The Beast Within Reemerges

 For the first time in a little while I enjoyed geographically where I was this morning. I couldn't sleep - the great outdoors was calling me. As I lay in bed this morning, wrestling with strange dreams and being half awake thinking, I forced myself out of my intermediary sleep and began dwelling on what I should do for the day. It dawned on me that the best way to fight my sleeplessness would be to go snowboarding tonight after work. Even a bit of exercise in the morning, which I had plenty of time for, being wide awake just after 6am, would not combat the hours of drinking and standing around tonight, and honestly, I'm just tired of my eyes being puffy and sleepy. Time to be me again.

I'm a morning person. I love being out and about in town, feeling the crisp cold air on my warm face, radiating warmth from within after a hot cup of tea, a few push ups, and a shower. The snow pants also help. I gathered together everything I would need for night riding, it being much much easier to carry lighter-weight snowboarding boots and my snowboard down into town, put my jeans in my bag and decked myself out in my black ski pants, matching perfectly with the black tank top and button-down shirt. The black knit Roxy hat just topped it off perfectly, as would have my grey ski boots and black and white skis... but I daydream. There's no skiing for me today, just glancing up at the misty mountains, the waning nearly full moon drifting back behind the Skyline Gondola complex, yielding its spotlight to the lazily rising sun.

I felt the energy I had so lacked the last week or two - night time energy is difficult for me to procure, which is why I was glad I had it last week, but this week is a bit different. Carrying my board down into town and hearing the swish of my pants, knowing that while everyone else was freezing in the -4C weather, I was more content than I ever have been walking down to work. As soon as I got to the third floor of the Mountaineer Building I unlocked the front door with my master key, cleverly labeled 'full access,' and stashed my board down behind the table in the room outside the server room, hoping to hide it from Charlotte more than anyone. I placed my boots inconspicuously underneath the board and put the rest of my gear under my desk. Time to get the mail, and time to start my day.

Skipping straight ahead to ending my work day, none of us really got much done in the last few hours of the afternoon – even the phones were quiet but I was there to answer them. I reconciled most of the Underground Coffee accounts, did my Cinderella duties, and packed up boxes of old invoices and cash-ups to be brought out to the warehouse.

“It's 4:45,” I said to James as I my feet landed on the soft cream colored carpet in the executive office suite. I was already decked out in my ski pants, knee pads, thermals and ski shirt.

We said our goodbyes at the office and checked to see if anyone else was going to join us for our pre-5pm $4 Kilkenny date then headed straight to the pub. Five minutes to spare. Sweet. The first few sips of the frothy, creamy head of the Kilkenny were the sweetest, most delicious sensation, as if the entire essence of the feeling of finishing a work week on a Friday could be summed up in one smooth, gentle taste.

After Tom arrived I had already finished most of my beer and he had gotten me another one; it's such a delightful feeling to start drinking on a relatively empty stomach. Just after 5:30pm I headed back up to the office to get my boots on and grab my board. I got on the bus around 5:50pm and we set off about 15 minutes later. With a drunken smile I listened to some music, put my head back and closed my eyes.

I took three really good runs, riding switch, not caring if I fell, stacking and rolling back onto my feet again, and then met up with Giana and got a ride back to the office. I changed my clothes and headed to Harry's, where I ordered a water and sipped it half-asleep at the bar. I chatted with Gaz for a bit and then sat alone, zoning out in my post drunken post riding peacefulness, until Edward from Brazil came up and asked me why I was alone. Little did he know that I was surrounded by friends – Nat was there of course, Greg and Adam were in the bar, and I was just relaxing and chilling out. Still, I think he fancied me and bought me a beer and invited me to come over and play pool.

I did a bit of a douchebag thing to Edward, and while I definitely did take some time to chat with him, I wasn't quite feeling the right vibe and spent most of the time talking to his friend James, a pommy fellow who teaches at one of the English Language schools. A lot of his past and present students were hanging out with the group playing pool. I met Satsuki from Japan, who had just passed an exam, Luca from Italy, who couldn't keep the cue ball on the table and asked me to explain my sarcasm to him several times because he couldn't get past the language barrier, and another young man whose name I forgot from Saudi Arabia. I chatted with James for quite some time and after he left with his snowboard and all sorts of gear to walk a half an hour up past where I live and even farther up the hill, I was talking with Luca for a while, and then with the Saudi Arabian guy. Luca skis back in Europe and does a bit of race training here; it would be really nice to get to ski with him at some point so I got his number. I was talking with the Saudi Arabian chap about the middle east and he was telling me that the big cities are definitely tourist friendly, especially Dubai, and that it's ok for women to travel alone. He also said I would quite like Egypt. I agree I could go alone, but I would have to be careful, especially of cultural differences. He says there are no bars in Saudi Arabia, and the weather recently got up to a record 65C! How is that even possible??

After chatting for a while I excused myself to use the bathroom and then went back to Giana who had just ordered a pizza and offered me a few slices. The ingredients on the pizzas in this town are just such gourmet quality – the pizza at Harry's is California style, like most places around here, including Winnie's and Cow Lane Pizza. There was some sort of sausage that was spicy and flavorful without being greasy or fatty.

I grabbed some waters for me and Giana and sat and relaxed by the fire a while. She was socializing with Claudia, Greg, a lady named Katie that I met, and a few other people I never actually got introduced to. They were going to Barmuda so I followed them over, but though I wanted to hang out with Giana, I lost my energy when I got to Barmuda, and didn't feel the right vibe. Chris was there, and I recognized one of the bartenders as someone who had been up to the office. I also saw Will, Nigel's friend from work, who told me that he was showing his family the YouTube video, which made me quite happy to hear.

Giana was nice enough to have gotten me a red bull when I told her I was losing my energy, but it wasn't really enough to boost me back up. I put my coat on when I thought I heard they were moving on to Bardeaux, but apparently they had intended to stay at Barmuda longer. The place was packed, much to our satisfaction, mostly with a group of people who seemed to be dressed either like they belonged in Alice in Wonderland or a deck of cards – I couldn't be sure. There was a hot Indian-looking girl who was dressed as a bunny, very sexy, and some other men in tuxes and top hats and women in sexy costumes.

I guess I must tend to stand in bad places, or just get grumpy when I'm tired, but I don't care if you're a rich bitch or a drunk sloppy 18 year old backpacker, but I really hate getting pushed and bumped into at clubs. I could tell I was done for the night, and could definitely relate to what Iain always says about it not being good to be out when you're on bad form, so I excused myself and told Giana I would head over to Bardeaux later, but I needed to chill out for a while.

I headed straight to Revolver, hoping some thumping house music and a change of scenery would wake me up, but alas it did not, and the back area was already closed down. I did achieve the second objective while at Revolver, which was to test out their NY-style pizza. They only had pepperoni but that was ok – it wasn't the freshest at 1am, but it was still NY style, and they did have parmesan cheese and chili flakes to sprinkle on it, and a leather couch to relax on, so I was quite content. I'll have to try it another time though, when the hot cheese is dribbling off the sauce and the dough is chewy and warm. Mmm... NYC pizza...

I went back to the office to grab my bag, and honestly didn't even have enough energy to go back to say goodnight to Nat. It may have been bad karma, since I did sneak a sip of gin, which I mixed with a little tonic water in the fridge, from the top of the fridge at work when I had stopped in earlier. I sent Giana a text saying my head was hurting from my over-exhaustion and made my way up the hill back home for the night, looking forward to skiing the next day.