Things that watching the Olympics all day every day has done to me.

I've mentioned before that I'm easily influenced by outside forces, especially when I'm being creative because I kinda open myself to everything around me for inspiration. And if there's anything inspirational it's the constant competition backed with inspirational "can-do" pop music and epic piano backing tracks happening on my television right now...

So here's a list of things the Olympics have inadvertently made me do.

1. Run for an extra kilometer yesterday. I was watching/listening gymnastics on my android phone yesterday while running because technology is cool, and then I missed a turn and ended up taking a long detour to get back home... and because it's the Olympics I made myself run all the way because the athletes were watching. It was embarrassing when I got home and I was shaking and huffing and staggering and John was just like "holy crap what is your problem?!"

2. Have a panic attack because Canada sucks at Team Eventing. a 14-fault SJ round and 2/3 riders falling in cross country, with sub-par dressage marks? Yikes. Also one of the fallers got a concussion and stable spinal fracture. That poor woman.Anyways, the less-than-desirable round gave me a bit of a panic episode.

3. See how high my vertical is. It's never been high. Ever. I don't know why I felt the need to spend 20 minutes this morning trying to vertical jump. It's volleyball's fault.

4. Face-plant over my couch and into my coffee table. I thought I could jump my couch. I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea, but I was so pumped about watching the Olympics with Ian that I booked it down our basement stairs and jumped the couch, fell about 1.5 inches short and ended up awkwardly flipping sideways over the arm of the couch and flailing my legs into the small coffee table in front of the couch.

5. Make fun of British people. Now, it's NOT because the Olympics are in London. It's because Ian is British and there are a lot of British people on TV so more people are doing funny things. Example, watching the showjumping portion of team eventing and some Irish lady's horse's name is Twizzle. And Laura and I got super excited because that's an amazing name for a horse. The next lady was British and HER horse's name was Imperial Cavalier. So we laughed at Ian, except he was like "I don't know what you guys are talking about... that's a ballin' horse name. And he was serious.

6. The voice in my head is even MORE British now, and it's creeping into my Canadian accent.

7. Have a spaz attack because my favorite show jumper ever, Eric Lamaze is competing. Except... he doesn't compete until Saturday...

8. Have a dream that I was in a team canoe race and my partner is all pissed at me because I keep getting hit in the face with the gates except they're slowly killing me and I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CANOE.

9. My muse is a British guy talking in the excited Olympic announcement voice and is thus impeding on my abilities to write serious scenes in my novel.

10. Watch TV. I never watch TV, I always stream shows from my computer and take it places with me.


I need to try and jump my couch again, now. I WAS SO CLOSE. SO FREAKING CLOSE.