On Cruising

I've been on two cruises in the last few years -- first for my honeymoon, more recently for a friend's wedding -- which is funny, because I used to think of them as really expensive things only done by old people. These days, I know that I really enjoy them . . . though they do provoke some thorny thoughts, which I'll get to in a minute.

There's some truth to my old view. Let's start with "cruises are expensive." The thing about them is that their cost is fixed; when you make an ordinary tr...