When is that novel going to get written? Will it write itself? Shit. Will someone else write it?
Where do the leftover Cadbury Eggs go in May? The landfill? Or is there a warehouse somewhere?
Is it heroism or cowardice to eschew post-war values and retire/expatriate/flee to some third world beach community?
Was I rude to that barista? I didn’t mean to be, but maybe I was? Should I go apologize? What if I wasn’t rude? Then is it weird for me to go back? Maybe I’ll just tip extra? But what if she doesn’t see? If you tip extra by way of apology, but the extra tip goes unnoticed, does it count as apology?
What does the dog think of me, really?
Did I blow it?
What’s that sound?
In a decade what will I regret? What does it say that I’m motivated by hypothetical future-regret? Is that a Millennial thing? Did Instagram do that?
Are we all, unwittingly, together, careening toward a post-enlightenment serf society where wealth is concentrated not among those who own the means of production, but rather the means of automation? Where robot workers and a ballooning population conspire to render a human workforce obsolete, and in our lifetimes we see a worldwide Basic Minimum Income simply for the fact that we at least need some money to keep handing to Jeff Bezos? Or that eventually our (humanity, remember) utility to Captains of Industry will extend beyond their ability to profit from us, and that eventually, in the face of waning natural resources, our only value will be life itself? That our very life energy will be mined to keep the server banks running? And that to avoid a worldwide Socialist/Humanist uprising these Captains of Industry will derive a means to simulate the human experience itself and breed complacency? Or oh shit that that’s already happened? And hang on isn’t that kind of whatThe Matrix is about but even so wtf?
Is that a cavity?
Is the fact that everything has more or less worked out so far evidence that it will continue to do so?
Food is the best, isn’t it? I could eat every day and never get sick of it, which is great because there really are a lot of options out there. Yesterday I had sushi for lunch and saag paneer for dinner. For breakfast today I think maybe I’ll have huevos rancheros, and then tonight? Boom! Tonight is paella night.
Here we are – we live in a world where we can have Japanese, Indian, Mexican, and Spanish meals in a 36 hour span. We are worldly people in a globalized economy. Who even has time to eat American food anymore?
Wait. What is American food?
Excepting, out of good taste, esoteric curiosities like cream-of-mushroom hot dish and Jello salad, there isn’t really a uniquely American cuisine. What we think of as “American” foods are either culinary heirlooms like hamburgers, hot dogs, and french fries, or so banal as to be ubiquitous. Try chasing the true heritage of the grilled cheese sandwich.
Of course immigrant communities have been making do here for three hundred years, and that’s kind of American. Cioppino is, I suppose, technically American: it grew in the Italian fish mongering communities of San Francisco. Pizza is also essentially Italian, but a street vendor in Naples wouldn’t recognize a slice of Chicago deep dish.
The closest we come to truly American cuisine is in the Mississippi River Delta. Creole food is a triumph of innovation, applying French techniques to slave-trade flavors. The subtle, centuries old, provenance-based distinctions between Creole and Cajun foods further endorse Louisiana cuisine as the standard bearer for an America that still refuses to come to grips with its slaver’s heritage.
American food.
But even without putting our finger on a single dish that typifies American food, there are trends that stand out. Food in this country reflects the diversity of our past, sure, but national boundaries have been porous to ingredients and techniques for a lot longer than we’ve been around. The tomato is native to Bolivia and Peru, but it’s hard to imagine Italian food without it. Pretty much everyone came up with booze.
Really, when we think of American food, we think less of specific dishes than we do the brands that sell them. What’s more American than McDonald’s? Our contribution to the culinary lexicon has, in general, not been a new dish or flavor profile, but the industrialization of the foodmaking process.
Hamburgers are not American, but McDonald’s sure is. Pizza is not American, but Domino’s is. I can’t be sure about P.F. Chang’s, but I don’t think it’s Chinese. The real American food? Texturized Vegetable Protein and Roundup Ready Corn.
