Upon not entirely close inspection it would appear that my ego has a propensity for feeling like a hero, it's a thrill that I haven't been able to shake since I discovered that extroversion could be a game...
...and I know that I'm compensating for never having been pretty or lithe enough to be a princess, but I have no urge for fragility anymore...
...and on days like today I like feeling like a fucking hero to a circle of adoring four-to-nine year old girls who were all learning to dance the Charleston with me in skiboots.
We had a whole circle going and in between shouts of "Regarde ses cheveux! Sont ben droles!" and in between adoring hugs and the discovery that I now have the leg strength to parade around and pretend as though I haven't noticed that there are two little girls clinging to my thighs and standing on the toes of my boots....
I still have the sun in my cheeks, and my hair is that bright, bright, windblown fuschia to match.
So Belle Neige is a teeny little ski hill, the double-diamond runs take all of four minutes to complete and wreak havoc with your cardiovascular because your heartbeat's slowed down again by the time you make it back up (even if the guy manning the lifts has a crush on you and lets you butt in line for the high-speed quad), but we had a fun mornign of tearing up the slopes and chasing down snowboarders.
I even caught a few and hugged them.
And the weather was stupendous, dancing to the surprisingly good soundtrack this week had me so overheated that I spent the afternoon in a t-shirt, un-gothing my forearms.
Although, collapsing to the snow in exhaustion in a t-shirt is possibly one of the stupider things that I have a tendancy of doing.
And I managed to catch snippets of sleep here and there, sprawled out on a table in the chalet, sprawled out in the snow, sprawled out in Karen's lap with her daughter sitting on my stomach and my head hanging off the bench at one end, and my legs dangling off the other.
Apparently many pictures were taken, and a passing skier took a video of me dancing with my hair caught up in one of the pinny's that we give the kids who run the race.
And we have a treasure hunt too, Q92 keychains hidden all over the hill, and I had one tied with a bright yellow ribbon handing from the back of my locks, and a man who saw me ski past from the chairlift led a manhunt for LA FILLE AVEC LES CHEVEUX ROSES until he caught me coming off the lift and wrestled me to the ground for it.
And there was a six month old girl named Camille (my favourite name) with her feet on my collarbone and her stomach against my nose, drooling on my forehead and patting my hair in wonder.
And no, I'm not wondering today if all my glory is in my hair, despite the sudden upsurge of phone numbers that strange men have been slipping me (a waiter in a posh golf club, the trainer at the gym, the new guy on the ski team), and I know it's spring and everyone is dying for the feel of someone else pressed up against them...
...but right now I am caught up in the infectious laughter that only children can muster.
And with every twinge of newly discovered quadriceps, triceps, hamstrings...
I am filled with glee. Pure, unintellectual, utterly brainless and not necessarily productive-to-the-advancement-of-the-world, glee.