daddy crazy sometimes. We are very different people. Sis is not all bad. She introduced me to belly rubs (thanks!), but while she likes to jump right into whatever Mommy and Daddy are doing, I like to hang back and watch. I really like it when Daddy turns on the box in the front room and watches humans in helmets tackle each other. Then I can snuggle up right next to him and get absentminded belly rubs while he screams at the box. Silly Daddy! Fortunately, Daddy told me “football season” is coming soon, so he can scream at the box and I can get belly-rub time. Yay!

Where was I? Oh, yes: snacks on the walk. I really don’t know why Mommy and Daddy get so angry when Sis and I eat some business from the neighborhood. How else are we supposed to learn what our neighbors are eating? Otherwise, I’d have to say that I always enjoy our walks, even if they’re too short. The ideal walk would be a nice, long one–maybe a run through that field where the semi-adult humans run around at the end of the street–followed by a nice yard snack, dirt roll, and nap in the yard. That’d be the BEST!

I have no idea how long these “columns” are supposed to be, so I’ll stop here for today. Hopefully Daddy will let me tap on this box again in the future. Meanwhile, I recommend that everyone get a good walk to get out and smell the grasses. And the snacks.

Yours truly,

Hiro Protagonist, Canine Columnist

Plus Five

by Bart Leahy, posted in Personal, Philosophy

I’ve crossed an interesting line in my life this month: I’ve been sober for five years. I hadn’t planned on making it a permanent choice at the time…but it still felt different from all the other anguished attempts at pouring alcohol into my sink or promising myself (or my deity) that I’d get better. Boring as it sounds, in the end, I quit drinking for my health.

Physically, alcohol was giving me acid reflux–not fun–and the harder the drink (say, Knob Creek Single Barrel), the worse the upset. Ever feel like Darth Vader was gripping your throat from a distance? That was sort of how it felt in my esophagus at that time. My weight and blood pressure were also up, which also were not good things.

On a functional basis, alcohol reduced my effectiveness as a writer, editor, employee, and person. I forgot or overlooked things I shouldn’t have, from paragraphs to appointments. Plus, no one edits well on a hangover, not even Hemingway. And I was at an age where I realized driving under the influence when you’re only a C- driver to begin with was a time bomb waiting to explode.

Finally, on an emotional level, alcohol was killing me. I went to Australia and New Zealand as my present to myself for lasting 50 years. I was in one of the most beautiful places on Earth–even the friggin’ farms are beautiful in New Zealand!–and my moods were a dark shade of blue. I was seeing a therapist going into 2020, and she asked me a question I’d forgotten I knew the answer to: “You know alcohol is a depressant, right?” Indeed, I had forgotten. So while I was drinking to pound flat any bad feelings about my self-esteem, my sporadic dating life, or my general worth as a human being, I also was making the feelings worse by trying to “forget them” by blanking the memory with booze.

Alcohol also tended to make me more emotionally unstable. I thought for years that I might be manic depressive (what’s now called bipolar disorder). It took a while to get used to not having the crutch there, and it also took my body a while to get used to having a restful sleep, but my moods smoothed out, bit by bit.

More importantly, quitting drinking as a lifestyle forced me to face all my ugly little thoughts and feelings straight, no chaser. I had to read a lot more philosophy, have a lot more honest conversations with myself in my journal, and generally try to think like an adult who suddenly has more money and time on his hands than he knows what to do with–and drinking can take up a lot of both.

In the years since I made that random, fateful decision, I’ve found alcohol substitutes: low- or no-alcohol beers and mocktails, for example. I can tell if something has more than 0.5% now because my stomach and brain remind me, so I’m stuck with low-octane beverages. More importantly, I don’t use drinking the beverages as an event unto themselves (as my father once put it to me and my sister when we were young’uns, “We’re going out to do some serious drinking”). Curiously enough, I’m better about setting limits for myself with nonalcoholic drinks than I ever was with the real stuff. I suppose that’s because my body and mind remember what being drunk feels like, and they don’t like that anymore. I’ve had dreams about relapsing occasionally, and they frighten me.

