vs. the mountain

Today I discovered that I have, for some time now, perhaps my entire life, secretly been a quite good skier. Who knew! My mom & I went up to Northstar at Tahoe earlier today. The universe is in league with me again, at least temporarily: I had signed up to take a group lesson, but upon arriving (a few minutes late, granted) was told that the group had departed and assigned a private instructor. Amend that: a cute 23 year-old instructor from London named Alex. Alex is a great teacher and was quite ambitious for me and after about two and a half hours of lesson, I was skiing down a black diamond slope. No falling. Quite decent turns.

Now I have come out the other side of exhaustion and am planning on a kind of non-alcoholic, non-mountainous Après-ski. It is, quite frankly, probably a terrible idea, as my body is desperately trying to convince me to pass out. But how else to see one's friends?