they need a cop at copper

To add to my list of bizarre occurrences, today I went up to copper late morning, after I finished most of my work, to ski. The snow was slushy shit except where it was ice, but still, a day of skiing is better than working.

I got in line and the guy zapping passes said "uh oh, you're on the hot list". The three snowboarders next to me snickered. I was like "what do you mean?" and he said "this pass is reported as stolen". I was like dude, I lost my pass in January, I was just up here Tuesday, how could my pass be stolen? Luckily he recognized me and said "Go ahead and take a lap, and then go to customer service".

The 17 year old boarder sitting next to me was like "oh, you're an outlaw" after we got on the chair. I was like yeah whatever. Jokes about being on "the hot list". I ignored them. Then he asked me if I stole the pass. I told him the whole story but I don't think he believed me. Then he said that I should meet him at the bar for a drink when I was done skiing. I was like "are you old enough to drink?" (that's when I found out he was 17). He said "dude, they don't card me because they've lost so much money this year they'll sell to anyone". Then he invited me to a high school party tonight if I didn't want to drink illegally with him at the bar, assuring me he didn't want to get me in more trouble.

I was like "dude, not only can I drink legally, I'm old enough to be your mom". He thought I was 18. His friends were like "maybe I could see 20" but they didn't believe my real age. They thought I was fucking with them so then they started making fun of me. I was like will this lift ride never end.

I get to customer service after a run, and find out from the woman behind the counter that my pass has been pulled because I supposedly lent it to a friend of mine on Wednesday. I was like this is insane. I argued with her for 20 fucking minutes before she got a manager who re-instated my pass. I know now for a FACT that the person who found my pass has been using it all winter, and even though they assured me that my new pass had a different number I know they are full of shit. I would bet $1,000 they never deactivated my lost pass.

I was like dude, first of all, if I had my pass pulled on Wednesday, why would I come skiing today when the snow is in such shit condition? And if my pass was pulled, why did they not physically pull it? And if my new pass has a different number, why do I have the same number for my old pass stored in my crackberry (from when I got it 3 years ago)? I kept asking sensible questions until the manager re-instated my pass. They kept looking at me like I was a criminal the whole time though. There's no talking common sense with some people, even when I offered to pull up my copper account on the web and show them that I was never re-issued a new pass number.

Then, I was headed down a black run near the super bee lift, going pretty fast (for me anyway), when I stuck a ski edge. I went cartwheeling down the slope, which was ice, and ended up sliding about 30 feet away from my left ski. It was right under the chair lift, by far my best crash yet at copper. People were yelling "OUCH!" from the lift.

A guy skied up to me with my ski and said "wow, you were going way too fast". Anyone who has ever skied with me knows I don't go "way too fast". Ever.

Then he said "don't move, maybe we should call somebody" (I was trying to stand up still at that point). Except for my left shoulder, I was feeling fine so I said "no need". He grabbed my helmet with his huge black gloves, and looked into my goggles (still slightly crooked from the crash) and said "but you might have an aneurysm and then you'll die".

I don't even think I hit my head, so I backed up and said "I'm pretty sure I don't have an aneurysm". The guy said "But that's THE PROBLEM! You won't know UNTIL YOU DIE!" He was getting scarier by the second. Then he said "Promise me you'll go get medical help immediately when you get down". I was like "sure dude" just so he wouldn't grab my head again.

This old dude came up then and said he would ski behind me the rest of the way down. Scary dude left. The old dude shared a chair with me going back up super bee. He asked if I had hit my head in the accident (he only caught the tail end of it). I said I didn't think so. He said "that man who was talking to you was acting strange" and said that's why he skied down behind me and then followed me onto the lift.

Old dude started talking about going to a Rockie's game tomorrow, and said that I should go because "if you're 12 and under you can get in for $1". I looked at him and said "I'm older than 12". He laughed and patted my leg because he didn't believe me.

Okay, now that I think about it, I wear a kid's helmet because I have a small head, and I decorated it with girly stickers. Maybe that's what's throwing everyone off about my age. I don't know. It's not like I'm short. I'm pretty tall.

To end my copper odyssey, I got back to my car only to discover someone tried to I guess break into it. The driver's door handle is pried up and the lock cylinder is knocked back into the door. Good thing I have to leave my car at the airport for a week and can't get the door fixed until I get back. I wonder if someone can just open the door even if I lock it.

Sigh.

the danimal

The past few days have been, even for me, strange.

It all started last night. I was at Wahoo's picking up fish tacos for dinner (my favorite fish tacos ever). I was standing against the railing, and, to set the scene, I was wearing climbing pants, a baseball hat, and a t-shirt, the same outfit I've been wearing all week, I hadn't showered for two days (working at home so why bother) and worse, I hadn't washed my hair in almost two weeks. And my hair was looking especially ratty since I had put a hair mask on it the night before and hadn't rinsed it out yet.

