Not that I did. Not entirely. Okay, so I skied off the side of the trail a few times, but I never hit a tree. I fell down a few times, but everybody does. I kept my knees bent. I leaned into my turns. More mechanical than graceful, I didn't slice through the snow with the grace of Roger Moore in "The Spy Who Loved Me." But I didn't completely suck.

Halfway down the hill, though, I somehow began to. After zigzagging slowly down the top half of the slope, I picked up speed as my group slid closer and closer to the bottom of the hill. Again and again I jammed my poles in the snow and pushed off with every erg of energy my sunken pectorals and triceps could produce. My nose, exposed, throbbed, but I didn't care because I was in motion.

And then, as described above, I wasn't moving anymore. I was lying down three-quarters of the way to the bottom. My left ski--my faithful partner--stayed with me. The right one didn't. The treacherous slab finished the trail without me.

I'd enjoyed myself until I hit the snow, but the sight and the sound of my group-lesson buddies skiing by just pissed me off.

"I'm never doing this again," I fumed, ego deflated, to no one in particular as an eight-year old in a red jacket zipped past me.

I got over it. The instructor brought my ski back, and I mounted the evil chairlift once more--I conquered it the second time around. I made an unassisted run down the hill. Victory. And then once or twice more before lunch.

I skied, goddammit. I skied.