Ski Trip Epic Fail

Last winter I went with 13 family members and my boyfriend Spencer to Colorado for an annual ski trip extravaganza. This trip is something we look forward to all year. We dream about the view from the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. We anticipate the fresh snow, the smell of the pine trees, and the inevitable catastrophic wipeouts that strip you of everything but your jacket and ski boots. We were ready for a relaxing, stress free vacation. We had no idea how badly the trip would go.

We rented a two-story log cabin with a loft, three bathrooms and two bedrooms. A number of us slept in the loft where there were four beds, while others slept in the bedrooms downstairs, and still others slept on couches. We were packed into the place like sardines. Perhaps this was our first mistake.

The first night in the cabin, my grandparents fell ill with a stomach virus. They were debilitated. Being optimistic, we assumed it was altitude sickness and hoped it would pass. Nonetheless we spent our first day on the slopes without them, and upon our arrival at the cabin afterwards they greeted us with dinner, which we ate hungrily. This may have been our second mistake. We all headed to bed, ready for another attempt at the slopes in the morning. But at around midnight, trouble stirred in the loft.

I heard my boyfriend Spencer groan next to me. He stood up, holding his stomach with one hand, gripping the railing of the staircase with the other and headed to the bathroom downstairs. I knew exactly what was about to happen, and within seconds after closing the door behind him, he was hurling his dinner. His long and loud purges echoed throughout the cabin over the hum of the bathroom fan. I was mortified. I was mortified first and foremost because someone I was dating was capable of making such awful noises, but also because I was just beginning to realize this illness was contagious and could have infected the whole lot of us.

A few moments later, with Spencer still in the bathroom, I heard my cousin stir from across the room. She shot out of bed with her hand over her mouth and sprinted to the bathroom on the second floor. I sat in silence without a clue as to what could happen next, waiting for the next casualty to emerge. We could hear the both of them almost simultaneously spilling their guts.

I made my way downstairs to comfort Spencer when I saw my stepmother shuffle quickly toward the third bathroom. That brought the number of victims to three in 30 minutes. Both the speed and the brutality of the bug alarmed those of us who had not yet shown symptoms, and we began to look at one another with a sort of fearful suspicion, trying to guess who would be next and questioning whether the pains in our stomachs were due to nausea or terror.

It was at this point we realized that at the rate the illness was picking us off, we might not have enough vessels to vomit in. As a result, my father gathered all the trash bins he could find and put them in strategic locations throughout the house.

Between vomiting sessions, when the house fell silent, we sat around the kitchen table in the dark, sipping Fresca and laughing embarrassingly at the noises coming from the bathrooms. We had no choice but to endure them. You hope no one has to hear you make those noises, and you hope never to hear them coming from another person, let alone someone you know and have to spend the next week with.

The next morning, with all of us exhausted and some of us at least 10 lbs lighter, we decided we would be safe to stay off the slopes for the day. We figured the worst possible time to vomit is on a ski lift, 100 feet above solid ground where snowboarders and elite skiers glide helplessly and unsuspectingly below.

While some of the family ventured back onto the mountain for the last day of the trip, we lost most of our precious vacation to the flu and our fear of contracting it. While we had wanted the view from the slopes, we spent most of our time peering into a toilet bowl. The smell of the pine trees was replaced with the smell of vomit and hand soap. And while there were no wipeouts or fantastic takedowns on the mountain, we were in disarray, defeated, handicapped.

Despite the calamity, we reflect more fondly on this trip than many others from the past, not because we enjoyed being sick, but because the illness forced us to stay positive, to find the good in time spent in close quarters, and to be vulnerable with one another. We felt closer not because we enjoyed the mountains together, but because we all saw the irony in the impeccable timing of our plague. We had, essentially, spent thousands of dollars to vomit at high altitude. And in such hopeless times, there is little to do but laugh, and play Jenga, and drink large quantities of ginger ale.

Waiting for it.

I've been so lazy in my time off. My life has been simple lately, defined only by work during the day and watching television from my bed in the evening. I just worked five days in a row to help the Deli get through Welcome Week. School starts tomorrow and it just hit me that for the first time in almost two decades, I will not be going. However, I feel good about that, because I feel I've reached a new stage in my life and I have no desire to cling desperately to the one that has passed. But I do feel somewhat depressed at my stagnation. I've graduated but I haven't moved much since then. Everything mounted to culminate on that one day when I wore the cap and gown and now, my momentum has simmered, I remain in the same city, the same apartment I was in before, and I'm working the same uninspiring job I worked as a student, only now I'm working more than the weekends.

Ok, enough complaining. Let's look at some prospects. I've applied for an internship with AuthorHouse, a publishing company that helps self-published authors get publicity, etc. I had an interview and they said I was a candidate. A friend who works there told me I had the thing in the bag, from what she could tell. However, they haven't called or emailed, so I'll be calling Monday. The internship is paid, and would improve my resume, as I have no PR experience.

Also, I'm applying for a spring internship with This American Life. It sounds like I'm aiming low, with all these internships. But I've applied for so many jobs and I haven't gotten a bite. Until the economy picks up, it may be better to build, build, build and be ready when the jobs come back.

The internship application for This American Life requires I come up with a documentary story idea. I'm struggling. Bad sign, right? Spencer reminds me that I'm trying to hard, and he's right. I feel like one of those cartoon characters who sits down at her type writer, puts down a few words before ripping the page out and tossing it in the trash can across the room. Over time the can fills to the top and she is still there, bags under her eyes, frustrated, burnt out, blocked.
But I know inspiration will come. Doubt is a destroyer. "Rivers know this. There is no hurry. We shall get there someday."

