The boy is back in town. Depressing though it is, I’m in sufficient pain to also be somewhat relieved that the fun is over. I was skiing in Maine this week (it’s a tough life), hitting top speeds of hundreds of miles an hour, flying down steep hills, nearly out of control, sometimes completely out of control, a human-shaped cannonball. I was reckless, and it was fun. Four full days, waking in pain at seven a.m., brewing coffee, scrambling eggs and sizzling bacon — trying to lure the others awake. Then out to the slopes, and out of control. I get excited like a kid out there, and people get scared when they see me coming. But really, I’ve got sufficient control most of the time, even on the hardest double diamonds that I have no business being on (and feel drawn to as if the steeper it is, the stronger its gravitational pull — with me at the mercy of physics). I wiped out a few times, sure. But then on the fifth day when we were planning to ski until noon before getting on the road for our eight hour drive home did I have my greatest fall. The mountain was cold, bitter cold, and overnight the snow had hardened up until it was nearly like skiing down ice. I led the way, just me and one other die-hard, our first run, and turned down a trail called Hay Burner. It was steep and I was out of control, giggling madly, my eyes bugging. I thought the steep would level out, but it didn’t, and over every lip the mountain seemed to get steeper. And I realized that I was moving so fast, and the hill was so steep, and the cover was so crusty, that slowing down was a very difficult, nearly impossible proposition. I tried, but I must have been moving a thousand miles an hour by this point. So when I went down (hard), I couldn’t stop rolling and sliding for at least a hundred yards. It was awesome. Except that my ski binding broke (it was a rental), and the lady who brought my ski to me from way up the hill gave me a lecture on safe skiing. I didn’t want a lecture, but her words, “You were obviously out of control” were too true to deny. Oh well. Then she skiied to my friend waiting far below (a lieutenant in the FDNY) and gave him a lecture about my skiing. The hill was too steep to walk down easily, so I decided to slide on my ass, and that was a mistake because I couldn’t stop, and nearly bowled this lecturing lady over, the human-shaped cannonball that I am, and missed her by an inch, and finally came to a stop, covered in snow like a sasquatch and realized that I had a long way to walk before I’d be down the mountain. I laughed and told my friend, “See you later,” and started the long walk. It was a great trip.