It’s drawing to a close. Birthday week. Like my mother, I shy away from birthdays. LOOOVE the presents and the cards but hate that the day really signifies a marking of another year down the tubes, another year older. I did a good job this week of ignoring the whole thing. Aside from bowling with Sage and Ryan on Wednesday, it was fairly low key. I skied a sick powder day last Friday, rode my mtn bike for the first time all season, procrastinated on a story deadline, said goodbye to Bonnie as she packed up for a Tahoe summer and, oh yeah, ran into Kristen. First time all season. Truth be told I rarely thought of her or missed her so it gave me a little pause and jump when Louie noticed her in the tram line. I turned my back immediately.
The beeatch ( 😉 ) showed what kind of friend she was last July so there was really no need to pretend she was worth a look. It basically came down to a phone relationship where- for the most part-we chatted, or better, I listened to her hyperbolize about everything in her life and occasionally she would listen to my stories- especially if they involved gossip on someone we knew.
When we hung up I often felt vulnerable and rejected because the conversations were 9/10 about her, then she “had to go.” That gets super old, super fast. In her head, her life is so much grander than everyone else’s. Who wouldn’t want to sit and listen to her? A mutual friend once coined the phrase “Enough about you, let’s talk about me” to describe Kristen. Those who don’t know her well tend to hang on her every word thinking, “WOw, she is so cool, wish I could be like that.” But I privately rolled my eyes and thought, “here we go again.” Everything is ‘the best’, ‘the worst’, ‘the scariest’, ‘the most tragic.’ Normal things happen to her but she makes such a big deal out of them and is such a fantasticly descriptive storyteller that people raise her like an idol. Phooey. She’s married to a parttime engineer from a small Montana town who spends his free time in ‘man class’ to learn to be in touch with his feelings, she has a chronically sick cat, she owns a couple of rentals and teaches a ski clinic. Not really glamourous when you lay it out like that, is it? After a while the magic wears off and you’re left with a self-absorbed princess with a fairly ordinary life who tries soooo hard to do extreme things so she’s not ‘ordinary’. Don’t get me wrong. This is some of the pot calling the kettle black but I own my shit. She truly believes she’s a compassionate human being.
So, back to running into her. I didn’t actually. Not once did I look her way. Instead I chatted with KJ who kept trying to get me to talk about her and what went down. I just didn’t want to get into it. I think KJ liked hearing me bitch about Kristen. She must have dissed him at some point. He also hears Lou boast about her – like he’s cool by association- and gets that vibe that Kristen isn’t all that.
She told Lou she was going to say hi to me (I learned later). At the top of the tram, I was about to take off toward Little Cloud when she skated in front of me- “Is that Jill?” she coyly exclaimed and looked me goggle to goggle with a curious head tilt. I gave her a quick “WhatEver” head jerk then skied away. I didn’t even hesitate. I’ll be damned if I give her anything -even a hello. She couldn’t see a way past herself to be a better friend when her friend is diagnosed with cancer, why should she think I’d want anything to do with her now? WE never saw her again.
I can only fantasize that she skied home crying. Tee hee. But I’m not bitter. She’s just not the person I hoped she’d become and I’m not the person who has time anymore to be someone’s fan just so I can say we’re best buds.
Lou told me for Karma’s sake that I should at least say hi. Karma is what she’s getting. Nice test. Like the chick who runs into her ex-boyfriend and feels nothing, it’s good to know I’m fine.
At the time of my diagnosis, she was getting ready for her wedding so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Yes, marriage can be all-consuming and hard to consider anything or anyone else. You would think cancer is like that too. But I rallied. I wasn’t going to miss her wedding even with surgery the week before and a head filled with dread and drama. I was going to be there for her and stand up at her wedding. And they didn’t even have food (seriously, I packed my own Tater Tots) or a sweet wedding cake!
But after the wedding, she still didn’t have it in her to step up and be there for me. Yes, you can still hear the bitterness in my voice. But it’s not because of some simple ego punch. The whole thing will probably always bother me because she put it back on me. Like I made up her obnoxious behavior so I could have someone or something to be angry at. I hate when people do that. You question your sanity when they deny. I dated a guy once who invited me to a party, said he would call me with a time to meet, never called and then acted surprised when I was angry with him for blowing me off. He said I told him that I would call and not the other way around. I actually wondered if I had but then he twisted other things up constantly that I knew he was full of shit and I wasn’t crazy.
I know what I know.
I know that it’s been nearly a year since the diagnosis and treatment and NOT ONCE did she reach out- after 14 years of friendship. I know that NOT ONCE did she admit that her behaviour was out of line or at least in poor judgement. Even if she did, it wouldn’t change things. They would be words. Her actions have always shown a lack of authentic compassion.
Ok, I’ve documented the moment. It’s out there and I had that experience I wondered about and played out in my head. How would I react if I ran into Kristen? My response was brief and awkward but it got the job done. It said you’re no one to me, now get out of my way! 🙂

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YUP. I was right. A good win (or three) definitely makes a difference. I’m happy- no, ecstatic- tonight. Just got home from the Mountain Town Stages benefit $287 lighter and two glasses of wine drunker. Great night. But my $10 in raffle tickets netted me $25 to El Chubasco, $10 to Granny’s Drive-in, $5 to Kneaders. I won $500 in house painting for $125, $110 in dog poop removal for $47, $700 in headshots (includes makeup and stylist, 4 looks and 3 locations) for $80, and $267 in bike tuning, tanning, and 3-month membership to Park City Racquet Club for $25. Can you say “SCORE”??? Anyone want 5 tanning bed sessions? 😉
This evening simply capped off one of those killer Saturdays. Dropped Sage with a sitter, shared coffee and morning sex with Ryan at 10 a.m., picked up Sage and let her play in the bounce houses at Brighton for their end of season Beach Bash before cruising to the Benefit. Ah, the perfect spring weekend. Tomorrow we close out Park City Mountain Resort with Sage on the slopes and a spin on the Alpine Coaster before grazing the tailgaters in the First Time parking lot. You can count on them blossoming everywhere after noon. And so another season at Park City comes to a close.

