Romance in the horse competitor's world.

Apparently puking is the internet's most popular thing because my pageviews went up 8x last night and 6x this morning, so I really don't know how I'm going to follow up the puking story and not disappoint people. I should have never aimed that high.

It's not like I don't have my share of gross stories. I just don't want you guys to expect that amount of epic every post. Also it's not really my style.

But I will give you ONE MORE, just one more for this week. But I can't just hand my blog over to this ridiculousness you hooligans!

Alright. Story time!

So, fun fact, I've trained horses since I was 11 and professionally since I was 15. Circumstances have changed a bit as I live in the city now, but it's still a thing every once in a while.

Given that, it kind of makes sense that at some point I ended up in a relationship with another horse-person. I was 17 about to turn 18, he was 20 and already had his own farm. I had just graduated high school when him and I started dating, and he had inherited a farm from a family member of his. Ever since he'd graduated high school he'd been buying auction horses, training them, showing them in show jumping, and reselling them once they were trained up and proven. Had a solid living right out of high school. Him and I worked on the same showhorse farm, and one day the stallion he was working with escaped him and took off across the ring, tearing around like no one's business before jumping the fence and charging me down because he decided he was part bull. This particular horse was a severe abuse case and the farm was rehabbing him, and he'd taken a liking to Mark.

I narrowly missed being trampled by diving over a trough and faceplanting in the mud. As I clawed my way out of it, sputtering, dripping wet, and covered in mud that was half horse poop, I found myself being pulled to my feet by a grinning cowboy with a quiet-as-you-please stallion in tow.

And he asked me on a date.

How romantic. But not nearly as romantic as our first kiss. (you're wondering where the puke story went, aren't you?)

Him and I were both a bit conservative in our dating views, and we were both painfully shy. We did little more than spend a lot of time together and hold hands/sit close. Surprisingly sometimes "slept together" (and by that I mean in the 100% innocent way). It wasn't until around three weeks after we started dating that we moved on from the stage that 12-year-olds hang around.

 We had gone on a showjumping tour with a few of his horses up for sale and a couple of other workers from the showhorse farm. In one of the competitions that we were entered in, a gelding of his planted his feet, came to an immediate stop before a fence, and sent him flying head-first into it.

Which looks like this:




He came out of it with a concussion and I was put on Mark-isn't-allowed-to-sleep watch that night because our friends kinda sucked.

He had the usual symptoms from the concussion; a little fuzzy-headed, some speech and balance issues resembling drunkenness, and was absolutely giddy on top of it from the pain meds they gave him. We were sitting in his bed in the hotel room watching TV. He just kept staring at it and giggling quietly every once in a while. We were watching hockey. He kept turning to me (I was drawing to pass the time doing nothing) and saying "you're so talented. I love you and your talent." which after the 5th time just made me roll my eyes and tell him to sit up straighter so I knew he wasn't sleeping.

After a while I resigned myself to just skipping between watching the game and watching him. At one point, he rolled over and suddenly had a serious face on, which made me panic because my brain instantly jumped to "he is about to die."

Instead, he just mumbled in a slur "you are SO... beautiful."

I was about to sarcastically tell him that he was adorable when he was concussed, but he did the movie-thing (which he told me later was on purpose which, in hindsight... how corny) and interrupted me by kissing. He retreated from my face with the world's most stupid, goofy grin on his mouth like a 5-year-old who had just done something devious and found it hugely amusing. I was a little thrilled, not going to lie.

The moment quickly ended when his grinning face turned around and violently puked all over the tasteful green carpet. He did this multiple times, and spent the rest of the night hovering over the toilet with my sitting on the bathtub's edge. Between gasping and vomiting and coughing and a good show of manly, many crying, he tried to apologize for "making it the worst possible moment ever" and really the image was so heartbreakingly pathetic that it made the moment that much more awesome.

And hilarious. I spent a good majority of the time trying really hard not to laugh at him because the image was just so comical and the series of events couldn't have been more perfect. My desire to laugh was outweighed by the fact that I did, in fact, feel sorry for him because the concussion seemed to have gone from giddy delirium to ultimate shame, sadness, and pain. But still. I was reeling over the conquered territory of mouth-touching and seemed to have caught all of his giddyness.