My best friend Stacy's wedding is this Friday. I am the maid of honor, something I've never been before. I can't believe she is getting married. I can't believe I've been in Bloomington for four years - long enough to meet someone (many people, actually) and watch them exit and enter a number of phases of their life. Reflecting on those phases and anticipating the next ones is so much fun.

What else have I been doing lately? Lighting candles, visualizing big cities and planning. I've been trying to get in shape but I haven't been executing it very well. I've also got plans to go camping but will wait until Spencer is in town. He and I have been apart for a while - he is in Chicago and I remain here. Four hours is much closer than thousands of miles and an ocean apart, so it's not so bad. We got through my study abroad program just fine, and we're surviving long distance just fine, as well. We've become accustomed to talking on the phone a few times a day. My new computer makes video chatting easy.

As for the season, fall seems to be wrapping its crispy orange fingers around the summer heat and cooling it. It's been a mild summer, overall, but tonight it's like 40 degrees and today I was sporting a sweatshirt. Overkill. Late August and summer is already kissing our freckled faces goodbye. It never was really here, not in full. We had maybe a week of 90 degree weather. Weird. But I'm ready for fall, as I always am. That time of year tugs at my heart strings and makes me love everything. I feel more alive then than any other time of the year, which is strange because everything around me is dying.

I guess the best way to sum up my existence right now is to say that I'm ready for the next thing. I'm ready for something new and I'm ready for a big leap forward. I feel like a dog who just watched a tennis ball be tossed across the yard but is waiting for permission to chase it down. My ears are up, my eyes are wide and I'm on my toes, anxious to get started. But nobody's giving me the go. So I'm still waiting. And I'm trying to maintain my interest in the target.

Platforms

Life knocked me off my platform
so I pulled out my first pair of boots
bought on the street at Astor Place
before New York was run by suits

And I suited up for the long walk
back to myself
closer to the ground now
with sorrow
and stealth.

-Ani DiFranco.

Me and the moon, she said.

I'm sitting on my porch. It's 3:45 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, and I just got off work. It's warm, but the humidity left with last night's rainclouds, so there is only a pleasant breeze and crisp rays of sunshine through the full green leaves that cover Washington Street. Someone down the road is playing "Do You Love Me?" on the radio and the song is so appropriate for a lazy summer Sunday.

Last evening Spencer and I watched the end of Frost Nixon. The movie failed to stimulate my thinking, and I spent most of my time silently criticizing Frank Langella's acting. Good idea for a story, but I think the best Nixon/Watergate movie will always be All The President's Men.

When the movie ended we video chatted with Jersey, Rick and Nick Vandermolen and we all decided we'd go bowling. Nevermind that it was almost midnight. It was Nick's last night in town and none of us had done much of anything all day. So we went. Upon leaving the house, I stopped dead in my tracks to stare at the half moon. It was glowing like a night light in the darkest of all bedroom corners. Its rays were like a shower of spiritual renewal for my neglected body, its limbs flimsy and burdened by empty activity, its skin sticky with sweat from a day's work at a stingy breakfast joint. I stepped out into the glow of the moonlight and I could feel - physically feel - my soul lighting up, juicing up, charging again after days of running on low batteries. I stood there, my arms stretched out at my sides, and I sighed. Behind me, thunder clouds lingered, invisible in the darkness except when illuminated by lightening.

I wish more things made me feel so alive as a clear night sky. I feel small and huge, insignificant and diminished, giant and invicible all at the same time. I heard someone say once that through meditation, they achieved a state of consciousness that made them feel as though the world is in harmony, that we are all one living being, and the only thing that matters is this moment. That's what the night sky does to me. It brings me back to home base. It gives me stable ground to stand on and observe from. It clarifies everything for me. And the moon, with her milky rays, reaches down and soaks up all heaviness in me and absorbs it into her silk skin. She leaves me like a fresh pearl. She leaves me like a newborn baby.

What I'm reading. What you should be reading.

Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins

I'm reading it for the second time now, and it's fantastic.

My Tumblr.

Also, I have a Tumblr, which is essentially another blog, but it's better. I'll still post on here from time to time, but whatever I put on here, goes to my Tumblr.
The link is here.

Enjoy.

Roots and bobcats.

We went Bobcatting tonight. Bobcatting is tradition. We've been doing it since my freshman year, at least. It's when we drive to Brown County to watch the sunset, run around in the woods and have a blast. Sometimes we get yelled at by passerbys. Tonight, the chosen phrase was, "White power!" They yelled it twice. That's all it took to remind me that Bloomington is still part of southern Indiana, and if you leave the city, you're in unfamiliar waters. Dangerous waters.

Today I also started my volunteer work at the community garden. I spent two hours turning soil, raking and planting grass. It was nice to be somewhere new, doing new things, meeting new people. The weather was fantastic for digging in the dirt.
My plants here at home are surviving quite nicely. I'm growing basil, tomatoes, aloe, sage, chamomile and a number of other things. I love watching them poke their little green heads out of the dark, damp dirt. All I can do is encourage them to keep growing (and I do so, audibly). People must think I'm a little nuts, with all the time I spend on my back porch, peering into the pots, obsessing over temperature and sunlight. It started pouring a few days ago while I was at work and all I could think about was how my plants were surely drowning. Silly.

Also, I cut a few pieces of spearmint out of the giant batch that grows in Spencer's yard. I brought them home and put them in water and a few weeks later, they've begun to grow roots. They're reaching out, adapting, making it work. Soon I'll plant them and they will have survived.

If you wait long enough, you'll grow roots anywhere.