I need to win something. I always feel better when I win something. For some reason, all day today I’ve been grumpy; feeling like I’m a failure- ok, well that’s too harsh. Just feeling unsatisfied and like I’ve messed up big time. You know how you would feel if you got a C and were hiding it from your parents? Or you found out that the super cute guy who acted like he liked you really doesn’t even know your name? Sage is fine, my health is fine, I skied powder today and had great afternoon sex when I got back.
PMS! Trouble is, I haven’t had my period in months thanks to the chemo and Tamoxifen. My doc says it’ll come back but maybe not until I’m done with the drugs…IN FIVE YEARS. My body must be faking me out. Talk about lame. All of the symptoms without the relief. So I need to win something. It helps me feel fortunate, excited, alive. I’ve won all expense paid trips (the most memorable was a trip for two including airfare to Vail and the Teva Mountain Games. My trip to Boston for the Dating Game doesn’t count cause the guy was icky), gear (backpacks, sleeping bags, sweaters, shoes, skis), a kayak, a car rack system, lift tickets, hotel stays. I’ve even won writing awards. Ryan jokes that I’m the luckiest person he knows. Sigh. So why can’t I feel lucky? It’s got to be hormones because – aside from completely missing my massage appointment today- I haven’t done anything wrong; not even scoring a parking ticket. You know what the next best thing to winning something is? Sleeping!
Off I go now. Toodles.

I think I may have just experienced the lamest non-accidental thing of the year. Imagine you won a super cool item in a raffle; a prize you had no idea you could win but also something you really wanted. You got to keep it for 30 minutes, then they take it back. That’s exactly what happened to Sage and me today. Some Denver organization set up a booth at SIA to welcome newcomers to the city and offer a hub where we could find out about the SIA parties and about the various manufacturers gifting swag on the show floor. They had also set up a white elephant swag exchange- you bring something you collected at the show and pick a box from their pile. Some of the boxes contained the regifted swag- a keychain, a hat, a T-shirt; others, have real prizes like an messenger bag. We traded in a ballpoint pen from PolarMax and I opened a box with a wood percussion instrument in it. I was fine with that and was ready to leave but Sage was about to throw a tantrum- she didn’t want it for some reason and was refusing to leave or calm down unless you got to try again- so they let her turn it in for a shot at a box of her own. There were no age rules and plenty of people came by together with each getting a shot at something.
She picked a box with a block in it. At first I thought this was a booby prize. But I turned it over and it said “iPod Touch”. OMG I couldn’t believe how cool this was. They made we wait so they could grab it from a cabinet then took a picture of me holding it. I thought it was because they wanted to post me as some kind of winner. Only then was I informed that they were going to post my photo on the web and tell people to find me and ‘steal’ the iPod. Talk about your crappy ideas of fun. Seriously? I would have to spend the rest of my day looking for stalkers over a prize that might not be mine? You could go back to your hotel and hide, the dude offered. I had meetings to attend, work to do and a three-year-old in tow! I should have handed the iPod right back to him and said no thanks. But then when he told me the other winners were never ‘found’; I thought who was going to spend an hour chasing me down – killing my afternoon and theirs? Some skinny ass kid with no life; that’s who. I was an easy target. I had a rambunctious preschooler and a giant stroller with me. No way to ditch those.
This stick figure comes up to me asking if I’m the “iPod lady” at about 5:40 p.m. I put on my best acting face, look confused and say, “uh, what?” My interview at Klymet tells him we’re in a meeting and he leaves. He honestly bought it. I think I’m clear. Turns out that at 6 he goes back to the “Underground Concierge” and whines about thinking he found me. So they all go back to where I was (and still am) and take my iPod….at 6:10. Ten minutes after the ‘game’ is supposed to end. See at 6 I thought I was home free. Jokes on me. As they leave, Sage starts crying because someone has taken her prize. I almost cried too. I couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t just say “never mind, keep it” or have a second iPod to give to the guy who found me so that they didn’t have to mess with my day and experience and we could both be winners.
That’s not a white elephant exchange btw. A white elephant is an exchange of a odd gift for another odd gift of equal value. What the company did was modify the rules on a regular gift exchange. You pick something, someone else can take it and you have the option of picking an unwrapped gift from the pile or taking someone else’s. But here, I couldn’t touch any of the already open boxes and take an iPod away from one of the earlier winners. 🙁
The guy running the event told me I could come to the booth and pick out another box. Why? So I could get a keychain and feel even worse? Talk about your insult to injury. Ok, so I’m a bad sport. But, I’m sorry. You don’t act all excited for someone winning a cool gift only to take it away from them (without telling them the plan ahead of time) or make them spend the afternoon stressed about some stupid ‘game’ when they have work to do. I was an idiot to think I was actually going to be able to keep the iPod. That’s the worst part of it. Getting my hopes up. Guess I’ll have to go back to begging Santa for a iTouch.