We dated for a while after that until he had an impressive business opportunity halfway across the country, and I couldn't move because of university-things. Then that ended.

Still. I have discovered that cowboys make the best boyfriends, and vomit is fully capable of enhancing your first kiss experience. 

Friendship is puking on someone's feet...?

EDIT: You guys are really weird. The second I post about puking my page views went up by literally 8x overnight. That being said... read on...




ORIGINAL POST:

Today's events have turned out to be highly unfortunate. 

I've mentioned before that John sometimes scares me because he's quiet and I'm not quite sure what he's thinking, and therefore I assume he's judging me even though he's not. Well, in the past week him and I have gotten to be better friends and are slowly starting to be not-as-awkward around one another which is pretty awesome if you ask me.

 But today might have ended with a setback to this.

This day kind of ended up being a mix of paint fumes, high heat, pain, severe allergies, poor house cleaning, lack of sleep, and poor nutrition choices... which, let me tell you, is NOT a recipe for delicious OR happy.

Of course there was super-early-morning panic this morning over tornado watches and crazy hail which destroyed stuff (poor Ian's garden is obliterated) which kept me up until 5am, and after only sleeping 3 hours the previous night I found myself doing another 3 hour night before pulling myself groggily out of bed to finish work, which is when I posted about hating the painting. So many people were coming and going from my house today, and I was grumpy and some were my friends so I did the normal thing and closed my bedroom door/pretended to be not present or not conscious so I could bypass interruptions and finish the painting I was so mad at.

Conclusion: I am the world's best friend ever. 

This action boxed in fumes from the oil paint, which aren't nearly as bad as, say, latex paint, but it still causes a few tingles in the brain. I felt a little nauseous but not too bad, so I therefore felt when I was done that I could spend some energy on a quick run. Energy from... something. Probably all that sleep I've gotten recently.

So I went for a run in stupid heat.

Explanation: I am a genius.

About halfway into my run, I noticed the sun and nausea was getting to me, but the problems didn't end there. As I turned around and began my premature journey home, I felt a bit of a grinding sensation in my hip and it was suddenly very painful. If you've been here for a bit, you would have read that a year ago I was brutally blindsided by a car while riding my bike to work. This knocked my hip out of place and I've had some problems with it since its realignment, which I assume is today's problem. But the sudden pain caused me to stumble, and my tendinitis-infected knees decided they were NOT happy with the disruption, and so I found myself staggering home, dizzy and in pain in more than one spot.

Everyone probably thought I was drunk.

When I got home I ended up half-conscious lying curled up in my bathtub under the relief of a cold shower for the next half hour, wondering what I was even doing with my life and thinking I'm probably not going to walk again which is obviously not true because I got up 5 minutes later and could walk just fine.

A few other things followed the shower that aren't that interesting. I learned some more songs for my touring band, worked a bit on some research for my novel, sent a couple of grown-up e-mails to clients, did some promotion stuff, and found myself in the evening. And exhausted. And determined to continue to write because hell, day's still young and I'm on a roll.

53rd mistake of the day:

I brewed some coffee, which is the best thing to drink when you're feeling sick. Also it's hot out, so I poured all the coffee in a big mixing bowl with a lot of milk and stuck it in my fridge to make iced coffee. Which I fail to remember, every time, I find super delicious and don't notice how much I'm drinking.

So I drank a whole pot of iced coffee. I usually have... one or two cups of coffee a day. Like mugs. This was a full pot, probably the equivalent of 6 or 7 mugs of coffee.

I went from feeling "eh" to feeling like my stomach had started a new hobby that involves some obscure form of martial arts. And you bet I was shaking with fake caffeinated energy.

But despite that, I still had work to do so I kept going. Eventually, as one does, I got thirsty and wandered from my room for water where I was greeted by John who had just discovered the few fruit flies wandering our kitchen and had made to get down to the bottom of it. Turns out the pad we had under the dish drying rack had molded. Badly.

GUESS WHO'S DEATHLY ALLERGIC TO MOLD!

