1/24/15
Lincoln, New Hampshire
I was going to open this entry, “After an exhausting day of skiing…,”
but I am not sure I can count two hours on the slopes as a “day of skiing,” but
it was enough. It was 1 AM, I think,
last night before I turned in, yet I could not sleep. I was not stressed about anything. Maybe it was the Diet Coke, but that was like
six hours earlier. Pablo came back to the
room at 3 AM. It was 9 AM when I woke
up, which meant that the morning of skiing was shot. I got breakfast at the hotel next door, not
particularly liking the looks of the menu from our hotel, came back to the
hotel to get ready, lighting an OpusX.
While
I was getting ready, I got a message that made everything else irrelevant. I no longer cared about how late I got to the
mountain or about anything else. I
messaged back and forth with her as I finished getting ready. We set a date for Tuesday night. Obviously, my plans to see another Best
Picture nominee were suddenly less important.
I stopped at the reception to check-in and get my lift ticket. The next stop was a rental shop in town. We had a hell of time with the boots, so I
had no desire to take them off until I was done for the day. It was no easy task to drive the 4 minutes to
the mountain with my boots on.
Anyway,
it was 11:30 AM by the time I got there.
It had been close to a year since I had been skiing, but I was excited
to be on the slopes again. I was not
sure what I’d be able to handle. In the
end, I stayed to the blues, doing one black.
I had no desire to push myself, just as I had no desire to speed at all
during the drive. Part of being true to
myself is not trying to impress anyone, least of all myself, by being anyone
other than myself. If I wanted to stay
to the blues, I would. Maybe tomorrow
I’ll try the blacks. I was skiing for
two hours, enjoying being on the slopes again, enjoying the wonderful
vistas.
I had a cigar going the entire
time I was skiing, most of the time I was on the lifts as well. No one cared.
In fact, I got lots of compliments and someone even asked to take my
picture. I started with a Cohiba,
followed by a Santana, rounding it out with a Perdomo. I had not finished the Perdomo by the time I
called it quits, and it was starting to snow.
I am fine with ice. I love ice. Powder and moguls, however, no dice. Skiing is much like driving. No one gets into an accident because they
were going too fast. They get into an
accident because they weren’t careful.
As long as I stay in form, I’m fine.
It is when I am careless, when my feet go the wrong direction, when I
lean the wrong way that I fall. I did
not fall. I spent my time on the north
side of the mountain, saving the south side for tomorrow.
As I went to return my skis, I heard
“Somebody That I Used To Know over the speakers,” a song that now has new
meaning to me, the girl whom, a month or so ago, I thought I was going to marry
is now just somebody that I used to know.
In fact, most of the people who have entered my life, most of the people
I have ever loved, can fall into that category of somebody that I used to
know. The reason for most of them? Communication broke down. We stopped communicating with each
other. The people with whom I constantly
communicate are the people who play the biggest parts in my life. More on that in tonight’s personal journal
entry.
I headed back to the hotel to get
Pablo so that we could go back to town for lunch. I would drop him off at McDonald’s, get my
lunch, and come back for him, knowing how long he takes to do everything and
that I would not want to wait for him to decide what to order, and he would be
quite content using McDonald’s Wi-Fi. It
took him 50 seconds to get out of the car.
That is a very long time. It
probably takes me 10 seconds to get out of the car. Part of the problem was that all things he
does before he gets out of the car, putting on his headphones, getting his
McDonald’s cup out of the bag, etc., could either have been done while we were
driving or after he got out of the car.
It bothered me to no end.
I went
to the Chinese restaurant, getting egg rolls, Diet Coke, and a mixed plate of
sesame chicken, shrimps, and scallop. I
was starving, and it was delicious.
There was a place that said “BEERS & CIGARS” in big letters, so I
stopped after lunch, getting a six-pack and some cigars. I lit up one of them, an Aroma de Cuba, and
went back for Pablo. Sure enough, he was
there on his laptop, having drank two huge cups of Coke and having refilled it
a third time. We went back to the hotel,
took a few pictures, and sat down on the couch, where I proceeded to write this
entry, which I will now close so that I can finish my cigar and take a
nap. He is meanwhile watching some
stupid MTV show that he finds hilarious, and I think he will be heading to the
pool now.
Well, other than dinner, I have nothing new to report in this
Travelogue. I have plenty to report on
my theme of communication that I will be exploring in my personal journal. The basics of it is that relationships, all
relationships (romantic, platonic, familial, business, etc.) are built on
communication. Well, it’s actually
communication and trust, but that’s not my point. The communication can take many forms,
whether it’s meeting in person, talking on the phone, emailing, texting, or
even Liking each other’s status updates, but, once the communication breaks
down, it is a death sentence for the relationship. The same can be said for trust. For my meditations on the theme of trust, I
refer my reader to my 4/18/14 entry. If
any of my readers are curious in my meditations on communication, I will be
glad to send them excerpts from my personal journal, but, in order to properly
explore that theme, I will need to give some personal examples, examples that
involve people whose names and examples I’d rather not share on a public
blog.
Alright, enough of this. After I closed this afternoon, Pablo said
that he would shower and shave and head to the pool. I needed to take a nap, but I didn’t want to
take my nap until he had left, knowing whatever he did to get ready would
disturb my nap. An hour later, he was
still there. Screw it, I went to sleep,
anyway, waking up an hour later. He was
gone at that point. I started texting
back and forth with Sokol at that point, trying to figure out how to take
Official Us while skiing and what does and does not consistent an Official U on
the mountain. I couldn’t get back to
sleep, and I was about to head to out to dinner when Pablo came back. I offered to buy him a drink at the
restaurant if we wanted to tag along. He
turned me down, saying he needed to get changed after his swim.
My choice for dinner was the top rated
restaurant in town, the Gypsy Café. It
was packed, and it was packed with locals.
Everyone at the bar knew each other’s name. Apparently, it’s the hottest place in
town. There were no tables available for
over an hour. Even the bar had a wait,
and I was starving, becoming more depressed by the minute. I knew that food would bring me back to my old
self. The menu was the most ethnic I had
ever seen, each dish being a different cuisine, such as “West African Pork” or
“Brazilian Lamb Chops.” I opted for the
“Tunisian Bison” for my main course. For
my appetizer, I had some nachos dish, which was so filling that I didn’t even
need the main course, but I really wanted to try the “Tunisian Bison.” When it finally came, I asked jokingly if the
buffalo came all the way from Tunis, knowing full well it was just the style of
the sauce. He said that it did. Despite being quite full, I enjoyed the dish
very much.
I headed back to the hotel,
lit up my 2012 Christmas pipe, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will
now close so that I can publish this and then write my personal journal entry.
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