Suddenly this guy comes walking towards me from outside. He was dressed in really expensive clothes, including his shoes. I'm pretty sure they were hand made. That song "walking in memphis" was playing. He stood RIGHT next to me and said "will you dance with me?" I was like "whaaa?" and he said "please, I really, really want to dance with you".

I was like "dude, I'm just waiting for my food". There was a couple waiting in front of me for their food. I had ordered blackened salmon tacos which take a while to make. I was like please don't let them get their food and leave me with this maniac. Wahoo's was deserted, and the two idiots behind the counter were just staring at me as if the hamster turning their thoughts couldn't keep up on the wheel.

He said "Well, if you won't dance with me, come have a drink at the bar. I would love to buy you a margarita". He crooked his arm out like some old fashioned guy escorting me to a dance. I just looked at him. He reached out to grab my hand and I said "don't fucking touch me". He said "What's wrong???? I'm not hitting on you! Look, I'm married and have two kids." He held up his hands, palms facing towards me, and waved them around like a homecoming queen. He was not wearing a wedding ring.

Then he said "You coloradans are so cold. I miss California." The couple waiting for their food said "You can buy us a drink" so they sat down with him at the bar and he bought them drinks. He bought me a beer and tried to give it to me. I said "I don't drink beer". Then he bought me a bottle of water and I said "I don't drink that because it's bad for the environment".

By then the two guys behind the counter were laughing. The guy said "Look, my name is Daniel. I'm not a stalker. I'm not going to kill you. I just want to share the love." Uh huh. The couple started talking to him. He kept edging back over to me and trying to include me in the conversation. I was like where is my fucking food? I think the kitchen was being slow on purpose to see what would happen.

Daniel told the couple that he had a house in Redondo beach, on the water, and a house in Colorado, that he was starring in Spike Jonzes' movie "where the wild things are" (googled his name when I got home, that was a lie), that his friends call him "the danimal", that he loved to surf until he broke his back (surfing was playing on the tv behind the bar) and that he had a scar on his leg from getting bitten by a shark. Around then my food came, so Daniel turned to me and said "I can't believe you want to sit home alone when you could hang out with me." Right. Then he said "I'm sure I'll see you again. What is your name?" He held out his hand as if I should shake it.

I said "why do you think you'll see me in here again?" even though, ha ha, I eat there a lot. He said "because you live really close to here". That gave me a chill so I left.

dark arms

Last night I had a dream that I showed up for my consulting job in Toronto and was put in this small windowless office. Outside the door I could see this woman dressed like Lara Croft rolling bee hives around on the floor. Then she would pick them up and juggle them. I went to the door of my office and watched her for a while and decided she had the coolest job I'd ever seen.


So I told her I wanted to learn how to juggle beehives too, but that I was afraid because I'm allergic to bees. She showed me all these pieces of white tubing sticking out of her arms, and said that the tubes had anti venom so if she got stung there was no effect. Then she showed me, in the crook of both of her arms, that she had a spider, that looked like a tarantula, that ate any bees that were trying to sting her. The spiders kept running up and down her arms eating bees while we were talking.


I was like cool, put some tubes in my arms so I can juggle the beehives and she did. Then she gave me two spiders for my arms as well. I picked up a hive and started throwing it around like she was doing. But then both of my arms were in serious pain. I looked down and saw my bee eating spiders were dead. I yelled to the woman to help me. She came running over and was like "oh no, you picked up a hornet's nest instead of a beehive! that's why your spiders died!"


My arms were burning and I fainted (in a dream, I know, weird). When I came to she was putting new tubes in my arms to try to get the poison from the hornets' out of me before it killed me. And then she said "I'm going to have to give you a shot" and she stuck these two huge needles right into my abdomen.


I fainted again, and when I came to I was sitting back at my desk. My arms were covered with little squares of white gauze that were totally bloody. I couldn't lift my arms up at all because of the pain. The woman was like "you'll be okay" and then she ran away. Then my customer, this kind of bland looking guy, came in to my office and said "we need you to do a software demo in 15 minutes". I was like fuck fuck fuck, I can't lift my arms and I'm covered in blood. But I told him I would do it because I didn't want him to know that I was juggling hives.


Then I woke up.


It was around 230 in the morning so I went back to sleep. I dreamed that I was asleep in bed when my old housepest Ryan walked in the door. He was wearing a paper plate over his face with these jagged eye holes cut out. I was like "what the fuck are you doing here?" and he said "oh, I was just bringing in your mail, and then I was going to take a shower". He came up the stairs towards me and I saw he was holding a huge knife. I knew he was going to kill me with it.

