Drunken reindeer games

So the blogging stuff is coming in fits and starts. Sometimes (lately, often) I just don't feel particularly inspired. Sure, there's a ton of blog fodder out there...Hillary just won't quit, the Spitzer scandal has got the media on a sex worker witch hunt but would rather titillate readers with photos and inuendo than engage in a real discussion about sex work (I'll skip the link rather than encourage them), Stephanie told Max she loves him on DOOL (but we just miss Sami)...I guess actually there isn't that much to blog about.

The warmer weather, as it does every year, is coming in fits and starts, too. And the frustrated craziness these false starts elicit in most of us (aka Spring Fever) reminds me of their time-tested cure, as applied in the Rocky Mountains--namely, to get drunk and play games.

In Yellowstone, snow-bound park and concession employees hold the "Rainier Olympics"--two beer-soaked weeks of snow-showing, skiing, and bar games--every year in February, if memory serves. The one winter I worked in the park, I won a bronze medal in fuseball, but I don't remember the last few rounds, as I was in a blackout at the time.

In Red Lodge, Montana, where I spent the following winter, there's more sporty fun in the form of ski-joring (kind of like water-skiing, but on snow instead of water, and with horses instead of boats) competitions, cheered on by bundled-up locals and tourists, most of them on the back of flat-bed pickups, passing bottles of booze back and forth. The winter I lived in Red Lodge, somebody had brought a frozen coyote (roadkill, I presume) and had stood it up on its back legs in the back up of their truck, with sunglasses on it and a chicken wing hanging out of its mouth. My dad, who was visiting me there, and was cool enough to share a bottle Dr. McGilllicuddy's with some of the local drunks, got the biggest kick out of that frozen coyote.

I'm sure that mountain towns all over the world have been holding festivals on the brink of spring to release some of that nervous energy, cheer people up a little.

Maybe even those of us who live in relatively milder climes need to let our hair down this time of year, to stave off the doldrums/depression/crazies. We tried to shake it off with a show last night (Trixie Little and the Evil Hate Monkey--cute except for a random trans-phobic punchline--why otherwise adorable and smart performers still resort to that kind of shit, I don't quite understand) at the Patterson, and an after-show round of Absinthe at our new favorite hangout, the Annabelle Lee. That little outing didn't quite do the trick, so I'm saving up for Jazz Fest (look out New Orleans!)

Hmm...shit-faced games...is this why straight dudes like the SuperBowl?