argentina makes the best snowboarders ? ...

man. nothing sucks the life blood out of a blog post like having the most promising rookie on your amateur snow sports team break his wrist in two places.

wednesday night we went snowboarding at the local red headed step son ski hill. duluth city council has banished the eyesore to somewhere near carlton so that the rest of us uppity locals don't have to accidentally rest our eyes on the mangled ediface.

but the price was right: rental and lift tickets carried a tab less numbing than the vat of ben-gay i planned to wrythe naked in the next day.

before futbol's ulna became a science project in a wing at st. luke's, the event dripped with fodder.

you could push your own wheelchair up the bunny hill. the beginner hill, however, had a steep drop off and the snow build up seemed to push my snowboard right to the ledge. one slip and i'd be making out with an entire forest at 72 miles per hour with a three foot waxed piece of plexiglass strapped to my feet before cracking my skull on the welcome sign at blackbear casino.

i love snowboarding. i'm not good at it. i tend to snowplow past the daunting grades and then whoosh around like a drunk sasha cohen near the bottom. it took me about four times before i reconnected with what i was doing, and by then i was so filled with love for the sport -- all the speed and grind and the 10 minute ride to the top of the hill ... ugh. i love snowboarding. but i'm not good at it.

jcrew was spared a concussion because she wisely opted for the retro stylings of a scrunchie. when she whapped her head into the concrete snow, the puffy hair decoration suffered the brunt of the impact. she layed in the snow -- a little discombobulated -- doing her best impersonation of a dead gerbil. her fingers seemed frozen in a claw position and she had fewer verbal skills than a 50 year old russian boxer at his retirement party.

"what if you wake up and you're retarded?" we asked her.
"or you have tourettes?" we prodded.

meanwhile, my roommate kept talking about his "edges." as in "i just gotta catch my edges. i think i'm really figuring out how to use my edges. wow, you really seem to have mastered your edges." clearly he'd googled a snowboarding dictionary, but hadn't gotten past the E's.

futbol had, by far, the best grasp of the sport. by the time jcrew and my roommate had traded in their boards for skis, he had the sport mastered. who knew that the best boarder would be the one from argentina? he had just given me a little direction at the top of the hill. his grin shimmering like an olympic medal. i had just whined "but i'm scared" and off he went into the dark night. when i got to the bottom, he was making a beeline for the ski patrol hut.

we didn't know the severity of the fall. so after a few more runs, we went to the anchor for dinner. my olive burger was the best olive burger i've ever eaten. the three short mugs of leinie's big butt were the best three short mugs of leinie's big butt ever. every song on the juke box was perfect. we had the best seats in the bar, a little alcove by the door.

i caught a tiny buzz. fresh air had dulled my tolerance. i wandered around the liquor store in wet pants trying to convince someone -- anyone -- to touch my cold ass.

then i passed out at midnight about 20 minutes into the godfather II. full, sore, happy.

around 3 a.m. i heard jcrew and futbol talking to my roommate. the funny little anecdote about his fall, the references to the ski patrol just being a bundled up version of baywatch characters, had turned grim.

days later, i've finally decided to write the post. you have to be careful about making other people a topic on your own website. shuffle board is one thing. a trip through a medical journal is another.

maybe it was the pain pills talking, but he seems in good spirits, although the entire right side of his body has been mummified. jcrew broached the topic this morning over at www.janalynn24.blogspot.com, so now i guess it is fair game. granted, she has more rights to the story since i think i heard her scribbling "sponge bath" on her mental to-do list.

"i think it would have only been in bad taste if my hand had fallen off," futbol said.

i sprinted upstairs to my apartment -- trying not to jostle my sore limbs -- and began writing:
"man. nothing sucks the life blood out of a blog post like ..."

no more nanas ...

i returned to the world a mere shell of my former being. literally. i lost six pounds after lying in bed for four days straight. it may be the way i turned sudafed, water, oatmeal and oranges into my own perverted food pyramid. or the feverish night terrors that had me tossing and turning and heaving and gasping in ways that jane fonda wishes she had invented, wrapped in leg warmers, recorded, packaged and sold. or maybe those gooey phlegm balls i hacked into my kitchen drain weigh more than i imagined.

all i know is that today i stepped on the scale and i was in a whole new genre of numbers. a happier genre. a friendlier genre. a place of whimsy and sexy jeans. a place where people finally notice me for something important -- my ass -- instead of the things i say or do or drink. i like me here. i'm much more marketable.

four days sick in bed equals two months on a treadmill. i like that math. now lets go lick some kleenixes from the dumpster behind st. luke's hospital.

so i had a bit of spring in my step as i showered and later pranced to my room to put on a pair of pants that were iffy two weeks ago.

then -- cue the sound of a needle scratching a record -- the mirror defogged in front of me.

i lost six pounds. in my boobs.

the poor little twins look emaciated. anemic and anorexic. like the braille translation of a pretty short book.

my ta-tas went toodles; my airbags deflated; i sunk my battleships; my knockers were KO'd. titties turned itty-titty teeny; the jugs are empty; the gazoongas are gaz-gone-ga; my cans, cannot; my "yeah-baby's" are merely "eh-maybe's?" my mammaries are a memory; the hooters went ka-poot. the b-52s have been shot down; the alps are easier to climb; the guns got no ammo; my headlamps burnt out.

the fun bags? not so fun anymore. i'm a little melon-choly.