=D

He told me he had a funny story to tell me, and then forgetting my deathly allergy chucked the cloth at me. I caught it (read: it hit me in the face and I flailed/managed to somehow transfer it from face to hand without dropping it), saw the mold, screamed and threw it away and right away almost went into anaphylactic shock (by that I mean labored breathing/sweating/eyes tearing up/racing heart/increased nausea) and while John was laughing at me for "being a girl about the mold" (he actually completely forgot about my allergy and thought I was hyperventilating because it was gross, he wasn't ACTUALLY being mean) I had a slight panic attack because I have been hospitalized from the allergy before (only once though) and John suddenly realized maybe I wasn't okay. (I just used parenthesis four times in one sentence. Structure genius.) <-- grammatically awful. I'm sorry, Parenthesis Gods...

Anyways.

He came over to talk to me and ask if I was alright and I promptly puked on the floor. Around his feet.

...

Suddenly I felt a lot better and it wasn't too violent of a reaction. I left the house after shakily cleaning up my shameful mess and the fresh air cleared my other symptoms. John seemed pretty good-natured about it all which I guess is logical because he did throw something equivalent to a murder weapon at me (albeit by accident) but I still feel awful and hope I never revisit it again. That being said, everyone now knows I'm not f*cking around about that allergy. Here they thought it was just my excuse to not clean toilets/make sure everyone else keeps the toilets super clean.

So yeah. There's my day. It was pretty cool.

Also, I promised you a sharpie unicorn picture days ago and drew one but never uploaded. Here it is! Sorry I never scanned it. It's a picture of the picture =(



I'm a professional! =D

Also, when I went to upload this picture the Recaptcha asshole program made me type this:



Evil little dink.

On a completely unrelated note, I realized today that I obsessively keep an eye on the "stats" of this blog and haven't kept an eye on the ones of my for-real, not-anonymous blogs. So I decided to look today. I have two, one for horse training help (oh yeah. Probably haven't mentioned that I've trained horses professionally. SURPRISE. You might think I'm being loose with the term "professional" [artist/musician/horse trainer] I'm not. I've just spent lots of time getting proficient at lots of things) and one for my artwork. Apparently I'm way more popular than I thought because I have 90 000 views on the training blog and 35 000 on the art blog, and they're both only a couple years old. I feel like a champion.

I don't want to paint anymore.

I've been working on this huge oil painting, a 36"x36" monster, and it's really hard and detailed and I just want to be done. I only have a couple hours' worth of work left on it but I'm pretty through. I just want to be done with it so I can give it to the lady and stop hating my abilities because even though my customer loves it, I freaking hate it and I am so disappointed in myself.

Hello, self-hating artist.

I swear, I'm not usually like this towards my work.

Then I have to actually go and learn a bunch of tunes off of my band's demo album so we can go on tour in a week or so, and I also have to write more. THOUGH I GOT PAST THE PROBLEM CHAPTER! Now I'm able to write freely... ish.

I'm sorry nature! So sorry! VERY VERY VERY SORRY!

So I'm sitting in my living room. I WOULD be in my basement if Ian's brother wasn't sleeping down there. I am ready to run down screaming at any moment because guess what.

There's a freaking tornado watch.

Yeah.

I convinced myself that I was safe because the weather network was like "just regular thunderstorms, severe thunderstorms all the way across the country but not HERE yay!" and my safety left me feeling cocky and I went on the internet and bitched mother nature out which was A MISTAKE.

Because they've now issued a severe thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch and currently quarter-sized hail is falling and f*cking everything up around us and it's raining so hard you can't see across the street and good lord I feel like I'm going to die.

If this is the last you hear from me, I love you, 5 readers.

EDIT: Dude. John just came downstairs and was all like "hey, you can't sleep either?"
Me: No. You know what there is right now? A freaking tornado watch.
John: Oh. Wow. Hey when there's a tornado you want to go... into the basement... right? Or is that bad?
Me: ... yeah... basement.

John is not so smart at 4am.

EDIT: John made a smoothie and went back to bed. I hate boys. They can sleep through effing anything.

EDIT: Okay. I think it's done now. It's just after 5am. I'm going to go to bed now. I'm so freaking tired. On the plus side, I get to see the sunrise. It's pretty boring today.

Yay I survived!

At 3am, a lot more things seem like complete and total dickwads than usual...

This is another 3am post. I didn't proof-read the other one and I won't this one because both times I've been so tired I have to prop myself up with walls and pillows to type and keep my laptop on my lap. Hah. So these might not be coherent.

