copper day with Jeffy

After a stressful day on Saturday, when my flight from Cincy to Denver was cancelled, and then rescheduled, and cancelled again, so I ended up on a Delta instead of United flight, having also lost my first class seat and having to sit between two fat people with a shit head of a kid behind me who cried the entire 3 hour flight, I got up at 4 am to meet Jeffy for my first day of skiing.

The day started out not so auspiciously as I couldn't get onto I-70, the intersection near my house having been closed for police activity. Then we got to copper and it was fucking cold. But, the day got better almost immediately.

Jeffy took me to the surefoot store to get custom made ski boots. Given the amount of problems I have with my knee I figured it was a good investment. While we waited for the lifts to open I got measured for orthotics. You have to stand on this metal thing and then these black worm looking stalks come out of the metal thing and measure your foot. They had to measure my right foot 3 times to get an accurate reading for some reason. Then we went to the ticket counter where I procured a $40 discount on Jeffy's lift ticket. I said "and that's why you keep the jew around" to make him laugh.

Then we headed up mountain. Jeffy tried to give me some coaching on skiing. First he noticed that I pick up my right ski all the time. He would carve a turn down the mountain, with his two perfect lines from his edges, and then I would try to follow. But I was making ghost lines with my right ski because I kept picking it up. I think I do that because I don't have much feeling in my right foot and I'm afraid I'm going to catch an edge and wrench my knee, causing all the titanium screws holding my leg together to come shooting out, then all the tendons to pop out like octopus tentacles. They'd never find my knee cap in the snow.

After a few runs, and also determining my foot wasn't sitting properly in my boot, Jeffy suggested we go back to surefoot to finish getting my boots made. I asked if he thought I would suck less with new boots and he said "I hope so". He also said he wished he had brought his camera so he could take pictures of me that he could look at when he needed a laugh.

So when we returned to surefoot Nick, my boot maker, made me sit in a chair while he put these little toe hats on my feet. Then he put my legs in these plastic baggie things and crammed the whole mess inside my new ski boot, which had a bunch of tubes sticking out of it. I was like "Hmm. This reminds me of chemo." Nick said "There's nothing that's going to poke or cut you," and then moments later gouged a huge chunk of skin out of his hand on one of my boot bindings.

After I was packed into the boots I had to stand on this metal platform while Nick fed foam into the various tubes coming out of my boots. It was kind of like having my foot stepped on by a giant who then decided to pee on it for good measure. I had to endure this process for 30 minutes, while Jeffy stood at the front of the shop trying to do things to make me laugh while simultaneously laughing at my discomfort. Towards the end the pain was so bad in my right foot from the compression I seriously thought I was going to pass out. I kept apologizing to Jeffy for taking so long since I was cutting into ski time and he kept saying "well, that's why we keep the jew around".

Then Nick tried to mount my new boots onto my skis but they were so much smaller than my old ones (explains the heel lift problem I was having) I had to get the bindings remounted. That ended up being another little adventure involving me getting yelled at for running through the snow in my socks, prompting more "and that's why we keep the jew around" comments.

Finally, after getting my skis fixed up, and having a beer, we returned to the mountain for some more runs. Unfortunately my new boots were so tight in the toe they were almost unbearable to wear, kind of like skiing in a climbing shoe, but I did my best to ski in them for the rest of the afternoon. Jeffy kept saying we should take them in again, but I was having enough fun to block the pain and didn't want to spend anymore time in a shop.

We kept talking about how the economy is not going to get better for a while, a big concern of Jeffy's since he's thinking to retire soon. He just sold a nail polish company that he owned, so he kept saying "well, at least I have 8,000 bottles of nail polish" after telling me stories like how he lost $2 million dollars this year.

We also discussed his book. He paid a guy in Vegas $20 k to ghost write it and the guy hasn't done shit. So I lobbied to be his new ghost writer and I think he's going to take me on, especially when I pointed out to him that everything we do when we hang out together can be written off on taxes. So he's working up an outline this week and we'll see what happens. I've put together two proposals for other books I'm working on, so I may be writing a lot this year.

Jeffy is a great friend in that he has a lot of patience. Even when I lost my ski pass he didn't complain (it fell off my lanyard somehow). He also was a helpful ski coach and only once yelled at me, saying "If you pick that right ski up one more time I'm going to break your fucking foot off". He also pointed out to me that my shoulders and my hips are normally going in two opposite directions when I ski, prompting him to wonder "how could you have so many black friends and not have any rhythm?" He also tried to get me into the rail park, but then changed his mind when he remembered that I (re)broke my hand last year skiing.

His best comment, while discussing our friend J who recently became not a lesbian anymore, was "If you're going to date a girl, you should date one that's bisexual. That way you know she's with her girlfriend when she's not with you, instead of being off fucking some other guy".

As we were driving home I tentatively mentioned to Jeffy that I might be considering dating people again. Jeffy, whom I've known for 3 years now, looked over at me long enough to almost rear end the car in front of us. Then he said "Are you out of your goddamn mind? The LAST person on this planet that should be going on dates IS YOU!" He also pointed out I could benefit from adult supervision in most of my personal affairs. Point taken.

We are going to get together again some time this week to check out a new wine bar/movie theater, where he will be bringing a wine from his cellar called The Dead Arm shiraz. Any alcohol with the word "dead" in the title promises to be entertaining.