Ok, you want current events?! Fine. You'll probably wish for the happy childhood stories of me falling into snowdrifts or wandering around in the night after this. Welcome to the current debate in my head: I like the taste of baby food. Is this healthy? Specifically I enjoy liquefied vegetables and fruits. They're surprisingly good. And pure I think. And there is a bonus: they arrive in cute little jars. Each food is one color and they all line up in nice rows in the stores. Is this bad? Everyone eats yams on the holidays...and mashed cranberries...and jam on toast...ketchup? Honestly people. The problem (well, one of them) is expense. Why should I pay 72 cents for 2.5 ounces of vegetable, you ask? Well, I don't have a food processor. And if I blended my own, I wouldn't get the adorable container. Wait, how do I know how much mashed peas cost? I admit I have indulged in the past two days (is this current enough? I'm putting my soul on the line here) in three tiny jars of sweet potatoes. I had a craving. They are sugar-filled and I love sugar. Hey, it's better than the five boxes of girl scout cookies I wolfed over the last couple weeks. Those go down faster in solid form. I now have a healthy ring of cookies around my waist. Cool. And you wonder why I wear strangely-patterned bathing suits.
If you're squeamish, skip this paragraph. When I was five years old (ok ok, it's not current but it helps explain the history behind my love for baby food. Or at least shows there is a history. Or something) my brother got to eat baby food all the time and I was jealous. He also rubbed butter in his hair, and of this I was not envious. His hair smelled of butter for the first three years of his life. My mom rationed out bites of apricots or pears or whatever delicious thing Wyeth was eating from time to time and I loved it. I would immediately run to my room with the mouthful and after swishing it around I'd spit it into a little plastic cup I kept in the closet. I was a closet baby food hoarder! Literally...(closet...get it? HA).I wanted to preserve it for later. After a while the contents of the cup blackened. This may have been because the foods were all different colors (peas, carrots, berries, I don't even know. It's all a blur), or it could have been because I hid them in there until they grew. It is with shame that I recall this.
Parents of Tin Woodsman babies, don't fret. I didn't eat your infants' food. Unless it accidentally ended up all over me. Then I would lick it off my fingers. Or sweatshirt sleeve. Sometimes if I wasn't sure whether it was sweet potatoes (my fave) or carrots I'd ask unsuspecting Anna, Oliver, or Moses for a taste. It turns out they love to share! Such sweet little enablers. They're almost always willing to share green foods, but are stingy with the pears. Good thing I don't discriminate.
March 12, 2009
March 9, 2009
Barbie and the wolves
I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s and ate raspberries from the yard and frozen dates and helped Grandma with the mixer and played with clothespins in the laundry room and Grandpa sneaked me cookies and now the shadows move down the car seats and out the windows and I count the streetlights and try to see the Gorge but there might be wolves under my seat so I pull my legs up and then Barbie is dancing on my knee and she is sparkly and she does a flip and her shoe falls off but I don’t get it because of the wolves and she balances on her heel and my face is in the window and then it’s gone and I breathe on the window and make a hand print in the mist and Barbie’s hair is short because I cut it and it looks funny and then there is a fire dancing outside and a car is burning and there are people around and we slow down and I hold my doll in the window so she can see with me and we hope they’re ok and I pull my feet in tighter.
This is not a rough draft or a huge run-on sentence. Well actually it is a giant sentence, but I did it on purpose. This story is written directly as I remember it - I was four, so it should sound like a four year old. This is exactly what I remember from one night when we drove past a car accident on I-84 circa 1987. Future direct memories will come with the label "direct memory".
This is not a rough draft or a huge run-on sentence. Well actually it is a giant sentence, but I did it on purpose. This story is written directly as I remember it - I was four, so it should sound like a four year old. This is exactly what I remember from one night when we drove past a car accident on I-84 circa 1987. Future direct memories will come with the label "direct memory".
March 8, 2009
Meeka skipped the liiiiiight fandango...