So there it is: Sober Bart has a different life now, one with a wife who has never seen me drunk–something I’d never considered, honestly–house, dogs, and a responsible life outside of work. “But you were never that much of a drinker!” I’ve heard friends say. Maybe as far as they know. A guy I know third-hand died recently from his well-hidden alcoholism, and he was a week older than me, so I got a reminder that a well-hidden drunk is still a drunk. The point is that I knew I had a problem even if others didn’t. I finally stopped myself one random day in January, before COVID, Trump 2.0, and all the rest of the 2020s excitement, but it was worth it.

In Memoriam – My Dad

by Bart Leahy, posted in Personal, Philosophy, Writing

Daniel T. (“Father Dan”) Leahy, 21 March 1944 – 6 December 2024

Father Dan feeling thrilled about getting his picture taken at The Palm.

In the space of 24 hours across December 5 and 6, I lost my father to a massive stroke. I won’t share that story right now. It’s still a bit of a train wreck in my memory that’ll probably take a while to shake out. Today I just want to talk about the man I knew.

Growing up a child in a divorced household, I was faced with a paradox: at one point, my parents chose each other as spouses and had two children; then, when I was around 6-7 years old, my mother chose otherwise and then Dad lived apart from us. The choices of adults set the stage for a sometimes-fraught relationship with my father.

Given that brief background, Dad was not much different from any other father I’ve seen or read about or seen in some form of entertainment: however well-meaning our interactions, I often felt like I was disappointing him somehow. He had a critical streak and would inevitably ask about whatever aspect of my life I was screwing up on.

It’s only when I talked with my bonus mom, Marilyn, that I learned how Dad would brag to his brothers or peers about things his son had done. Dad was a Silent Generation type: loud among his brothers or at the bar, quiet in his personal habits, not much on expressing emotion. I had to learn to gauge his thinking by inference. After 30+ years of interacting with him as an adult, I gradually (if reluctantly) learned to accept this dynamic. He was who he was, and I wasn’t going to change that. There are a lot worse alternatives out there.

I would like to talk about Dad at his best. I tried to explain some of this to Robin (my Mrs. Leahy) last night as we shared a hospital room with the husk that was his spiritless body.

I got to know Dad in bars, starting when my sister and I were young and he and Marilyn would take us up to Petite Lake, a smaller part of the Chain o’ Lakes in Northern Illinois. He liked to enjoy a Tanqueray on the rocks (“no fruit!”) and before a very mild stroke a few years ago put a stop to smoking, a few Kent cigarettes outside. When I moved to Florida to get away from the Illinois snow, I moved in with Dad and Marilyn for a few months before getting my own place, giving us the right distance apart. It was also around that time that I got a full-time hotel job at Disney. Dad was a sales and marketing manager for a hotel on International Drive, so we finally had a common frame of reference (English literature and science fiction were not among his interests). I could vent about guests and occasionally get some insights into how or why service industry managers behaved the way they did. Despite his best efforts at encouragement, I never sought a career in management–one of many ways I vexed him as a son.

Through years of those types of after-work meetings in bars or at dinners with Dad and Marilyn at The Palm Restaurant, I got to know Dad as he was and on his own terms. We learned each other’s abilities and limitations. It was from these conversations that I learned I could take a day trip anywhere in Florida and ask him about the location before I went. For any city you cared to name, he could recommend a point/site of interest, a decent restaurant, and a good saloon. He could throw out puns and long-form jokes with panache, a practice I picked up. He also had an encyclopedic knowledge of college football: team colors, mascots, game traditions, etc. I also could count on him to provide grill timing tips for my Weber. Even after retiring, he could recommend the best football games to watch. I will miss that. Hell, I’ll miss all of it.

There were things I did growing up that baffled Dad: As a young kid, I cried easily and was bullied a lot because I was a small, weak kid and couldn’t find it in myself to hit back, even when I tried to learn karate. Where Dad played center for his high school football team for three years, I was terrible at sports. I got an English literature degree. As noted previously, I had–and still have–no interest in managing other people, despite the increased pay. I was inept with dating (my Mrs. Leahy didn’t find me until I was past 50). I quit drinking in 2020.

