Arcosanti con Madre

Music Seen

Water like Debussy
boils,

dischordant
and in synch;

gleaming bubbles

swirl and rise...

(unfinished)

Regina Spektor does a song called, That Time, or something. S'good. Has a certain devil-may-care flavor that starts out playful, then ends up dark and maybe a little twisted.

Reminds me of someone. A few someone's, actually.

But this isn't about them there folk.

It's about this other person. And the playfulness.

And the light:

Hey remember
-when-
we closed our eyes
and we danced...
without moo-hoo-hoo-hooving?

I do.

Misadventures in Snowboarding

Went up to Snow Bowl last week.

Drove up Sunday afternoon as the storm set in - reminded me of my student days with 10 or 12 cars off in the ditch just past snowline - but we made it to the cabin without event.


The guys behind us weren't so lucky, however, and ended up arriving 5 hours late.  This after leaving one of two cars behind in a snowbank.

They waited a day, went back and... locked the keys in the first car. While running.

Did I mention the 2nd car had been towed? Yeah.

It all seemed so familiar.

Not that long ago, I would've been that guy - the one who came up late, got his car stuck in the drift, then locked the keys in the car of his friend - whirling into a downward spiral, sucking all my friends down with me.

And what's changed since then? A little age, a little wisdom, a little shift in perspective, maybe. I rush a little less, get done a little more?

Or maybe its just the luck that's changed and I'm actually full of sh*t. :)  Who knows?

Anway...

The following day we all went up on the mountain and snowboarded. All except D, fighting a migraine, who skied the bunny slopes an hour or two.

And did I mention it was fun? Goddam it was fun! Had gone, once, 20 years previous and remember spending most of that day on my ass. Which was wet and frozen for the better part of the day.

Apparently, the two decade interim did me good and I took to it like... well better than expected anyway, and in combination with waterproof ski pants - helping me avoid a 2nd ice enema - I was a relatively dry,  45 year old flippin' prodigy. Spent most of the day in a long sleeve t-shirt, in fact.

"Why aren't you more afraid?" queried LB, impressed and somewhat perturbed at my apparent ease on the slopes.

Mountain biking, I realized.

A single track trail can be as little as 6" wide, with a slope of descent similar to skiing or snowboarding -but- beset upon on all sides by cactus, boulders, and the occasional venomous creature.

After enough "oh-sh*t-I'm-going-to-die-and-they'll-be-nothing-left-but-my-bleached-bones-at-the-bottom-of-this-craggy-ravine" moments**, what's a fluffy white hillside, 100's of feet wide, with nothing but glorious snow to fall upon? Literally paled in comparison.

And where did I spend the majority of my time?

Bunny slopes, duh.

What?

Maybe you need to go back up to the "wiser-n-older" section above. 

Besides, those kids are fast.

Little f*ckers. 

**For more on this topic, see Man vs. Cactus

askance

Lurking

 

Tidbit

This is the comic book of my life.

Nuanced? No.

Colorful?

(In a 2D, RGB, dot-matrix-ala-Lichtenstein-kinda-way)

Sure.

Songbird

Enchanted Moment

Seen and captured on a recent excursion to Seamus via blackberry.

Went back later w/equipment for a less degraded image*, but didn't have quite the same feel.


(That or a dab of excrement that proved somewhat distracting)

Meanwhile, however:

"THIS GETS BETTER"

I can't think of better words to live by.

All alcohol infused and sardonic wit aside... it does seem to.

*no pun intended