Today I bought "The Big Chill" soundtrack and was instantly rocketed back to sixth grade. Back then I could sing at the top of my lungs with my eyes closed and not even think twice. Our family owned and played out the cassette tape for about 4 years straight. From third through seventh grade I can only remember listening to that tape, The Beatles, and Fleetwood Mac. So it's not that shocking to discover that I know every word on the CD. Or that each song shuffles me through emotions I didn't expect. I found myself belting "If I have to sleep on your doorstep, allll night and day, just to keep you from walkin' away..." and dancing by myself in my car. It must have looked a little weird to nearby drivers since I was laughing really hard at myself and making embarrassing singing faces. And bobbing my head around like an idiot. The memories I flashed through each involved my mom driving us around in her magenta Toyota Corolla or her green minivan (since we listened to the cassette through two cars' lifetimes). Currently the Four Tops are playing "The Same Old Song" (the very same one) in my headphones because Adam almost killed me earlier.
Meeka, our golden retriever, did not always have a positive reaction to car trips. Normally she is not a drooler, but in cars saliva oozes from her doggy lips constantly. Somehow she even smelled like she was going to vomit. We opened windows, stopped to let her out often, and let her roam around the car freely in an attempt to get her to like the car. What dog doesn't like cars?
This is Wyeth and me in 1993. Rockin' the side ponytail - a little after its time.
One summer day we were heading home from Neskowin (about a two hour drive) and blasting "A Whiter Shade of Pale" from our minivan speakers. It may not have been quality, but it was loud. Meeka and Kitty were accompanying Wyeth and me in the back seat. Meeka was only a few months old and was sitting on my lap. I sang to her, "And so it waaaaaaaaaaas, that layyyyayyyyayyyterrrr, as the Miller told his tale, that Meeka's face at first just ghostly..." And Meeka turned a whiter shade of pale and blew chunks on my lap.
I can still smell it. I was wearing a blue t-shirt that said Lincoln City Swim Club 1994 on it and it was one of my favorite shirts. I've never seen so much vomit come out of something so small. I dry heaved a couple of times and Wyeth and I begged Mom to pull over. An eternity later (you can't hear very well when that cassette is cranked up apparently), we pulled over and I climbed out, holding my shirt out. The pool of partially digested puppy food was gathered in my shirt like I was collecting rocks in it. It was steaming. I didn't have another shirt so we just dumped the puke and WIPED OFF THE SHIRT I HAD ON AND GOT BACK IN THE VAN!!! Horrifying. As you can guess, the smell lingered. Meeka was tiny and cute though, so I forgave her.
"Meeka was feelin', so bad! She asked the family doctor just what she had. She said Doctor (Doctor!), Mr. M.D., Doctor? Can you tell me, what's ailin' me? Doctor?"
All she needed was good lovin', it turns out. Poor Meeka.
Meeka, our golden retriever, did not always have a positive reaction to car trips. Normally she is not a drooler, but in cars saliva oozes from her doggy lips constantly. Somehow she even smelled like she was going to vomit. We opened windows, stopped to let her out often, and let her roam around the car freely in an attempt to get her to like the car. What dog doesn't like cars?
This is Wyeth and me in 1993. Rockin' the side ponytail - a little after its time.
One summer day we were heading home from Neskowin (about a two hour drive) and blasting "A Whiter Shade of Pale" from our minivan speakers. It may not have been quality, but it was loud. Meeka and Kitty were accompanying Wyeth and me in the back seat. Meeka was only a few months old and was sitting on my lap. I sang to her, "And so it waaaaaaaaaaas, that layyyyayyyyayyyterrrr, as the Miller told his tale, that Meeka's face at first just ghostly..." And Meeka turned a whiter shade of pale and blew chunks on my lap.
