Skiing, part two.

Three twenty-five, at the top of Tremblant, our bus at the bottom of the north side, and nothing to take us there but black diamonds. Looking back now, I realize that only I had any inkling of what was to come, for only I was both an advanced skier and a beginner snowboarder. Amanda cannot be held responsible for this adventure, nor can her friend. If I was less of an idiot, I would have told them to switch again. I would have told Amanda to take the chair down. I might even have proposed an exchange myself, offered my friend my skis. Yet as Amanda, on a snowboard for the first time in her life, slid over to the top of the nearest expert trail, the only phrase I saw fit to utter was, 'We're fucking screwed.'


The first part of the trail was the steepest part, and I don't know how they did it.
In fact, we didn't really hit the wall until about two-thirds of the way there, when Amanda had a breakdown.

'I can't do it.' She was sobbing. 'There's no one here to help us. They're gonna leave without us.'

Who could blame her? She was panicking. Her feet strapped to a board, she had practically no control over her own fate. The ski lift we had taken up had ground to a halt, and we were, it was becoming evident, rather late. We had seen no one else since the top of the mountain.

'They won't. Absolutely not. And if they did, my parents would come pick us up.' Of course, I wasn't so sure about any of this. I can't imagine my mother being too pleased to drive to Tremblant and back in order to pick up her vagrant] daughter. 'Come on. I'll help you down.' I stretched out my pole to her, but she didn't move.

'Do it. Do it.'

My Ben Stiller impression could not fail me. Her hand swung out and tightened. Slowly, gently, I moved forward, immensely thankful for my newfound control of my speed.

Much of the remainder of the mountain was descended in this fashion. We stopped. We started. She fell. I pulled her behind me. And then, as suddenly as the clouds parting after an epic rainstorm, the mountain fell away, and I saw paradise before us. The ski chalet could not have shone with more radiance had it been fashioned of pure gold.

'We're there,' I breathed. 'We made it. Alex! Alex!'

For a moment, for eternity, the three of us stood on the slope, gazing down at the bus, at the four or five red-suited figures far below. And, like a starving man who feels that food has never tasted so wonderful, I thought to myself that not once in my life had I been happier to see a parking lot.

We came down slowly. When we were at the bottom, we took off our skis, our snowboards, and began the trek to the parking lot -- elated, exhausted, and a little terrified of what we might find when we climbed onto the bus. I am certain that I do not exaggerate when I say that bonds were formed by that descent, where bonds did not already exist. Was it the stupidest thing I ever did? Probably not, but it's somewhere up there. Do I regret it? Not for a moment, but I'm glad we came through.

Tim glanced at us as we passed him. Winked.

'In trouble already, I see.'

Some of my favourite picture books

Yay, another list of favourite things.

1. Mister Got To Go: The Cat that Wouldn't Leave (Lois Simmie)
Beautiful. This is a beautiful story. It's about a cat that comes to live in a hotel -- the Sylvia hotel in Vancouver, to be precise.

2. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (Mo Willems)
None of the sequels to this book come close to achieving the perfect brilliance of the first one. It's about a pigeon who wants to drive the bus. And you aren't going to let him.

3. Cinder Edna (Ellen Jackson)
This is the best short Cinderella parody I've ever read. And I've read far, far too many.

4. Matthew and the Midnight Pirates (Allen Morgan)
My family has a bizarre obsession with the matthew and the midnight etc. books. I don't really understand it, but this particular one has a few fantastically funny scenes.

Jazz band....

'Pretend you're a rock star. Which doesn't necessarily mean you're good. It means you're a rock star.'

-Neil

Just when you think you've got everything figured out, life throws the possibility you never even considered in your face. I've said and thought it so many times that it could be my personal motto, but I am continuously surprised by situations in which I encounter this unpredictability, situations so steeped in irony that I feel I could either drown or brew some hot, exotic irony tea.

In order to introduce you to my latest meeting with my maxim, I must provide a brief backstory of my half-year (so far) in the Jazz Band.

Benny Goodman may have filled concert halls even through the glorious seventies, but we mediocre high-school clarinetists are not as well-received in the jazz world. I joined the Jazz Band this year partially because I love jazz, and partially to acquire a foothold should I choose to try out for a place in the rhythm section next year (keys). I have often looked back. I love the clarinet, and I enjoy nearly all of the music, but the fourth bleeding trumpet part is only more boring if you play it on an instrument that is actually far quieter than the horn, and I was almost instantly disappointed by the lack of improvising opportunities. It follows that I never practice; it hardly makes a difference.

