One of the principal benefits of membership in Realskiers.com is the right to correspond with yours truly one-on-one, that I might address and ultimately resolve your most urgent, ski-related issues. As skiing, in my view, reaches into all aspects of one’s being – sensual, technical, athletic, intellectual and spiritual – no queries are off-limits, although the reliability of my answers increases the closer we hew to my core competence.
In this week’s Revelation and attendant podcast, I want to remind my Dear Readers and Listeners that this unusual access to an unrivaled store of experience in the field perches precariously on a fragile foundation, namely, you.
That’s right, just as in your childhood fantasies, the future we all want to believe in can only be assured by your personal intervention. If the past has taught us anything, it’s that you cannot count on your hypothetical “neighbor” to step up and fill the considerable gap in my personal finances that yawns before us. No, the solution begins with you accepting the inevitability of your role, that saving mankind begins at home, in particular my home, without which saving a bunch of other homes, such as your own, won’t mean much to posterity.
I think a clever soul such as yourself would realize by now the severity of the situation. If this doesn’t describe you, imagine that Realskiers has been convicted of a crime it did not commit and was sentenced to die unless the pardon you’re crafting arrives in time. While you diddled vaingloriously over the finer points of your copious legalese, Realskiers was executed.
At this moment, I want you to pause and feel just how much you’ve disappointed me, and more importantly, yourself. Awful feeling, isn’t it? I’ll bet you feel like you did when you were first caught lying, probably about breaking a favorite vase while rough-housing, or maybe insider trading or Medicare fraud. You see, life, in all its mystery, has consequences. If you believe otherwise, I want to know your secret.
By now, you’re probably wondering where this fascinating train of thought is heading. As in all good mysteries, it’s heading back to you and your pivotal role in my personal journey. You see, you have something I want more of, and who are you to deny me? After all we’ve been through together, the late-night bickering, the pre-dawn caterwauling we can’t even remember the details about anymore; let’s put all that aside and just focus on what you can do for me now.
Ok, here it is: I need more money, and it might as well come from you. Oh, I know what you’re going to say, that you “already gave at the office,” or “you already double-billed me.” True, but that was in the past; that was the Old Me, the Pre-Enlightenment Me. I’m ten times the person now, but only twice as much in debt. You see, I’m growing up right before your ancient, rheumy eyes.
I could yell examples of my plight into your ears at deafening decibels and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference, so I’ll forego the usual auditory assault. Instead, let’s gloss over our past squabbles over who-billed-whom-how-much and get back on point: it’s been a solid ten seconds since I asked for more money and you haven’t made the slightest move to fulfill this simple request. Some kind of friend you turned out to be.
But it’s not too late for us to get back on track, to re-build what we once had! In the misty past, you could have argued that I haven’t provided you with the means to send me extra money unless I billed you several times over for the same service, a practice some prickly subscribers protested.
But that tired argument will no longer hold water, as today we have installed a digital “Tip Jar” right on the Realskiers.com home page! Now there’s no reason not to send an appreciable chunk of your disposable income directly to Realskiers.com, and I’ll take it from there, trust me.
Think of all the money I’ve saved you over the years, not to mention the unquantifiable value of being a Realskiers.com member, instead of some ignorant, self-hating schlub. Now take that money, multiply it by the current rate of inflation and send it back to me, thereby closing the Circle of Life and restoring mankind to something closer to its true, and as yet unrealized, potential.
If that sounds like a big, important job, who’s to say it isn’t? Do your part. Be somebody involved with something that’s bigger than you are, and far, far more important. Under these circumstances, how can you say no? I anticipate that you will soon stop reading or listening to this rant so that you can unclog your mind and send me more money with a clear conscience.
To prove my prescience, I furthermore predict you will stop reading – or listening – in the next few seconds. What you do in the immediate aftermath, alone with your conscience, will matter more to me than either of us can possibly say.
Please, for everyone’s benefit, don’t screw it up. If you donate right now, I can assure you that you’ll experience a surge of self-esteem that will last at least until your payment is no longer refundable.
Amen.
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In Praise of the Wandering Mind
This subject has been percolating in the subterranean strata of my noggin for several months, searching for the connections that will lend it substance. The search for this topic’s handles has a wedding-cake’s worth layers: to depict the wandering mind requires its engagement, a self-cancelling concept that would oblige me to catch and release the idea in a Sisyphean quest to define its merits.
The notion of expounding on this Möbius strip of an idea was, naturally, an example of the wandering mind in action. I might have been noodling on a question several of my Dear Readers have posed, which can be distilled to, how did I ever learn to write in the manner that I do?
To find my answer, I had to relax my grip on the subject. My reasoning self was ready with mechanical answers, such as the discipline of writing every day. Duly noted, but insufficient. Let’s wander a little further.
Yard Sale! When Going Big Goes Wrong
If you’ve been a lifelong skier, you’ve not only experienced failure; most likely you’ve survived at least one miscalculation so soul-scarring, its time capsule is enshrined in the halls of memory alongside weddings and funerals.
As inspiration and prod to memory, allow me to recount a vignette from my days as a freestyle competitor. The location is Keystone, Colorado, the event, The Chicken of the Sea Freestyle Classic, a sponsorship coup that couldn’t have been too tough to land as Ralston Purina owned both the resort and the tuna.
I qualified via a preliminary aerial competition, taking a conservative tack by throwing a mule kick, hardly daring when going upside down was common. But my modest move was clean and hung out to dry, with a barely discernible, weightless pause at its apex.