I can still smell it. I was wearing a blue t-shirt that said Lincoln City Swim Club 1994 on it and it was one of my favorite shirts. I've never seen so much vomit come out of something so small. I dry heaved a couple of times and Wyeth and I begged Mom to pull over. An eternity later (you can't hear very well when that cassette is cranked up apparently), we pulled over and I climbed out, holding my shirt out. The pool of partially digested puppy food was gathered in my shirt like I was collecting rocks in it. It was steaming. I didn't have another shirt so we just dumped the puke and WIPED OFF THE SHIRT I HAD ON AND GOT BACK IN THE VAN!!! Horrifying. As you can guess, the smell lingered. Meeka was tiny and cute though, so I forgave her.
"Meeka was feelin', so bad! She asked the family doctor just what she had. She said Doctor (Doctor!), Mr. M.D., Doctor? Can you tell me, what's ailin' me? Doctor?"
All she needed was good lovin', it turns out. Poor Meeka.
March 7, 2009
Marco Polo
My best friend Liz and I decided to try out for water polo our freshman year of high school. Conditioning was brutal. We had daily doubles which involved dryland training. This meant we ran around a field in the morning in 90 degree weather, did a million jumping jacks, and lifted weights. We had to piggyback people up a hill of death and Liz puked orange juice. In the afternoon we had our regular conditioning in the pool. We wore shirts and shorts in the water over our swimsuits so it would be harder to swim. This was water polo's equivalent to a medicine ball.
Freshman year I didn't have contacts yet, so I just tried to blend in with everyone else who could see. I probably just looked a little slow.
Happily Liz knew this and would often yell tips (Incoming! Or, swim straight, cut three feet to your left, and look up!). I was lucky to have a visually adept and conscientious person to look out for me. Swimming is a sport you can do almost blind because you're isolated in your own lane and there are giant black lines painted on the floor and a row of flags above you to tell you when you're going to smash into the wall. In water polo however, you have to track a ball and anticipate things before they happen and know where and who your teammates are. Luckily the ball is bright yellow. It's also harder than you'd expect, but I only got hit in the face a few times. I'd say under 10 times. After a couple of skull rattling bounces I felt a little loopy but at least I knew where the ball was finally. It was right there ricocheting off my head! The coach didn't know I was blind, so he probably just thought I really sucked. To his credit, I did score on my own goal once in practice. The goalie caps are red, so there is no way to tell if they're on your team! That and my hearing seems to get worse when I can't see. If you can't see who's yelling at you and you're surrounded by people yelling things, it gets confusing quickly. So I just shot at the nearest goal usually, unless my own teammate was in the goal yelling at me. On a positive note, I didn't see any Speedos in detail that year. I had mixed feelings about getting contacts sophomore year because of this. Have you ever seen a group of high school boys stretching in low-riding Speedos because they think it looks good?! I'd almost rather gouge my eyes out with a spoon.
Water polo is kind of an insane sport. Pretty much anything goes under the water unless the referees notice someone thrashing around in pain. One girl took Liz's shoulders in her hands and rammed her knee into her stomach and left her floating there with the wind knocked out of her. Once when Liz and I were playing on the boys team (senior year we didn't have a girls varsity team but lettered by playing with the boys) I ended up underwater with a large male's knees on my shoulders in the deep end for a long time. The ref finally clued in and that guy got ejected from the game and suspended for the rest of the season. I was slightly disgruntled, so our boys took care of the rest of their team.
I'm number 14; Liz is number 2.
As you can see, most of the time we spent trying not to drown. The girls also spent a significant amount of time zipping our suits up. We had to have someone else cinch the back while we worked the zipper because they were so tight. The suits were zip up because in water polo people try to grab you anywhere they can and having a saggy suit or one with straps is like a handhold. No one had a saggy suit though; those things were cut so they showed way more thigh than anyone is used to seeing and rode up in a way that was not flattering. We also wore two sizes smaller than we ever should have to eliminate drag. They were like vacuum-sealed too, so you couldn't really adjust them once they started creeping up. Yikes.