On the flip side, after years of asking what I got my lowest grades in at school, I had semesters in college and grad school where I got straight As, rendering him speechless. I pursued and earned a master’s degree in technical writing, which he decided was “a good choice.” I started getting more respectable jobs, first in the defense industry and then at NASA. When I got downsized out of Huntsville, Alabama, Dad surprised me for the first time in my life by suggesting I go freelance and move back to Florida. It was one of those rare moments where he offered me a direct compliment by expressing confidence in my ability to pursue work on my own. I kept that email and remained a freelancer for ten years. And after years of watching me struggle in my relations with the fairer sex, he got to see me marry my best friend, as he’d done with Marilyn.

This obituary is starting to wander too much in a Bart-centric direction, and I apologize. In the end, though, what I’ve got from Dad aside from trinkets or emails is my memory of that complex middle ground that is a father-son relationship, which ended much sooner but better than either of us could have imagined. Whatever thoughts he had about that relationship I’ll have to infer from our interactions and whatever he told others. He was too shy or too proud to share with me directly. I’m okay with that. And at this point, I’m going to have to be, aren’t I?

Quietude

by Bart Leahy, posted in careers, Personal, Politics, work, Writing

This has been a tumultuous year. In fact, there’s been so much going on, I haven’t had a lot of time to think through all that’s happened or how I feel about it. This post is that attempt.

Sobriety
Much to my surprise, I’ve now gone 1,400+ days without alcohol. That lack of depressant and inhibition eliminator has done a lot to help my emotions level off. No massive euphoria, no crushing depression. Still possibly the best choice I’ve made for myself in my 50s.

Creativity
Somewhere along the line, I Iost my creative voice. I wrote my last bit of short fiction a year ago, my last novel three years ago. Now that could be a side-effect of my not wanting to share my political views because there are too many people willing to engage in mob violence for any reason. It also might be the result of being sober. Alcohol fueled my emotional imbalances, and fiction was my primary coping mechanism (when I wasn’t drinking…or sometimes when I was). I’ve had to find other methods for dealing with what bothers me, and fiction has no longer been that outlet. While I do miss writing fiction for fun, a whole bunch of inhibitions creep up and stop me. My younger self might’ve been a drunk, but he was at least fearless about expressing himself in story form.

Employment
I started the year earning my living from two freelance contracts. In January, I was told the contract that had been my primary source of income for eight years was coming to an end. I started looking for work I could acquire quickly and turned to my network in Huntsville. That resulted in a short but lucrative space contract that caused my other customer to ask me cease employment with them as they saw that as a conflict of interest even if the work did not overlap with their part of the space business at all. Fine.

After the temporary space contract ended, for the first time in ten years, I accepted full-time work as an employee rather than a contractor. This was mostly the result of laziness–I didn’t want to spend a lot of time constantly looking for the next gig–and partly opportunity (i.e., a former freelancing customer asked if he could hire me outright rather than just take me on as a consultant). Not going to lie: that’s been pretty remarkable…the steady income and savings on healthcare costs alone make the change worth it.

And for the first time in ten years, I have only ONE paying job and ONE volunteer commitment. I’m going to go wild with all the free time, you betcha.

Living Situation
In addition to getting engaged and married (first time for everything, even in your mid-50s), I moved into a single-family house instead of an apartment or condo. The back yard has a fence to contain a couple of dogs–something else I’ve never lived with before.

Finances
The sale of my previous home allowed me to pay off my credit card debt for the first time in seven years. That’s been pretty magical.

Attitudes Toward My Livelihood
I don’t blog about technical writing at the moment. I decreased my posts from twice a week in 2021 to once a week in 2022 to once a month in 2023 to…no more after August 31. Part of that reduction was a side effect of not having enough time. Part of it is laziness. That’s a LOT of writing! Plus, as with my creative writing, I was running out of things to say. I’ve dispensed most of the wisdom I think I have to share (you can always buy the book if you want the highlights).