In March, the band is going to compete at the Jazzfest. I'm sure you can imagine that I wouldn't be terribly excited about this, but that's actually short of the truth: I'm not even going, because I won't be in town. Of course, when Fortin sent out e-mails with the MP3 file of the song we are required to play for the festival, I wasn't exactly going to make an extraordinary effort to sit down and listen to it, especialy since I was pretty sure my part would consist of three-note patterns interjected throughout the music. In retrospect, I could have played it once or twice, but it came at the same time as all the MP3 material for upcoming honour band projects, some of which I had to learn for the January concert.

Fortin handed out parts to the jazz piece the thursday before last. Because I had never encountered it before, I was a little slow to realize that he had given me the first trumpet part.

'Yeah, so I need the fourth part, right?'

He nodded emphatically. 'Yes, you do.' Then, the terrible, terrifying words: 'Fourth trumpet has a solo.'

Something happened to my stomach as I stood there staring at him with my mouth open. I'm not sure now whether I was considering the ridiculous humour of being given a solo for the one piece I would never play in public or contemplating my impeding doom. I hadn't listened to the piece. I hadn't seen the piece. And (as you probably know) I sure as hell can't sight read in Bb.

It's a stretch to say I played the solo with the band, but I did manage to get a phrase in once.

When did we all get so big?

CEGEP issues

Sometimes when I want to make myself really depressed, I'll go through university and CEGEP pamphlets with a black sharpie and cross off everything that I would hate studying. I don't know why I do it, because I'm always left with the same disciplines. Commerce, law, engineering, medicine, education, drama, dance, and fine arts disappear swiftly, followed by biology, geography, and all the obscure degrees about specific cultures, specific religions, and dentistry. Of course, I really do like a lot of things about biology, geography, and even medicine, but our society has become so specialized that dabbling is very difficult. Once I've brushed all these off the map, I'm left with biochemistry, physics and chemistry, music (composition, performance, and theory), philosophy, and English literature. Which is, you know, just six too many.

I suppose liberal arts is an obvious CEGEP option for those as undecided as I am, but that sort of knocks out any higher level of science. On the other hand, the science program offered at Marianopolis seems a little dull to suffer through for two years. The required courses are pretty well what you'd expect -- math, math, math, chemistry, and stupid things like magnetism -- but the elective courses are nothing short of a major dispapointment. Basically, you take 9 required science courses, and then...then, you get to choose three more science classes.

As for music, well, let's just say chances are lamentably slim when you play the piano and can't sing for your life, although, thanks to my McGill exams, I technically already qualify to apply. Adding to the general confusion, the prospect of spending two years with entire classes of pushy musicians is not exactly the most appealing thing in the world, but I would love to study music in university, in any capacity.

Of course, my concerns are probably of little consequence. Fast forward a few years, and I'm still going to be an aging eng-lit student, perpetually dreading unplanned encounters with my landlady, surviving off whatever I manage to collect at the bar where I play my own shitty rock tunes.

See how masterfully I've been thus far able to avoid studying for tomorrow's 536 exam? By attempting to convince myself that it doesn't matter?

What I REALLY need is a band.

My Favourite Internet Radio Stations

For me, the idea behind listening to the radio is to find music I've never heard before, so all those classic rock biggest hits of all time stations don't cut it, unless I'm in a car with no CD or tape player.

a. Aural Moon
Prog station. Sometimes a little scary -- progressive rock is comparable to science fiction -- but great if I'm in the right state of mind. Beautiful name, too, although the site itself isn't that pretty.
http://www.auralmoon.com/

b. BAGel Radio
Such an awesome website. It makes me so happy every time I decide to check it out. Like c, this is more of an indie station -- less-known music from the current era. Very interesting links.
http://www.bagelradio.com/blog/

c. CBC Radio 3
Canada's own web station for newish artists, so it has that extra bonus of being close to home. Because, you know, all my favourite bands are canadian. Seriously, though, this is pretty sweet -- it has a stream I believe, but you can browse through all the artists and hear anything you like, then add those to your personal playlist.
http://radio3.cbc.ca/

d. Technicolor Web of Sound
This is pretty well my dream website. It's entirely devoted to psychedelic rock, so most of what they play is from obscure bands with names like The Magic Mushrooms, Acid Talk, and Strawberry Alarm Clock -- bands that perished with the arrival of the seventies.
http://www.techwebsound.com/

Skiing, part one.