Day 10: Hairanoia
Hello, my name is Kira and I’m a trichotillomaniac. I’ve been clean now for 10 days. I’ve just been taking it one day at a time, staying strong, working my program and remembering my higher power. It’s been a tough journey, but hopefully I’ve given up my fix for good. They say the more times you try the more likely you are to succeed – so I must be getting nearer to success. There are days when I just want one little hair. Just one, you know, to take the anxiety down a notch. A social hair rip. Everyone else can pull out one hair and not go on a binge. Just one little tug? That’s how it starts. One innocent pluck and suddenly I’ve been in the bathroom for an hour and have a pile of evidence in the trashcan. Honesty is the first step: I’m ashamed to admit I’ve blacked out numerous times while engaging in my addiction and found piles of hair I don’t remember killing. I’ve also pulled while driving and staring into the rearview mirror. My homework time is punctuated by sessions of chasing that high. The more I pull, the more I need to pull to bring me up to normal. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s the final countdown, da da doo doo, da da doo doo doo…sorry, but it’s in the background. Adam got a new Wii game. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the courage to know the difference.
If anyone is disturbed at this point, there is a previous post called Trichotillomaniac that may explain some of your concerns. Most concerns will probably remain and may be furthered by the next post which may or may not have anything to do with this. Two things I must clarify – this is an analogy, in that ripping hair is analogous to addiction. And by higher power I meant mental power.
12 days ago, my well-intentioned and possibly future brother-in-law (ha, like that Adam? Tack on another year), Matt, decided to try and make me go insane. He enjoys this type of thing, and after reading the blog mentioned above, decided we should see if we could stop our compulsive tendencies at the same time. He does this weird thing where he chews flaps of skin off his fingers while lurking in doorways or staring out of windows. Sometimes he taps his teeth for balance. It’s a little creepy, but so is selecting strands of hair and zipping them into balls. And sometimes, um, licking them or sort of putting them on my lips. Anyway, he kindly came up with this plan to unravel my sanity and I of course joined up two days later for the competition. Well, that’s not exactly true; I was just trying to make it funny. I stopped pulling because I have desperately wanted to for 14 years and I was offered a pretty good checking in system – I wouldn’t feel right lying to Matt. I think this and partially the competitive aspect may be the only thing saving my hair right now. So thanks Matt, you are a good brother. I should say that now, because there have been several trying moments in the past nine days. That’s why this is like a TA meeting (Trichotillomaniacs Anonymous) and I’m sharing my triggers and other problems like a freaking hair junkie. Hence the title of this post.
So in the last 10 days I overcompensated. At home I wore my hair in a hood, a hat, put junk in it so it feels different, brushed it 90 times instead of pulling at it, and I even tried becoming more interested in licking my nails or just moving my thumbnail along my lower lip. That’s kind of nice, but not really comparable. I developed a foot tapping twitch too. It turns out my interest is piqued only by hair. Hair, hair, hair. Mm, mm, mm. But not down into my belly – that’s trichophagia. I hung out at Borders a couple times, drank less caffeine but unfortunately consumed much more sugar, vacuumed my car to remove previous evidence, and played with my sweatshirt drawstrings instead.
None of these things compares to the sheer glory of finding and then popping out the perfect hair, but there was a pesky competition to adhere to. It sucked! I mean, it still sucks. I am sitting here typing away and every so often there is a sneaky suggestion in my head. Here’s one right over here. Yes, here on the left. Just liberate it and go back to typing. No one will miss it. I can physically feel it sticking out now – awesome! And I find myself saying silly things back such as, You know what, brain? No. You can take your hair and go…do something with it. It’s wildly difficult to communicate with my fingers once they’ve found their prey however. And they just find them all on their own! Sometimes I have to physically concentrate on letting go of a hair that is already prepared to be released and rolled into a tiny ball. Especially since one hair doesn’t sound all that bad.
During my first midterm in the past nine days, I caressed my hair constantly and couldn’t concentrate very well. There were a lot of suicidal hairs just waving around all over the place. It was also windy outside on my way to class which didn’t help. Wind makes me smooth obsessively and coincidentally I find hairs that do not want to be calmed but rather ripped. Before I studied for my second midterm and wrote a seven page paper this last week, I purchased some smoothing balm for incentive. It doesn’t so much smooth frizz as create a glowing red halo around my head. Not good. Up it went into a ponytail. Byebye, tempting little victims.
