Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Experience is a cruel teacher. It gives a test before ever presenting the lesson.


Well the world didn't end.  Or, if it did, the afterlife is weirdly similar to my regular life.  It didn't though, because I'm pretty sure hell would have a permanent Justin Bieber soundtrack.  Anyway, I'll stay away from all the apocalypse and Mayan jokes, mostly because I've been abusing them on Twitter.

First off, Merry Christmas everyone!  Or Happy Holidays if your Jewish or just generally hate people wishing you the best.  You know what?  I take that back, I hope your holidays are mediocre at best you scrooge.  Anyway it's Christmas today, and I am fulfilling my annual tradition: Spending the entire day in airports and planes.  Except this year I actually have people traveling with me, so it looks slightly less pathetic.  Anyway this year I met my family up in Beaver Creek Colorado for one of our favorite white-person traditions: skiing.  As you probably don't know because why the hell would you, I haven't been skiing in about four or five years (rough estimate as my memory is essential that of a senile 90 yr old).  Since then I've been snowboarding once, but that's it.  I figured it'd be pretty easy to get my ski legs back because I've been skiing a lot over my lifetime.  I was very wrong.  It turns out I am significantly worse at skiing than I was a couple years ago.  For those of you following me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or just generally following me around in person, you've probably seen the picture I posted showing that I hit 52.8 mph on skis and would say, "Well you seem pretty good..."  False.  This is simply a misrepresentation of information.  While you might see that statistic as showing my confidence and control at high speeds on the mountain, what it actually means is that I am an utter pansy who's too afraid to turn, and instead simply closes his eyes and waits until he comes to a stop via the run ending, hitting a tree, etc.  Zero skill involved.  Of course, as soon as I successfully maneuver my way down two or three runs I immediately assume I'm qualified to hit the Winter X Games runs and professional crap.  And you know what assuming does.  It kills you.  Or at least severely injures you.  As is what happened when I decided to go into the terrain park and mess around while waiting for Salomon and Rossignol to bring the contracts.  Terrible, TERRIBLE decision in retrospect.  The first run down I nailed it.  (Possibly due to the fact that I slowly cruised down the side of the run, not touching a single feature.)  The second run.....well, it escalated quickly.  With completely unearned confidence flowing from every pore, I got off the lift, turned into the park, and bee-lined for the closest jump.  A jump that was far bigger than ANYTHING I'm qualified to hit.  I don't want to say I was ungraceful whilst in the air, but a fellow skier may have compared me to a set of broken windshield wipers.  I landed, way off from where I was supposed to, but I landed nonetheless, and in my absurdly irrational state of mind I took that as a good sign and thus continued on towards the rails and boxes.  With a head full of wrong decisions, I made for the second rail down, again moving way too fast.  I hit the little entrance jump thingy (scientific term), went into the air, hit the rail WAY too hard, immediately shooting my skis out from under me and absorbing the brunt of the fall with the my head.  I was pretty stunned and may have lost awareness for a minute or so, but I didn't cry, despite what Mr. Biggie Fries Skier says.  Who cares what he thinks anyway.  It freaking hurt.  Go back to doing you Double-Triple McFlurries you jerk.  Long story short I think I'm just gonna stick to sledding from here on out.

You know that WOPWOPWOPWOP sound when only one person rolls down their window in the car?  Firstly, fuck that guy.  Second off, can you imagine how bad it would be if you could roll down airplane windows?  Assuming of course we didn't all immediately die from lack of oxygen.

Speaking of traveling, this is the first time I've been on a plane since August, which is a pretty long time for me, and I'm kind of getting nostalgic.  Nothing feels like home like a warm scripted greeting, a homey instructional video, and a nice prepackaged serving of pretzels.  Of course one of my favorite parts of flying, as I've said before, is texting at least twenty people then immediately turning off my phone for the flight, that way when you turn it on after landing (make sure it's on loud), you sit there helplessly while being continually notified of your unimaginable popularity.  Hey 4B, do you hear that?  That's the sound of me having friends.  Yea, go back to your Sudoku you pathetic friendless loser.  (4B was a jerk anyway.)  Anyway, the one thing I've never been able to do is sleep on an airplane.  Up until a few days ago I thought that was a curse.  I would've given anything to be able to sit down and immediately go unconscious instead of dealing with the tiny little Hitler behind me screaming for two and a half hours because it's too much of an idiot to know how to pop his ears.  What I found out last Friday, however, is that for me, not being able to sleep is a blessing from GOD.  Is it an exhausting and frustrating blessing?  Absolutely yes.  But it is a blessing nonetheless.  Why, you ask?  Because God have mercy on the person sitting next to me when I wake up in a total panic from a dream.  As you may be able to guess, my imagination is slightly.... well, insane.  On the way to Denver I had the kind of dream that Stephen King would go to a therapist over.  M Night Shambangala cries about this kind of stuff.  Of course I can't remember every detail, but you know the feeling when you wake up and even though you don't really know what happened, you still have this gut feeling that something has gone horribly wrong inside your head?  Like a little bit of your soul was just deep-fried and eaten by a demon?  Yea, that.  Basically the last thing I remember is sitting in an abandoned DMV being attacked by what I can only describe as a fear monster with insanity scales chewing on me with teeth made of secrets.  Yea, you try being in that situation and not waking up flailing every limb outwards and screaming for Jesus.  Lady, I'm sorry about your new jacket and for the loss of your ginger ale, but I was in a very dark place.  If it matters that much, your next Schweppes is on me.

Let's move on to something a little less life-ruining.  Two days I found out I got into another college, and I'll be moving to Phoenix.  Huzzah!  I've got the major details covered, like what I'm eating for lunch when I get home (Zaxby's) and my first couple stops on the drive to Arizona (also Zaxby's).  It's the smaller details I've got to worry about now, such as where I'm staying during the four day drive, where I'm going to live once I get there, how I'm going to afford the gas, getting student loans to actually pay for college, and registering for class.  So far I've got literally none of those things figured out.  Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if any of you people live in between Columbia, SC and Phoenix, AZ and aren't going to murder me and wear my skin, hit me up if you've got an extra bed/couch/closet space.  I'm not picky and I'm pretty low maintenance.  Please have bacon available.

Fact of the Day:  Astronauts have a small piece of Velcro inside their helmets so they can scratch their nose.

Shout out to Emily Moore.

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