As for the industry I work in, I learned early on not to overshare what’s going on with my employer or customers. I would say that a recent talk by former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin made a big impression on me. I think he’s right about this: NASA is a national security program run under civilian auspices. We do big things in space to show others that we’re better than them in some technological/economic sense. That hasn’t changed much since the agency was formed, we just don’t talk about it much. Which is to say we still need NASA and still need them capable of building huge, audacious space projects (like SLS).

Education
For a while, I kept toying with getting another academic credential of some kind to make myself more marketable (and keep myself employed/fed). The ideas varied over the years, from engineering to instructional design to a Ph.D. in technical writing. Now I have to face the hard fact that it would take me a lot longer to finish another degree…and I’m 11 years from the current-standard retirement age (go ahead and do the math, I’ll wait). Plus, I’m pretty confident that my work history, experience, and self-discipline can now keep me employed more than a flashy degree. Does my ego require me to be called Doctor Leahy? Not really.

Travel & Reading
With my trusty wife at my side, I’ve been taking direct action on buying and reading the books I’ve wanted to read and traveling where I wanted to travel. Those are my primary intellectual pursuits now, and they suffice. I’ve got plenty filling my brain at the moment–still learning the new job as well as how to be a good husband and dog father.

That enough for one year? I think so.

54…

by Bart Leahy, posted in Personal

Welcome to middle age! Things will break down, but it’s not all bad.

The Mrs. pointed out that this is my first b-day as a married man. ‘Tis true. I like having someone looking out for me, which I didn’t realize was a necessity until it happened.

Today’s festivities include reading, walking around Epcot, dining at Space 220, and waiting for the HVAC guys to call back because one of the air conditioning units on the house decided to stop working last night. Whee!

Otherwise, I’m 18 years away from retirement (if I’m to believe my finance guy) and 1,286 days into the adventure that is sober life. I’m definitely a different person without that stuff in my system, and one huge benefit to sober life has been becoming comfortable enough with myself to try matrimony. That wasn’t even on the radar at 50. So I’ve got a steady home life, a steady job, and a reasonably stable mental state. The A/C might be broken, but I’m not freaking out about it, so that much is right with my world.

Now, about this aching back…

Adulting

by Bart Leahy, posted in introversion, Personal

Apparently I’ve been doing a lot of “adult” things this year…what some of my fellow Gen Xers verb into the word “adulting.” I hadn’t considered it before, I suppose I’ve avoided a lot of these activities because they didn’t interest me. Read along, and see if this rings true with you.

I began the year with hernia surgery–I don’t recommend that as a hobby. Not fun. However, the pain from said hernia wasn’t fun, either. So, anyhow: first time “under the knife,” under general anesthesia, etc. Joy.

Also in late January, my Disney walking buddy and I decided to get engaged. Both on the geeky side, this was the first time for both of us. It wasn’t a big, public, get-down-on-one-knee affair (Robin’s thought: “If you did that, I’d have to help you up!”). Instead, it was just a mutual decision arrived at through our usual method: conversation.

We started doing things like shopping for rings, shopping for a shared home that would fit my stuff, her stuff, me, Robin, and her dogs, Maxwell and Wishbone (a.k.a. Max and Wishy). Rings were easy. The wedding was also pretty simple, as neither of us wanted a huge, attention-getting event: just a justice of the peace, followed by dinner with close family afterward. That kept the hoopla to a minimum–we’re introverts, hoopla isn’t a thing for us, if we can help it–and the cost. Another box checked (or achievement unlocked, if you’re a gamer).

After a months-long search through an active and expensive housing market, we closed on a house a couple weeks after the wedding. Then began the moving processes–each of us from our separate home to the shared domicile. My condo was cleared out June 23, Robin’s will be emptied of stuff July 7. This past weekend was another big step, though: Robin moved into the shared house with the dogs. I’ve never had dogs in my home as a long-term choice, just never been a “pet person.” Now I’m going to have to learn.