Luckily for me I possess an incredible skill for procrastination. I saved my term paper for Wednesday night and it was due Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Strategically I wrote 3.5 pages starting at 9 p.m. while watching “Lost” with Heidi and Adam. This made it possible to postpone the deaths of several hairs for another day, since I don’t pull in front of others (if they’re looking). I woke up early to finish the paper, and by that time I had so little time to complete it that I barely thought about my hair. I finished on time and with every hair intact. Yay! I’ll take whatever I get on the paper – what I’m doing right now is apparently more of a mental challenge.
If anyone is disturbed at this point, there is a previous post called Trichotillomaniac that may explain some of your concerns. Most concerns will probably remain and may be furthered by the next post which may or may not have anything to do with this. Two things I must clarify – this is an analogy, in that ripping hair is analogous to addiction. And by higher power I meant mental power.
12 days ago, my well-intentioned and possibly future brother-in-law (ha, like that Adam? Tack on another year), Matt, decided to try and make me go insane. He enjoys this type of thing, and after reading the blog mentioned above, decided we should see if we could stop our compulsive tendencies at the same time. He does this weird thing where he chews flaps of skin off his fingers while lurking in doorways or staring out of windows. Sometimes he taps his teeth for balance. It’s a little creepy, but so is selecting strands of hair and zipping them into balls. And sometimes, um, licking them or sort of putting them on my lips. Anyway, he kindly came up with this plan to unravel my sanity and I of course joined up two days later for the competition. Well, that’s not exactly true; I was just trying to make it funny. I stopped pulling because I have desperately wanted to for 14 years and I was offered a pretty good checking in system – I wouldn’t feel right lying to Matt. I think this and partially the competitive aspect may be the only thing saving my hair right now. So thanks Matt, you are a good brother. I should say that now, because there have been several trying moments in the past nine days. That’s why this is like a TA meeting (Trichotillomaniacs Anonymous) and I’m sharing my triggers and other problems like a freaking hair junkie. Hence the title of this post.
So in the last 10 days I overcompensated. At home I wore my hair in a hood, a hat, put junk in it so it feels different, brushed it 90 times instead of pulling at it, and I even tried becoming more interested in licking my nails or just moving my thumbnail along my lower lip. That’s kind of nice, but not really comparable. I developed a foot tapping twitch too. It turns out my interest is piqued only by hair. Hair, hair, hair. Mm, mm, mm. But not down into my belly – that’s trichophagia. I hung out at Borders a couple times, drank less caffeine but unfortunately consumed much more sugar, vacuumed my car to remove previous evidence, and played with my sweatshirt drawstrings instead.
None of these things compares to the sheer glory of finding and then popping out the perfect hair, but there was a pesky competition to adhere to. It sucked! I mean, it still sucks. I am sitting here typing away and every so often there is a sneaky suggestion in my head. Here’s one right over here. Yes, here on the left. Just liberate it and go back to typing. No one will miss it. I can physically feel it sticking out now – awesome! And I find myself saying silly things back such as, You know what, brain? No. You can take your hair and go…do something with it. It’s wildly difficult to communicate with my fingers once they’ve found their prey however. And they just find them all on their own! Sometimes I have to physically concentrate on letting go of a hair that is already prepared to be released and rolled into a tiny ball. Especially since one hair doesn’t sound all that bad.
During my first midterm in the past nine days, I caressed my hair constantly and couldn’t concentrate very well. There were a lot of suicidal hairs just waving around all over the place. It was also windy outside on my way to class which didn’t help. Wind makes me smooth obsessively and coincidentally I find hairs that do not want to be calmed but rather ripped. Before I studied for my second midterm and wrote a seven page paper this last week, I purchased some smoothing balm for incentive. It doesn’t so much smooth frizz as create a glowing red halo around my head. Not good. Up it went into a ponytail. Byebye, tempting little victims.
