Snow Falling Near Cedar Maddy

Last Friday night I was sitting around, minding what I'm pretty sure was my own business, when my old friend Bryan invited me to go skiing with him at Brian Head. It struck me as ironic--because due to the remarkable size of Bryan's head (it's much larger than a normal human head) I often refer to him as "Bryan Head right to his face (which is also very large--stretched as it is across his huge peanut-shaped noggin. He looks like one of those Rugrat characters--especially when you add in the little dried apricot ears that are set way back and low--like an afterthought. Luckily for me, Bryan really doesn't have any other redeemable human qualities to speak of, so I don't have to feel shallow for judging him solely on the basis of his carnival attraction of a head.

I agreed to go, even though Bryan's offer to pay for everything was totally out of character and thus a bit suspect--definitely suggesting that he might be entertaining hope in the direction of more than just a fine day of on the slopes and a partner for the chairlift. The truth is I wouldn't touch Bryan with a ten foot ski pole, but he's proven to be a half-way decent friend and I could use a change of scenery.

I'm no Susie Chapstick in more ways than one, I'm sure--but I do love to ski, and I'm not bad. I do, however, suffer from something that perhaps you can relate to, that I call "preparation anxiety." There's alot of stuff you need to get together, to insure a pleasant day on the mountain. This, that, and two pairs of the other. Plus you've got to try to outsmart the weather--at some point you've got to make the call as to whether you're going to bundle up and hit the mountain sporting a great big ass--or dress more sexy and risk freezing it off.

The morning started off breezy and overcast so I opted for the big-ass package and would soon come to regret it. What a lovely day indeed. The sun was blazing a warm glow through the thin air, and there wasn't a cloud in Utah. There was no wind--it all seemed perfect, until we were unloading the car and I realized, to my horror, that I'd forgotten my Carmex. Not such a serious oversight, perhaps, unless you're like me and live in mortal dread of getting a cold-sore. You see, you can no longer get away with calling them cold-sores. Everybody knows what it is that you have on your lip and they usually have a few theories as to how you went about getting it. So as I'm gathering my gear, I imagine that somewhere inside my body are armies of dormant viruses rallying in a frenzy of excitement, shouting "come on, she's going skiing, let's go . . . she forgot her Carmex."

If you haven't been skiing for a while, it's all pretty intimidating until you've successfully made that first run of the day. Everyone else is zipping around like Olympians and they seem to have very little patience for the awkward newcomer. Getting on the lift for the first time, for example, can play hell on the nervous system. There's always the chance that you're going to choke, and stumble out there, lined up just well enough for the chair to nail you in the kidney and put your ass in the powder. Spend the rest of the day recovering in the Lodge, worrying about the blood in your urine. But miraculously I manage to board that sky-chair, suffering only the indignation of being clipped in the back of the legs enough to make my arms flail desperately for a sturdy rail. "Yea, I'm cool. I'm freakin' Peekaboo Street up in here."

But once successfully airborne on the lift, soon everything becomes terribly peaceful. The distant grind of the cables, the crisp swooshes of the skiers below, the sun on your face, it makes a gal forget all about the threat of Herpes. Sadly, this intense flood of happiness would soon end when Bryan shifted around in his seat and caused me to drop my poles. "Nooo!!!" Not only did they nearly impale an innocent by-skier, but they happened to fall upon what is arguably the most deadly slope in North America. This is a slope that during the summer doubles as a cliff. A run called "Kevorkian" that beneath the Black Diamond's reads "parachutes recommended."

The plan was simple, Bryan would ski down alone, retrieve my poles and be back before I knew it. My hero. So at the top of the mountain I waited, and waited . . . and freakin' waited. For what seemed like an eternity, I stood off to the side trying to look like I had a perfectly good reason to be standing off to the side--sweating like a pig in my dumpy big-ass ski suit, watching babe after blonde babe swoosh gracefully past in their hot-pink tights, laughing and jutting their prominent chins into aerodynamic perfection. Alpha models--born to privilege. I loathe them. I wish that they'd all ski into a tree. As I'm thinking these thoughts I realize they're in really bad taste, but my boots were killing me and I'm not feeling very politically correct. The chances that Cher is ever going to read this are as slim as her ass. (I promise that's the last time you'll see the word "ass", I'm sorry,)

After what had to've been at least an hour and a half, I finally had to face the prospect that Bryan was dead and that, somehow, I was going to have to make it down this horrible mountain without poles. I was pissed off, hungry as hell and, like I mentioned, my boots were killing me. So off I skied in search of safe passage. I ended up making it down in one piece. If I got going too fast, I'd simply fall down. As a matter of fact I got pretty good at falling down and it wasn't long before I'd turned "falling" into an art. The trick is to lay it down gracefully, strike a seductive pose and pretend to be rich.

Once reunited with my poles, I was in rare form, I had myself a grand day. Unfortunately spending all that time in the reflected sun left my face charred beyond recognition. It was pretty gross, I got myself a record cold-sore, and then my face peeled completely off. I was talking to my mother and she had no idea who I was.