As several friends have pointed out as I share my adventures on Flakebook, “You’ve been doing a lot of adulting this year.” I guess I hadn’t considered it from that angle. I work for a living, I support myself, I take vacations. All of those are “adult” things, to be sure. However, apparently one isn’t considered a serious adult until you start settling down with a spouse and a house. Those used to be considered the standard emblems of adulthood and active citizenship…along with starting a family. Well, that last part isn’t happening. Neither of us are interested in children, unless one counts the critters, and there are multiple ways to ensure that folks in our age group don’t start procreating.

Anyhow, while these changes in lifestyle have come on in rapid succession this year (probably thanks to my ongoing sobriety), they haven’t changed my self-image as much as the image others have had of me. I’ve thought of myself as an adult for years now. Others had a different opinion. I wasn’t really an adult because I remained single and in possession of a condo rather than a single-family home.

Well, guess what, world? I’ve been adulting for a long time now. Nice of you to finally catch up to my reality.

The Stuff

by Bart Leahy, posted in Personal, poetry

Today’s free-verse experiment in…something.

The Stuff

Ah, yes, you remember the Stuff
and miss it fondly on occasion.
Day coming, day going,
there was a liquid for the moment.
The socializer, the bravery fuel,
the red ritual accompaniment,
the bubbly social lubricant (not like that, ya perv!),
the perfect tart, acidic white to go with food,
or a hot, sunny day
or some exotic spot out of country
or an elegant dinner
or a gathering with friends
or a chat with your buddy
or a lonely, sad night by yourself.
You won’t judge now
if others still consume:
you had those moments yourself,
many a time and again.
Though you worry when you see others
follow your dark path
long after you turned back.

Eventually you had to stop, of course.
No blackouts,
no lost weekends,
no coming-to
in a puddle of your own making.
But you weren’t quite on top of your game, either, were you?
not with that Stuff.
The work always suffered a little.
The mornings always starting a bit slower.
The weight always creeping that much higher.
And you kept coming back for…
The medicine. The anesthetic. The stimulant. The depressant.
The coping mechanism. The Muse.
The Stuff always called,
and you always answered.

And what do you do with yourself now?
You take reality straight, no chaser.
You’re forced to face the face that faces back:
gray-haired, watery blue-eyed, overweight,
aging, unstable, neurotic, intellectual, sarcastic geek.
All the stuff that made you self-conscious
is all you’ve got left,
and now you’ve got to live with it.

There’s a woman willing to take you
but she doesn’t know the Drinking You.
She sees only the vulnerable, middle-aged, non-drinking dork
who’s been forced into honesty
with himself and with others
because he’s got nothing left.
She hasn’t seen the surly nastiness,
but she doesn’t see the inspired creative, either.
No roller-coaster emotions,
no need to cope,
but nothing to inspire visions on paper, either.
That’s your story without the Stuff:
one day like another,
just calm and well-balanced
with nothing to say.
She doesn’t see how weird that is,
how frightening.
And you don’t trust
that the Stuff won’t return.
If you could drink in moderation,
you would be.
But you’re not, and your life awaits.
Get to work.

/b 11/29/22

Why I Read and Write Science Fiction

by Bart Leahy, posted in better future, Fiction, Personal, science fiction, Technology, Writing

Yesterday, I detailed my struggles with creative writing. And yet throughout the ongoing war with bad writing and my doubts relating thereto, science fiction (SF) has always been there as a sort of talisman, something to read and reinforcing my love of future- and technology-minded literature, both as something to read and something to write.

Why I Read SF

Not too surprisingly for a GenXer, I got sucked into SF courtesy of Star Wars and Star Trek. SF fans got me to read “real” or hard SF (as opposed to space opera), which generally meant “Golden Age” writers such as Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov. As I got older, my tastes, politics, and interests shifted a bit. I shifted to Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Silverberg, and Frank Herbert, plus a lot of one-off titles that I often grabbed based on the cover art or the blurb on the back of the book.

The common elements in all of these novels (and short stories) included a focus on the future…often more technologically advanced and better in some social matters than the present. Perhaps that was what I needed in my moody and bully-populated adolescence: a focus on and belief in a better future. I absolutely needed that sort of attitude at that age because my contemporary circumstances sucked.