Luckily for me I possess an incredible skill for procrastination. I saved my term paper for Wednesday night and it was due Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Strategically I wrote 3.5 pages starting at 9 p.m. while watching “Lost” with Heidi and Adam. This made it possible to postpone the deaths of several hairs for another day, since I don’t pull in front of others (if they’re looking). I woke up early to finish the paper, and by that time I had so little time to complete it that I barely thought about my hair. I finished on time and with every hair intact. Yay! I’ll take whatever I get on the paper – what I’m doing right now is apparently more of a mental challenge.
March 5, 2009
Night Skiing
By now some of you know that at some points in my life I become a little delusional. Given that characteristic, sometime in 2003 I went night skiing with four dorm friends at Mt. Hood Meadows (yes, that is ‘night’ there in front of ‘skiing’. Modifying it. Now the skiing is dark and somewhat horrifying). Keep in mind I’d been skiing only once before, at which time I fell twice. Only twice! I sort of fell down instead of sitting on the chairlift and another time I sacrificed myself on purpose while going like 90 down a hill to avoid a three foot tall pink snowsuit on tiny skis. Who knew the intermediate hill spit you out on the bunny hill? The different speeds are not conducive to merging. The little girl would have probably died. As it was, it only took me about 15 minutes to locate all my gear and find my mittens.
Back to 2003.
This photo is not from 2003. It has things in common with this post though. I did fall down while moving faster than normal on an icy surface right before this photo was snapped. And see? It doesn't appear to have deterred me! I look happy (delusional)and slightly soggy. It may seem that those gloves I'm wearing are white, but that's just chunks of ice and slush accumulated from breaking my fall. And yes, I spun a 180 and fell flat on my stomach, so my pants are soaked. If you're confused as to how this relates to the post, keep reading. Also I don't have all that many pictures of me frolicking in the snow, but I needed a visual aid.
The amount of time it took us to wake up, pack, eat, locate enough skis, and actually drive to Mt. Hood is the reason we were night skiing. I mean, we moved glacially for the whole day. Eugene time moves differently than other time. So it was somewhat of a shock to find myself flying down a hill on a slick surface with long things attached to my feet, but nevertheless, there I was. Well, first I was at the bottom of the hill naively asking the chair lift operator which hill was best for a beginner. She said, “Go down the run on the left and you should be fine!”
Ah, blissful ignorance. I thanked her and successfully landed on the chairlift. As I exited left off of the lift and over a precipitous ridge, I started wondering with increasing paranoia if the woman had meant my left coming off the lift, or one-who-was-smartly-looking-down-the-mountain’s left. Almost immediately upon starting to wonder, I realized that she did in fact mean the latter, and I had most unfortunately chosen the former. This was classic. I giggled a little to myself nervously as I started to pick up speed. Wheeee! Using my knack for unraveling mysteries rapidly and at unhelpful times, I deduced that due to the lack of night skiing lights on my side of the hill and the marked absence of anyone else, I must be on some kind of back-country kamikaze route. That’s cool, I thought. After all, I was still upright somehow. There were a lot of those pesky bump things (moguls?). I mean a LOT. Literally I was either airborne or bouncing up again to airborne the whole run. Boingboingboingboingboingboing. If the bottom of my skis had springs that’s what I would have sounded like on my descent. And maybe WHOOSH in the background for speed. I’m going to go ahead and call it a harrowing descent. While concentrating on keeping my muscles tensed exactly the same the whole time because it seemed to be working, I vaguely noticed trees popping up in my vision every so often. It was like that Pop Up game that kids have – you turn a knob or push a button and a cow or pig comes out of nowhere. Only these were not nice plastic farm animals. I tried not to look at them. This was easy, since by the time I realized they were there I was generally already past them.
