Sore

Sore all over. I went skiing yesterday for the first time in two years. Strange little muscles that I'd taken for granted and apparently used very rarely make themselves known every time I reach or turn over in bed. Arthritis wasn't so bad compared to this - for as painful as it was, at least it came with strict stiffness to mostly limit the painful movements. Since I woke up today I've been continuously discovering new ways of causing sharp, sudden pain all over my body.

I keep thinking of the day Mom spent in bed after her first (and only, I think) time out on the tube on the lake. Is this what getting old is? I haven't bought any weights yet, and haven't been able to ride my bike in weeks with all of the snow, so it's probably more of a consequence of laziness.

I'd say it was worth it, of course, but that's what I always say to myself to avoid the shame of unexpected but completely deserved negative consequences. Looking back, I probably shouldn't have spent the money.

People always warn that living on the coasts is more expensive, but they never factor time and distance into the cost. It was only about a two-hour drive, and we got a good seven hours of skiing out of the day without having to get up early. Skiing used to be necessarily a week-long endeavor flanked by smelly twelve-hour rides on charter buses, but now it's a casual day trip with a few friends and plenty of time between trips to recover. There's still plenty of pretension (maybe more, actually, now that most everyone around me is an expert), but certainly no more than I experienced during those occasional clumsy games of golf at the Country Club of Little Rock. And good, fitting skis are only $12 at the local Goodwill! Boy.

I haven't lost much doubt over whether this whole idea will work out for me, but I'm still amazed almost daily at the potential this place holds. I wonder what all of the idealist teenagers who grew up here look forward to moving away to. California, probably. I'm glad I'll never have that disappointment.

New Year's Eve turned out to be another amazing surprise. A few of my friends were planning a trip to Seattle to see Devotchka, a fairly well-known musical act that does a sort of mix between traditional Eastern European folk and what kids these days call "Indie Rock." I decided to stay around here to save some money (tickets were $50), but by some strange coincidence, a friend of a brother of a friend found a free ticket for me. I still blew too much money that night on ten-dollar drinks at the show and a ten-dollar bottle of wine at the gas station, though. Oh, well.

On this night, drunk and jumping around and dancing with strangers, I realized that I have an advantage in this place: I can forget myself and have fun. That's something I really wasn't expecting before coming up here. Not only is my sense of self suddenly disconnected enough not to care about what other people think (that had always been a challenge for me at parties and such), but almost every other male that I've seen up here at shows has been too timid or image-conscious to express themselves anywhere beyond restrained head-nodding and polite clapping. I guess it might have something to do with that urban jadedness they mentioned in my urban sociology classes, though I never considered my lifestyle rural in the slightest. Maybe it's just that the surrounding rural culture kept big-name acts like this from coming any closer than Dallas. Devotchka probably isn't that special to Seattle.

Though that enthusiasm did get me sort of hit-shoved in the face at midnight for kissing some stiff guy's drunk girlfriend who'd been dancing with me. Again - it was worth it.

Pictures! As always, click on each to expand.


We've had a lot of snow.

The crossroads of Hoot 'n' Holler and Hagen Hill. I went with Hagen.

Night skiing - a first for me. The lights make longer shadows, exaggerating the bumps and grooves in the snow, making it all the more terrifying to try not to disappoint the veteran snowboarders who were nice enough to drive me up there.

Sometimes I'd glance back over my shoulder and think the lights were cars coming down the hill, as if I were riding my bike down Pine Valley in Little Rock. Then I'd instinctively pull over only to get stuck in the deep, ungroomed powder.

I went with Red Bull, myself. The beer would have made me too apathetic to go down blue-rated slopes without health insurance.

Some friends from Olympia who took me to the show in Seattle. Nice folks.

Ryan doesn't live with us, but being from Jonesboro, he is an honorary member of Little Arkansas.

Here's a member of Devotchka. I wasn't early enough to get a place up front like this legitimately, but I wasn't met with any resistance on the way up, so I stayed. If you're not willing to at least give me a token push back, you don't deserve to be close enough to make drunken conversation with the band between songs.

See? Stiff, self-conscious, and totally not deserving.