SF also featured a lot of brainy or intellectual characters as heroes, which was something I appreciated as someone who was small, thin, weak, bookish, non-athletic, and clumsy. Characters in SF weren’t always klutzy (though the works of Frederik Pohl were more obviously flawed than most), but they were clearly brain-forward and often the worlds they lived in respected that intellectual ability.

Why I Write SF

My fiction writing has tended to be in a science fiction mode. Even when I write “stories” (narratives might be a better description–see yesterday’s post) about more typical problems like personal growth or romance, they are often placed somewhere in a science-fictional, future world. Current problems don’t excite or inspire me. So I’ve tended to write about the future, with the message being that it will be better.

My ghost-writer buddy Laura suggested that I make that sort of fiction my focus, .

Focus on the message or the experience you’d like your reader to have. I write for my younger self. My main message that I wanted 12 year old Laura to receive was one of self empowerment/self belief and also belief in a very cool future. So I wrote into that. 

And really that makes sense. It’s like my blog, which provides practical career advice to my younger (22-year-old) self in the hopes of helping other English majors find a fulfilling way to use their skills and pay the bills. Perhaps I should go back through my younger years and consider writing stories that younger Bart would have loved and found inspirational. There are still kids being bullied in this world, and they’re being fed a ton of dystopian fiction. It would be nice if they read about a better future that’s worth living for, yes?

A Narrative About Storytelling

by Bart Leahy, posted in Fiction, Personal, Philosophy, science fiction, Writing

I spent part of the weekend engaged in analyzing my creative writing journey. What has yours been like? Strangely, mine has gotten more difficult as I’ve gotten older.

My Writing History

My family has home movie footage of me reading a book when I was less than two years old. Given my hypothyroidism, which was not diagnosed until age 1, I struggled with my physical development. It is, therefore, entirely possible that I could read before I could walk. I was drawn (so to speak) to those black symbols printed on bound white paper. Apparently I was also interested in trying create my own. Grandma Leahy claimed I told her at age five that I wanted to be a novelist. (Is it possible that I’d even know that word at that age? Yep.)

The first piece of writing I had “published” was a set of “alphabet stories” we were assigned in second grade or something. It went into my elementary school library, and I fished it out of the shelves when I learned that the school was closing. In one story I wrote about Wally the Whale, who wanted to swim from one U.S. coast to another, so he swam through the Panama Canal. Because, yes, 8-year-old Bart was interested in transportation. In another of those stories, I wrote about the D word–divorce–that had happened in my home the year before. It was accompanied by a rather dark crayon image of a dead man’s corpse burning in a garbage dump. Guess who got to spend some time with the social worker soon thereafter?

As I progressed, I started writing Star Wars stories, transmuting my play time with my friend down the street into typed stories. Eventually, in my teens, I started writing fiction in my own world(s), which alternated between mainstream and science fiction. I got an IBM PC Jr. sometime around then and started writing more. A lot of my story writing was cathartic. Writing in the heroic mode in the Star Wars universe, I would transmute my adolescent (ages 11-20) struggles into wish fulfillment fantasies, in which I was a person with authority and respect. A person who could make an impact. A leader.

At age 18 or so, I got my own Smith-Corona typewriter with maybe 100 KB of memory. I bought a pack of paper and started cranking out short stories in between class papers or over breaks. It would be difficult to say that I wrote stories so much as character sketches or situations in which the main character learned something–I was in college, after all. After college, when I was in Florida and working for Disney, I had plenty of unencumbered time and wrote a startling number of short stories (narratives?) throughout my 20s (29 of them in just two years). Did I submit any of them for publication? Of course not. I was writing for therapeutic purposes. Plus, I also recognized that I was not writing stories so much as fictional narrated experiences. No antagonists, no concrete plots, no character development, etc.