Finally I saw a dim light through the trees. A millisecond later I flew out of the tunnel of trees, bounced off a final bump thing, and catapulted into a snowdrift. A middle aged guy skiing by at a safe, responsible speed looked startled. Children may have pointed and laughed, but I was alive. This was unexpected. Smirking and trying to return to a normal breathing pattern, I casually reattached my skis, mittens, and hat, located my poles, and glided slowly down the beginner hill. Nothing to see here…
This should probably have instilled some sort of conditioned response like driving the opposite direction of mountains. Buuuut no. No rational fears here! I later learned to snowboard and ended up colliding (oh yes, literally) with a Christian youth group who included me and an unsuspecting foreign exchange student in their activities for some reason for the rest of the day. I think they could tell I was on a fast track toward death and wanted to make sure I was properly prepared. But that’s another story.
Back to 2003.
This photo is not from 2003. It has things in common with this post though. I did fall down while moving faster than normal on an icy surface right before this photo was snapped. And see? It doesn't appear to have deterred me! I look happy (delusional)and slightly soggy. It may seem that those gloves I'm wearing are white, but that's just chunks of ice and slush accumulated from breaking my fall. And yes, I spun a 180 and fell flat on my stomach, so my pants are soaked. If you're confused as to how this relates to the post, keep reading. Also I don't have all that many pictures of me frolicking in the snow, but I needed a visual aid.
The amount of time it took us to wake up, pack, eat, locate enough skis, and actually drive to Mt. Hood is the reason we were night skiing. I mean, we moved glacially for the whole day. Eugene time moves differently than other time. So it was somewhat of a shock to find myself flying down a hill on a slick surface with long things attached to my feet, but nevertheless, there I was. Well, first I was at the bottom of the hill naively asking the chair lift operator which hill was best for a beginner. She said, “Go down the run on the left and you should be fine!”
Ah, blissful ignorance. I thanked her and successfully landed on the chairlift. As I exited left off of the lift and over a precipitous ridge, I started wondering with increasing paranoia if the woman had meant my left coming off the lift, or one-who-was-smartly-looking-down-the-mountain’s left. Almost immediately upon starting to wonder, I realized that she did in fact mean the latter, and I had most unfortunately chosen the former. This was classic. I giggled a little to myself nervously as I started to pick up speed. Wheeee! Using my knack for unraveling mysteries rapidly and at unhelpful times, I deduced that due to the lack of night skiing lights on my side of the hill and the marked absence of anyone else, I must be on some kind of back-country kamikaze route. That’s cool, I thought. After all, I was still upright somehow. There were a lot of those pesky bump things (moguls?). I mean a LOT. Literally I was either airborne or bouncing up again to airborne the whole run. Boingboingboingboingboingboing. If the bottom of my skis had springs that’s what I would have sounded like on my descent. And maybe WHOOSH in the background for speed. I’m going to go ahead and call it a harrowing descent. While concentrating on keeping my muscles tensed exactly the same the whole time because it seemed to be working, I vaguely noticed trees popping up in my vision every so often. It was like that Pop Up game that kids have – you turn a knob or push a button and a cow or pig comes out of nowhere. Only these were not nice plastic farm animals. I tried not to look at them. This was easy, since by the time I realized they were there I was generally already past them.
Finally I saw a dim light through the trees. A millisecond later I flew out of the tunnel of trees, bounced off a final bump thing, and catapulted into a snowdrift. A middle aged guy skiing by at a safe, responsible speed looked startled. Children may have pointed and laughed, but I was alive. This was unexpected. Smirking and trying to return to a normal breathing pattern, I casually reattached my skis, mittens, and hat, located my poles, and glided slowly down the beginner hill. Nothing to see here…
This should probably have instilled some sort of conditioned response like driving the opposite direction of mountains. Buuuut no. No rational fears here! I later learned to snowboard and ended up colliding (oh yes, literally) with a Christian youth group who included me and an unsuspecting foreign exchange student in their activities for some reason for the rest of the day. I think they could tell I was on a fast track toward death and wanted to make sure I was properly prepared. But that’s another story.
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