Chicken nuggets.
Yes. We’ve done it now. Chicken nuggets are uniquely American. Hormone injected chickens, penned en masse and force fed genetically modified corn (and previous chickens), peeled, liquefied, and molded into homogeneous pucks, breaded, frozen, bagged, boxed and shipped with neatly vacuum sealed freezer packs of corn syrup dipping sauce right to your door (not Prime eligible) just in time for dinner.
The last week has been rough. Like, I think, a lot of the people who knew Ben Parsons I’ve spent the past few days shuffling through the grieving process and hoping to land on something like gratitude. Parsons was a rare beast; we were lucky to catch a glimpse.
Ben lived a beautiful kind of paradox. He managed to possess all at once those traits that endear us to each other, but that tend to be mutually exclusive. He was simultaneously gregarious and humble, hilarious and kind.
On Sunday hundreds of people walked together to the top of Big Mountain to share a moment of silence. Hundreds more sent thoughts and prayers from around the world and made it clear that Ben touched countless lives.
But what truly set Ben apart was that those hundreds of people also touched him. Over the last few days we’ve heard stories and shared memories. The common chorus is a reflection on how important family, friends, community were to Ben. Each person hurting now knows not only that he was important to us, but that we meant every bit as much to him.
Ben was willing, like no one else I’ve known, to let the world in. To actually care for everyone around him. To let each of us touch and change him the way he challenged us and improved every one of our lives. Ben’s rareness, his uniqueness, was in his unmatched capacity to love.
This is as much at the center of our loss as it is to his legacy and lasting influence. We can all strive to live and love a bit more like Ben.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The leaves have fallen, sweaters are banal, and pumpkin spice lattes are finally on the way out. Santa Baby haunts your local FM radio. You can simply exist without sweating through your underwear. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s ski season.
But it’s not quite that simple. Ski season is not binary. It is a process that each of us goes through once a year, and like any good story has a clear beginning, middle, and end. In fact the story arc of ski season can be summed up in five distinct stages.
Stage 1 – The Stoke
This is the time when you pore over Unofficial Networks for the first reports of snow on Beartooth Pass or Big Sky or Mount Hood. You spend hours comparing flex and sidecut profiles to pick your quiver for the season. You cook breakfast in your ski boots for no reason whatsoever. You watch and rewatch the best ski movies ever made. You pour a little out and maybe cry a bit for Shane, Liz, J.P., and the others. Your focus is singular: all you want to do is ski.
The Stoke might come during a really smokey July, or when the first dusting of snow settles on the horizon. It can last for months. A few hopeless addicts never lose it. But for most of us, this is the time we’re most excited to ski, and it comes before we ever step into our bindings. The Stoke is all about anticipation.
It is pretty great.
Stage 2 – The Junk Show
Here it is. You bided your time, and now you’re ready to get out there. Of course this is when it all falls apart. Sure, you had all summer to get those core shots fixed, and to replace that broken boot buckle, and to sew the giant gash in your skins. You had plenty of time to replace the batteries in your transceiver. But you didn’t.
You waited until the first day of skiing to remember that your boots, skis, poles, skins, shovel, probe, beeper, goggles, hats, gloves, buffs, good socks, and long underwear are scattered across storage units, closets, and Subarus in three different states. You may wake up on the first day of the season and realize you don’t have any idea where your skis are.
Rest assured that you’re not alone. You can count on someone in your group forgetting poles, skins, or boots on the first day out. It happens. The Junk Show is an essential part of ski season, and serves an important role.
When the group is barely capable of forward locomotion, it keeps the expectations low. It lets you move slowly and laugh and think about the snow. To dig around and get a feel for how the season’s snowpack is setting up. This is a good thing. Embrace it. The skiing isn’t any good right now and it might just save your life. This is also when you find that twenty bucks in your ski pants from last year, so, bonus.