I started yelling at him to give the key to my house back. He kept coming towards me so I grabbed a pair of nunchucks that my brother Bob gave me (that's true, they were from when he took martial arts, and he gave them to me 6 months ago) and threw them at his head. It knocked the paper plate crooked, and he dropped my house key and started running down the stairs. I was going to chase after him to get his knife but when I got to the front door I realized I was wearing my robe and couldn't go outside.

Then I woke up and decided that was enough sleep for one night.

one day, for no reason, our planet suddenly exploded

Having had a perfectly horrible day at work, and having bewailed my situation on the phone with my dad for 15 minutes, he suggested I, and I quote, "have a glass of wine...and, um, maybe paint another picture". I think because he didn't want to hear me complain anymore.

So here it is. It's called "one day, for no reason, our planet suddenly exploded". The colors and texture of the exploding planet didn't quite come out in this photo. There's some green in there that you can't see. Also, there's a white epi-center on the star that didn't come out.

That weird blob at the bottom is a person I painted with a triangle for a head. His hands came out pretty good but his feet sucked. So I painted over him. Didn't work like I thought it would.

The white blobs were inspired by me accidentally spilling a white blob on my painting when I was trying to put the epi-center on the star. It looks cooler in real life than it does in this photo. Because, I think in this photo, it looks like it sucks.

Oh well. It's my last small canvas. Now I have to paint bigger.

worse than a big fluffy beaver

So I painted my second painting ever. The painting was done from memory. It's of a fox that I saw on Friday afternoon while I was hiking at Roxborough. I was walking down the trail, looking for more puddles to jump in (it was really muddy and wet, but warm out, and there's nothing I love more than jumping in puddles) when I suddenly saw something running towards me. At first I thought it was a dog, but then remembered that dogs aren't allowed at Roxborough.

As it got closer to me I realized it was a fox. He was about 25 - 30 lbs, so, not small, and he was brightly colored with a little brown beard and a huge tail that was white on the back. He ran almost right up to me, realized I was human, and took off into the bushes. As I was standing there amazed, he turned around, looked at me for a minute, peed, and then ran off again.

For whatever reason, a fox has always appeared at a pivotal point in my life. I thought it was a good sign. Plus, I've always liked foxes after reading the little prince.

Anyway, I tried to paint the fox. But, I was given a bit of bad advice from my friend Neil, who told me I should drink while I was painting. After one glass of wine I decided to touch up the fox, and made him all blotchy. Then, after the second glass of wine, I accidentally put my thumb down on his tail, so it smeared. Thinking I could fix it by adding more paint (thank you, wine brain, for that suggestion) I ended up making his tail bigger and bigger. I tried to add the white at the end but by then he was just a shit show. And accidentally I stuck him with my pinkie when I was trying to move him to the wine shelf to dry (if you click on the picture to look at it in a bigger format the pinkie stick is obvious).

I meant to give the painting as a gift to someone. But, how can I give it as a gift when I know it sucks?

Comments from Neil:

"It doesn't suck. I like everything but the fox. The color of the fox is fine, he just looks trite and out of place in the expressive but still realistic landscape. I guess you could say he's expressive as well. If his shape were more realistic, like the all the other shapes, and you used the same color, I think it would have blown me away."

He looks trite, and out of place, and like someone was drunk when she painted him.

Joe didn't say the painting sucked. He was a little more polite. He wanted to know why the fox's tail was so big.

Jeffy said "I think modern art would accommodate alcohol consumption much better than landscapes with animals." He then suggested I paint an abstract ice fall, and glue a GI Joe doll to it.

Guess what you're getting for your birthday, you fucking smart ass.

did he mean what he said?

I called my friend Neil last night to let him know I finished my first painting, and to tell him I was going to send it to him if he liked it. Below is pretty much word for word our conversation, with my interpretation of what Neil was thinking in italics.

Me: So, I emailed you a picture of the painting. If you want you can look at it or be surprised when you get it in the mail.
Neil: I better look at it. We can reduce our carbon footprint by you not sending me crappy paintings.
Me: So what do you think?
Neil: It's surprisingly good. For a five year old. Who's a retard.
Me: Should I send it to you then?
Neil: Well, it's your first painting. Don't you want to keep it? And have that piece of crap hanging somewhere in YOUR house instead of mine?
Me: Since you were the one who inspired me to start painting, I thought you should have the first one. I'd really like to send it to you if that's okay.
Neil: Sure. Damn. Maybe it will get lost in the mail. Though if it's just damaged, I wonder if I'll even notice.
Me: Should I put it in a frame?
Neil: No, don't worry about that. Because then I'll feel obligated to hang it up somewhere.
Me: Is there anything else I should do to it?
Neil: Throw it away. Make sure you sign it. I don't want people thinking I painted it. And put a date on it too. So people can see how old you were when you painted it. And laugh.
Me: Cool. I'll do that. Are you going to hang it up?
Neil: Yeah, I am. Somewhere that no one will see it.