I’m having trouble lifting my left arm over my head right now. And checking my blind spot is as much a contortion as Ardha-Matsyendrasana and the other 25 spine-tweaking positions of Bikram Yoga. I feel as if I spent all of yesterday with Bob and Jillian of the “Biggest Loser” after a life of dormancy.

My ass hurts too.

But I was not working out, I was falling down a mountain. Some people call what I was doing snowboarding, I call it face planting.

Snow sports have always been something I am good at. I started ice skating seriously around the age of five, picked up a hockey stick shortly after and have been skiing even longer. I don’t fall, much, and I figured I could pick up a new sport easily.

And so, when my roommate Sam invited me along for a trip to the mountains, I declared that I would try snowboarding. I strapped the board to my comfy boots as I had seen other “cooler” people do before.

I think the night before I even dreamt about hitting the halfpipe and cruising down powdery slopes like a total badass out of a Warren Miller flick.

None of that happened of course.

Just as the lifts were opening, Sam, his friend Nick and I loaded a chair to the top of Copper Mountain. I found a way to get off the lift without falling, but that was the end of my luck. I started down a blue slope, something I might ski with my eyes closed. Not today.

I shook with fear, clueless about what I was doing. Sweat, dripped down my back awakening me to my horrifying reality. The frat-boy confidence evaporated before I could even say face plant.

I turned left, happy to see that I could at least slightly maneuver my death sled. Shifting my weight from front foot to back foot, something went terribly wrong. A sound like paper shredding echoed in my ear and then a large thump.

My goggles, once around my eyes, choked my neck now. They were filled with snow and I felt a small ache as I pulled myself from the snowy crater my body had just created.

The aches got worse of course, once I spat at the ground just making sure I hadn’t broken a tooth or started to bleed.

My final run before lunch, I called it quits. I was sick of falling and so I did something I never imagined myself doing. I unstrapped my board and dragged it halfway down the mountain. Limping into the pro-shop, I asked for skis.

I am glad I gave snowboarding a shot, but my body is surely regretting the decision.

While writing about yesterday’s falling fiasco I sit in a coffee shop across from a Tires Plus where my car is getting a free oil change, compliments of Craigslist. Some woman was selling a promotional coupon for $5 and now my car won’t get stranded somewhere between here and Kansas on my drive to my next city. If you haven’t voted, please do so here.

For now, I hope coffee and a bagel will energize my body to heal quickly. I am having trouble sitting on the toilet.

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