There’s skiing up there, I swear. I saw it on Instagram. PC: John Curry
Stage 3 – The Honeymoon
It’s on now. This is when you hear the most about skiing in public (during The Stoke most people tend to be more private). Stinky ski pants are common fare at the brewery during the Honeymoon, and some folks are starting to get goggle tans. It’s mid season and the skiing is pretty good. People still don’t hate shoveling out their cars and on a good day you can get away with skipping work.
Early morning alarms are still exciting, and the days are still short enough that you can ski dark to dark and still spell your name when you’re done. Any dilettante will tell you that The Honeymoon is the best part of ski season.
Stage 4 – The Sweet Spot
But you know better. The Honeymoon is great, but later in the year the storms hit harder, the snowpack is deeper, and stability gets better every day. At the same time that your neighbor starts tuning up her mountain bike, you’re still leaving the house early and coming home late. The best time to ski is after most people are burned out.
Your friends spend this time building their stoke for summer. Meanwhile you’re skiing steep couloirs and improbable pow days in solitude. Enjoy it. These are the best days. The Sweet Spot is yours and you earned it. Don’t forget to wear sunscreen.
Stage 5 – The Icarus Gambit
Of course all good things come to an end. Too often we don’t know how far we can push it until waxen wings melt in the sun and we plummet to our deaths, or something. Did you just spend seven hours walking on dry dirt to ski like 300 vertical feet? Are your skins caked in mud? Are you wearing only running shorts and a cowboy hat? Maybe it’s time to hang ’em up. Some people will try to convince you that skiing is a year round pursuit. Those people either a) go skiing for a living or b) are unreceptive of reason.
Skiing is great, but so are a lot of other things. Go for a bike ride. Drink a mint julep. Plant a garden or something. And for Chrissake put all your ski gear away in the same spot.
It’s that time of year. The days are short, the nights are cold, and you just keep braising things. You sold the bike to make room for the wax bench. You bought a pass (or didn’t, whatever). For some reason your new goggles have a speedometer that talks to your phone. You’re ready for winter.
Looks like ski season to me.
But is winter ready for you? That’s the question. Is it ski season yet? How can you know?
Look Outside – Are the mountains brown? If so, maybe just settle for another pot of hot cocoa.
Check Instagram – The surest way to know if anyone is skiing anywhere near you is to check Instagram. This early in the year, you can bet that a single day of mediocre touring will yield dozens of chipper social media posts about early rising birds and worms and “the goods.” Be aware that Instagram should inform the earliest bracketing of ski season, and photos of skiing on the internet do not necessarily mean you should get out there. Beware of nostalgic posts from last year!
Consult the Roof Racks – If you’re still seeing a lot of bikes up there, it’s probably not ski season yet. When you start seeing snowboards, it’s time to think snow, but maybe not head out quite yet. Downhill skis on the roof mean it’s probably ready for you to get out there, and tele skis mean green light. Once you see nordic skis, it’s full on.
Ask Blake – He’ll know. Or, if you don’t know Blake, ask someone else. Chances are, you know someone without a real job or any kind of prospect, who just skis a lot. Just as likely, that person has been out already, regardless of whether or not it’s actually ski season. Ask that person. Then use this handy decoder to figure out how the skiing actually was.
Reference the Data – If you’re really curious about mountain snow accumulation, you’ll do well to consult the vast network of remote sensing data supplied by the good people at the Natural Resource Conservation Service. Deep in the SNOTEL database you’ll find a wealth of valuable climate information. Information so valuable, apparently, that the minds at our USDA have seen fit to bury it like treasure. Treasure that they hope is never found. The end-user interface of the SNOTEL service has about as much polish as a third place third grade science fair entry, but if you’re patient you’ll find some really good stuff in there.
This is definitely from this year. Definitely.
Go Up There – I know, it sounds crazy. But give it a shot. Just go up there and look around. Maybe it’ll be a winter wonderland, and maybe it won’t. At the very least you’ll go for a walk, and that’s not all bad. Don’t forget to bring good snacks.
