It's a new year and I am preparing myself for yet another family vacation. This will be different - my brother and sister are not coming. Papa Peeples, Mama Peeples, and me.

I wake up in darkness.

get ready.

We drive to the airport; it's a smooth trip segemented by a brief conversation with a police officer about being late and what constitutes a valid excuse for breaking traffic laws. No citation.

fly with family friends.

Denver, CO. It's beautiful here. Snow has been falling constantly, like a one-legged gymnist in a floor routine. An avalanche blocks our direct path to the resort; we have to go around (please add 2 hours to your trip). I assume control of the ipod-radio. The Doobie Brothers welcome us to Winter Park. It's cold and white. A blizzard blankets the mountain in confectioners sugar and I'm the donut that's about to get rolled around in it.

1/6 - we leave and arrive

I wake up in daybed.

At a sultry 12 below 0 F we hop in a ski lift. This ski lift hated mornings, Floridians, and moving more than 4 yards without resting for 5 minutes. I had never considered the worst place to be stuck in -12 degree weather. Now I don't have to. We make it off and slide down a mountain (after waiting for so long to get up) on wooden splinters. We repeat this behavior periodically modifying our garb to maximize modesty/warmth.

lunch time.

With a scenic view of cold people and snow we eat overpriced food. Why did I order a Thai dish with duck at a restaurant which not only employed no Asian workers but had never seen an Asian? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that sauce was ketchup based. We continue skiing.

chapter2 "Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow."

It is high time I go off on my own. I hit the moguls on a black diamond called "Columbine". I go back up the lift with a man from Miami who likes to have sex with "stupid chicks" - we haven't kept in touch. I choose a slope called "Eidelweiss". I go with the gusto that not skiing since you were eleven gives you. Picking up speed I spot a mound of snow some kind person has fashioned at the edge of the trail. Quickly I redirect. I plot my course: a jawdropping jump followed by a quick cut left, shoot through a patch of trees and drop down a snow wall back to the slope. I go, I jump, I begin turning, I stop to inspect a sturdy evergreen.

While lying in the snow like an abandoned G.I. Joe I have time to reflect: "my I hit that tree forcefully. I suspect I have broken my arm. Wait... yep that's broken."

It doesn't hurt too horribly at this point. I gather my poles (my skis stayed on some how). No one is really around. Why wait? I use the poles to hold my shattered elbow at a 90 degree angle while I ski down the rest of the mountain hoping that I don't fall and that no jackass snowboarder cuts me off. At a flat part I have to take my skis off and carry them with my poles in my left hand while my broken right arm dangles at my side. I approach a ski station at the bottom of the mountain.

"Excuse me"

"yep?"

"Where do you go for a broken arm?"

"do you have a broken arm?"

"I think so."

resting his arm on his apparently operational snowmobile.

"there's a clinic just over that hump behind the lift."

"thanks."

1/7 - comminuted fracture of the proximal ulna

surgery required.

I have a stainless steal plate in my arm now and typing this hurts suprisingly bad. I should probably ask the physical therapist (who I start seeing tomorrow) if typing's okay.

REFLECT