Back in the Boat

okay, fine. in case you didn't pick up on it from my last few columns, the truth for today is i'm living with my parents in steamboat. no, not forever! god! just for the summer. i rented out my condo in aspen to a nerdy music student from julliard who didn't even blink when i asked for a buttload of rent money, a lot more than i thought the place was worth. at least i have one valuable asset. otherwise, i'm broke as a joke and trying to get my credit cards paid down for all that stuff i bought that i can't afford over the last four years. i guess aspen finally caught up with me.

my parents live in a pretty swanky pad--a brand new house, actually, on a steep ridge overlooking the steamboat ski resort and the southern Yampa valley. my friend john hufker designed it. (he works for david johnston architects in aspen now, but did my parent's house when he was between jobs and snowboarding every day). anyhoo, he did a fabulous job and the place is sooo sweet i never want to leave. i feel like every day i am here i get one month younger, so by the time i leave in august i figure i'll be about 12. i have a deck off my room and sick-ass views. at night i can hear Burgess Creek rushing below and i can listen to the crickets sing their lullaby (so i don't even need to use the "spa sounds" on my clock radio to help me fall asleep). i can see stars, and feel the breeze tickling my skin. the last couple nights i have literally bathed in the full moon when it rose, sometime around 3 a.m. when i woke up with this big fat smile on my face. i get between 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night and have never felt better.

honestly, the best part of being up here in steamboat (besides not having to pay rent) is the escape from the trivial bullshit of my social life that really bogged me down. i wasted so much energy worrying about people and things i couldn't control. the truth is (see, i told you i'd tell the truth) i had some major wake up calls and sustained some major blows to my ego and to my heart last year that took a long time to heal. it made me realize how damn sensitive i am and how foolish i can be and how i tend to create these little fantasies and then get really upset when it comes time to face reality. it kind of sucked all around and was probably a lesson i should have learned when i was like 15, not now, but better late than never, i guess. i've found a lot of strength in focusing my energy on things i actually have control over, like finishing my book, which is my biggest goal of the summer.

i'm still writing both my columns for the aspen times and the denver post and i just got a great commercial gig writing 20 athlete bios for Red Bull which is so much fun i can't stand it. all these athletes are so cool and inspriing, like kayaker Tao Berman, mountain biker Jill Kitner, and climber/paraglider Will Gadd (who incidentally, i worked for as an intern at Rocky Mountain Sports when i was still in j-school at boulder like ten million years ago. let's just say he made going to work a lot of fun. he is very hot in a Ted Mahon kind of way, all blue eyes and freckles) then there's this kid Terry Adams, a BMX kid from louisiana who just blew me away. i think i might be in love with him. do you think 23 is too young for me?

i finally talked to my editor at the new york times about everything that happened. i alluded to it in my column, but not in detail. basically, someone who wanted to sabotage me (god only knows why, ha) wrote an anonymous letter to the editor saying i had a free seaon pass that i got for writing about aspen. of course it was total bullshit! even though NYT couldn't verify who wrote the damn letter, they said it was a violation of their ethics policy and suggested i take a "six month hiatus" because they've just had too much scandal lately (oh, boo-fucking-hoo). it was pretty upsetting, though i always felt that i was in a little over my head with them. anyhoo, my editor just quit so we could talk openly for the first time since they put the kibosh on me six months ago. this ex-editor told me things got pretty rough with freelancers. said after i got popped stringers had to fill out an extensive questionaire and be subject to screening (not sure if that involves peeing in a jar or not). i'm hoping i'll be "reactivated" eventaully, but it was good to at least talk to her and get a few things out in the open that had been weighing me down for months. i try not to think about who would do something like that, though it seems like everyone has a theory they want to share with me (and subsequently keep me up all night thinking about it).

the biggest thing in my world right now is my book. i figured this might be the last chance i'll ever have to focus on it like this, when i don't really have to think about anything else. other than the steady stream of friends visiting from aspen, i've been perfectly happy holed up with my parents and our dogs. i don't miss my social life at all and have no boys on the brain for the first time in my life. it's like my libido took a little nap (thank fucking god!) and stopped torturing me for awhile. i finally realized that being alone isn't something to be afraid of. au contraire ... it's a total fucking luxury.

i go through this every few years, though, when i feel like i want to wrap myself in a coccoon and hide so i can reemerge a butterfly.

kisses to all my friends and fans.
princes xoxoxo

here is a pic of me my old friend and sayyyrah at the Michael Franti/Spearhead show in steamboat on july 7.