Hey Jealousy

Ironically, I heard that song yesterday, and hated it just as I've always done.

I'm jealous today because I read my friend Sarah Brown's blog earlier, and she's headed to Tahoe to go skiing this week. Many southerners have to specify that as "snow skiing," but everywhere else, it's just "skiing."

Anyway, Sarah expressed some insecurities about her skiing abilities...well, this one's for you, Sarah.

A few years back, I was visiting my Uncle and his family out in Colorado and we decided to hit the slopes at Winter Park. I'm a pretty competent snowboarder. I'm not afraid to hit the double diamonds and hammer them out. I'm a far, FAR cry from that mutant Shaun White, but I do like to try and hit the jumps when I can.

There were about 10 of us who went up there together for the day, so we all went to our favorite parts of the mountain and agreed to meet for lunch at noon or something.

For most snowboarders, the mogul field is a nightmare. For me, however, it is a smorgasbord of jump after jump after jump...and I LOVE IT! I found a huge field of moguls that ended in a big powdery section with a sweet jump in the middle of it and dug in.

Perhaps I'll venture a bit more honesty about my snowboarding capacities: I can carve and go fast for days...no problem. I LOVE jumps, but the truth is that I get to snowboard so little that my landings are often a textbook definition of "tumultuous."

I spent the WHOLE morning riding through that mogul field over and over...run after run. I would just go as fast as I could through them until I simply couldn't control myself anymore. Then, I'd crash hard and smash into the next few moguls with whatever body part gravity hated most at the moment. At the end of the mogul field, I'd stand for a second so my eyes would uncross, then head full-speed toward the big jump to attempt some trick that I didn't have a chance in the world at landing.

Lunchtime rolled around, and I was giddy. I dragged myself into the lodge to meet my crew for some nourishment. My uncle said, "Hey Graham, give me your backpack. I put the bread and pretzels in there." I sheepishly handed him my backpack...which I had been wearing for the WHOLE morning crash session. After opening it, he just smiled and looked at me with incredulity asking, "Man, what the hell were you doing?!?" The whole loaf of bread was flat as a board, and the whole bag of pretzels had been reduced to crumbs too small to see with a microscope.

Fortunately, those guys have come to expect a certain degree of crazy from me, so we all had a laugh about it. You guessed it. I went right back out and did the same thing all afternoon.

Anyway...not sure what you should take from this. Go for it? Falling is more fun than not? Don't volunteer to take the bread and pretzels if you treat yourself as a human crash-test-dummy?

Whatever. Have fun Sarah - do some shredding for me!

"Eff-SD" (no, not South Dakota)

Seasonal Depression:
I'd say that I suffer from mild seasonal depression during the months of January, February, and sometimes even a little bit into March. It seems as if life has left the area with the fallen leaves, it's cold, and it NEVER actually snows in this blasted city. It certainly doesn't stop schools from having snow days though. I could go throw a handful of powdered sugar at the local TV-News station and immediately schools would close, interstates would jam up with accidents, and people would run to the store for bread and milk. I'm not joking.

I went to visit my mom's brother (Uncle Ed) and his family near Boulder, CO last year at this time. I left my snowboard out there as collateral so that I'll actually pull the trigger and move out there myself. After returning to Nashville, I realized that I probably wouldn't miss it that much. I've used it one time here in the last 10 years.

Southern Snowboard Silliness
Some college friends and I went to Winterplace in West Virginia on MLK day weekend during our sophomore year to go skiing/snowboarding. Being with friends was a blast, but the "snow" experience was laughable. As it was MLK day weekend, every yahoo with a pair of a sticks within in a 300 mile radius was there. The slope was so short and the lift lines were so long, I literally could have walked to the top before the lift would have gotten me there. So ended my attempts at "southern snowboarding."

Umm...
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, seasonal depression. After Christmas is over, all the things that make winter worth it's while are absent. There's basically a 2-2.5 month lull till Spring swoops in gently to rescue us from the drear of winter. She does it so subtly that it's like she's trying to make us forget about Winter without insulting Winter himself. Very kind of her. Besides, without Winter, the world doesn't work right, and Spring doesn't feel anywhere near as good when she arrives.

Man, am I ever on the slippery slope of digression this morning...

The Point
In the past, during these first few months of the year, I feel like myself and all the people with whom I'm connected just seem to mope around. It's this constant, "What do you wanna do?" - "I dunno what do you wanna do?" thing. And when that magical first day of Spring rolls around, we are all of a sudden able to make decisions again.

Most of you know my buddy, Andy. He, a fellow sufferer of seasonal depression (SD...tired of typing that), and I spoke at length about SD during one of our Tuesday night brain-puke sessions. I decided that it'd be best to create a social calendar for myself and others to keep people moving and integrated within their society of friends during this volatile time. It seems to be the best medicine.

I started the year out strong, but don't remember making any more conscious effort to adhere to my master "Eff-SD" plan. I jokingly told a few people about my cure, but never really pushed it on anybody. Oddly enough, this year I've managed to book up almost every waking minute of my life between work and social events, and it seems as though I'm not the only one. I think all of my friends are just as busy, and you know what? I think my master plan is working. Although I can't really take any credit for people voluntarily filling up their schedules during these months, it seems they're all generally happier than those who haven't. To attribute to one of my recurring themes...just goes to show you how important it is to have your friends around. Example 1, Example 2

Anyway - "Second Star on the Right & Straight on till Morning!"