'It smells like Jesus.'

-Alex

I'm a little apprehensive about telling this story, because it seems to me like a good one. It lives in my head, but maybe that's because I lived it.

It happened yesterday.

'So, Mom.' I asked. 'Did you realize that we were forty-five minutes late coming home from skiing?'

'Why were you forty-five minutes late?'

'Three idiots got lost on the mountain.'

'Oh, be fair. You don't know they're idiots.'

'Well, one of them is certainly a pretty big idiot. And I don't care if you rented movies or not, because I've had enough action for one day already.'

Last year, I spent most of my saturdays skiing with two other girls. One currently lives in Germany, and one, named Amanda, currently lives in Montreal. She doesn't live anywhere near me, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that she is on the same skiing bus as me, as well as in the same class (with the same teacher as last year). She had enlisted about six other people to join skiing with her, notably her best friend Alex, a beginner-intermediate snowboarder (better than I am, not as good as Kelsey). Naturally, these two are fantastic individuals -- intelligent, multi-lingual, friendly, the whole bit -- to the point where I am quickly able to overcome my shy nature and enjoy the day I spent with them.

And it was a beautiful day. The snow wasn't great, but the slopes were relatively ice-free, and everyone seemed to be in a good mood. At one point, we ran into Tim, my instructor from two years ago, who cheerfully confided to his class that I had always been a known troublemaker. Tim was the sort of guy who wore a bandanna beneath his helmet, brought his girlfriend to some of our lessons, and once told us that he had always tried for a 69 average in school. Hey, he makes as good a prophet as I can imagine.

Amanda and Alex an into a couple of girls they knew from school in the afternoon, and we spent some time with them as well. It was close to the end of the time we had there that Amanda decided to trade her skis for the snowboard one of the girls was riding, to try the sport for the first time. I won't lie; I was excited at the prospect of it, and though a little nervous about her desire to take the chair lift, I knew there were plenty of easy trails off the halfway lift.

Of course, after consuming impressive quantities of caffeine and sugar, helping Amanda with her boots, and hiking up from the ski racks, we discovered that we had missed the closing of the halfway lift by five minutes. I shook my head.

'We can't take the lift that goes to the top,' I said. 'The top of the north side is almost entirely black.'

'No, there's one easy one,' Amanda reminded me. 'We took it this morning.'

She was itching to go, afflicted with the rare and potentially dangerous combination of daring and lack of information. We didn't have the heart to say no; what of being perhaps five minutes late? The easy trail wouldn't be too difficult if we helped her down it gradually and patiently

I have nothing but good memories of the optimistic journey up, of advice shouted her way and a pleasant discussion on whether she would fall at the top of the lift. When we arrived, however, I cannot say I noticed whether she did; for there it was, a deep wound in whatever plans we had been foolish enough to make: a bright orange rope stretched across the beginner trail. Closed.

Part two will continue the story, so don't read it if it's not interesting so far -- you can probably extrapolate anyway.

Have you heard? -- the word is love!

Fletcher has a cameo appearance in this.

I wrote a lot on the plane home from Vancouver.

Casting her fears aside, she leapt over the top of the spidery wrought-iron gates; her white dress floated out around her as she dropped to the ground. As her pale, sandaled feet met the dust on the other side, her mind flew briefly to Simone, to the uneasy question of whether she had found the black case hidden in the rosebushes.

Tom: 'No, it's pretty good. I like the use of...English.'

Picking herself up, she glanced around warily, expecting an ambush that never came.

It seemed to her that she had come to a fork in the road her life had been taking. In the moment that she had shut her eyes and sprung across the tall fence, her choice had been made. The fall to earth had decided her fate.

‘Your metaphors could use a little innovation.’

Startled, she looked up. There, three feet above her left shoulder, was the waif, tossing a small red object from one handlike extension to the other.

‘You followed.’

Etc, etc. The trouble is, I was trying to write a picture book. The idea was to get Emma to illustrate it and give it to mom for her birthday. (It was a great idea, I thought.) I'm just thinking that it might be better to write it in more Emma-appropriate prose. (I tried. It's a lot worse, normally.) It also sounds a little like something that was written on an airplane. (Much more so further on, when the clouds and stuff come in.) So as usual, I wind up with something I don't know what to do with. I could publish a collection of bits of things I don't know what to do with.

On Simone: In Vancouver, we found a picture of the band Au Revoir Simone somewhere, and one of the girls looked a little like an older, prettier, and more refined version of myself.

I don't belong.