I tried my hand at science fiction here and there. Again, I was writing about characters gaining insights or experiencing strange effects from technology. Conflicts and actual storytelling continued to elude me. I was 30 when I finally wrote my first novel–a Star Wars story, of course, rooted in those stories that were born out of my childhood playtime. That novel continues to be modified and improved right up until the present. I would not write another one until I was 42. I decided to try National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and write an actual story, an historical romance, for a change. Did a bunch of research, threw in a little character development, and everything. The problem was that the book just wasn’t very good (“Everyone writes a sh!tty first draft,” according to Anne Lamott) and I didn’t enjoy the writing process enough to make any revisions to it, probably because it was written as a way of venting my feelings about a previous romantic relationship. Draft? Written. Revisions? Neglected. Into the files it went.

My shift to novel writing and more serious, structured narratives coincided with finally getting work as a technical writer in the space business, a primary career goal of mine. I’d learn the mysteries of launch vehicles, crank out conference papers and other products. As a result, when I came home, I had two things happening in my mind when I sat in front of the computer: I was tired from work, and I was painfully aware that I needed more professionalism and quality in my work.

Two years later, I tried another NaNoWriMo experience, this one science fiction again. And, while more promising than the previous novel draft, this one also lacked traditional conflict, structure, or character development. I gave it to friends (one a published author), seeking inputs. I got the inputs…and then left them to rot in my files with all the other unpublished dreck. I didn’t want to do the work. The work filled me with loathing, self- or otherwise.

Despite this, I still wrote short stories here and there and tried another SF novel for NaNoWriMo four years after the last one. I ended up finishing it a year later because NaNoWriMo got interrupted by a vacation. I had a few people read that one as well…got zero feedback, and let it drop into the files with the others. My joy at writing was diminishing as well.

I met a new lady friend around the time I turned 50 and started writing short stories/anecdotes for her for fun as part of my courting ritual, but the relationship soured and with it my desire to write anything creative, for that matter.

So now I’m 53. I’ve written a lot in my career, from corporate training classes to conference papers, engineering documents, public speeches, news articles, and marketing/outreach materials. You could say I’ve done a few things, most of them without much fear or anxiety. So what’s going on with my creative writing?

My Current Problem(s)

It turns out that I am much more comfortable writing content for other people–customers, bosses, what have you. It’s writing for myself that creates anxiety in my typing.

My fears and excuses for not writing multiply and grow more complex the longer I consider them.

  • Fear of writing something terrible, scientifically incorrect, stupid, etc.
  • Fear of not living up to expectations (education, background, etc.).
  • Fear of criticism/mocking.
  • Fear of offending the always-angry Twitter mob and the perpetually offended. Will I say the wrong thing(s)? Will I be accused of portraying someone different from me insultingly? Will I express the “wrong” point(s) of view?
  • Will the angry people start attacking me online?
  • Will the angry people start threatening me online?
  • Will they not stop there, but show up at my house and threaten me or my loved ones?

Et cetera.

I even have some fear of success, on occasion.

So this morning I asked myself: Is writing something I even want to do anymore? Is this still a ‘passion’ that I need to pursue to feel complete? Is writing the way I will make my positive mark on the world? My legacy? Is there something else I should be doing instead?

One of the books I read to try and nudge me back into creative work was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Pressfield calls all the doubts and fears I expressed above “resistance.” He says:

The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.

Sounds great, in theory. In reality, I’m somewhere between feeling ashamed about not doing the work but also feeling ashamed about trying to write when I feel like I’m forcing myself to do something I ought to be doing, like a painful obligation. What the hell am I supposed to do with that no-win scenario?

My Path Forward?

I tried to imagine what writing without struggle would be like:

  • Not caring about scientific or engineering accuracy (at least in the first draft).
  • Not caring about how others might receive my work.
  • Not focusing on critical or monetary success or failure, just writing something that makes me happy.
  • Writing the truth fearlessly according to my lights, not the prejudices of whatever mob might find it objectionable.
  • Apply the skills and knowledge I do have to put together something good.
  • Be as ambitious as I care to be, even if it turns out that ambitious is not something I want to write.

A younger Bart remembered how to do most of that, even if his skills weren’t too polished. My older self has learned how to write better but is now afraid to share whatever’s in his head…or worse, won’t write because he has nothing to say.

Writer’s block sucks.