So guess what happened again! If you guessed another freaking storm, congrats. This time I've managed to convince myself that I'm not going to die, but as soon as I did mother nature was like "well f*ck you then!!" and decided to make sure if I'm not fearing her, I'm at the very least cursing her.

This has been done in the form of strobe light lightning (there's SO MUCH OF IT YOU GUYS! Like every second there's a flash, if not more) resulting in a constant rumble of thunder punctuated only by the loud-ass, house-shaking explosions that happen every couple of minutes. Just long enough between each of them for me to slip into half-sleep before being brutally yanked back.

Dear mother nature. I just want to sleep. That is ALL I WANT TO DO. Can you do this truly impressive light show at like, 10 this morning so I can watch the lightning and not want to shoot myself in the face?

Anyways. I've compiled a short mental list of some of the inanimate things I find to be "dickwads" because, hell, what more can I do when I'm angry at nature and extremely sleep deprived?


In no particular order:

1. Nature. Just as long as it's making my life miserable. I love nature beyond all belief when it's not being an asshole.
2. My laptop. Living to torture me.
3. Air pressure. You don't need to open and shut my door a few times a night. I need the window open so I don't cook. Leave my door alone.
4. Milk. Screw milk.
5. The direction in which the crank on my window needs to turn to open it. It doesn't make any sense. None.
6. Fold-down chairs. They are all terrifying sons of cows.
7. Castles. "OH LOOK AT ME I'M A SUPER COOL CASTLE," Yeah, F**K YOU CASTLE!
8. Spellcheck. You're a smug sonofa- but you can't recognize your own name. You're an idiot.
9.  Physics. Keeps trying to convince us it's real but random occurrences suggest otherwise.

I'm sorry. That was all way too profane for anything, but it's okay because later today, I'm going to wake up and realize what I've done and maybe try to fix the anger.


EDIT: OMG. NATURE IS SUCH A JERK. As soon as I finish writing this, the wind decides to blow RIGHT IN MY WINDOW which NEVER happens and has to be at a VERY SPECIFIC ANGLE to do anything. It sent this huge spray of rainwater into my room and now I need to keep my window closed and die of overheating because of how hot it is in this stupid house just to prevent getting soaked.

Worst night. I'm so tired.

3am and a thunderstorm. And the things I would take with me in an emergency/the apocalypse.

It's 3:20 in the morning. Technically, I "went to bed" two hours ago. I had a hard enough time forcing myself to fall asleep in the stupid heat that is my bedroom (which I'm thoroughly not-even-kidding certain is hotter than it is outside despite a fan going full-force and my window being wide open...) coupled with sporadic insomnia. I had just finally managed to fall asleep when thunder happened out of freaking NOWHERE. Well, not nowhere, it was the sky, but still. It was loud, obnoxious, and sudden. No ominous in-the-distance rumbling first. I know this because I am an insomniac and as such any little out-of-place sound, especially the ones that make me nervous, wakes me up.

And I have to be up in like 4 and a half hours so I can go meet my father for an early lunch, which I'm looking forward to seeing as he's out of province half the time for work and I hardly get to see him.

But here's the thing. Besides ALL OF THIS stupidity, I am tornado-paranoid. And as our day was fairly humid and STUPID hot, and it's STILL stupid hot and humid outside, I am NOT happy with this out-of-nowhere thunderstorm. Especially seeing as it's dark and I can't see it, and the weather network is telling me there IS NO THUNDERSTORM.

Yes there is, weather network. I am looking at it right now. I can't trust them to give me acurate info, apparently, and so I'm nervously staying up and keeping watch and listening to the radio which keeps cutting in and out every time there's thunder, convincing my anxious mind that I am probably going to die.

But I can't camp out in the basement like I normally would because Ian's brother is staying over for a few days and that's where he's parked.

So I'm doing the best I can in my bedroom on the top floor.I'm half considering at least moving down to the ground floor to compromise, and maybe I can crash on the couch in our living room a bit better than I can here.

But despite being a wuss and more anxious than I maybe have a right to be, I am a SURVIVOR.

I am the person with the perfect zombie plan that everyone is jealous of, the person who knows how to live in the wilderness with nothing other than a knife and a string, and the person who has a specific course of action for every natural disaster possible even though I'm inland and most definitely do NOT need a hurricane plan. I have one.

Because I lived in Florida for a summer and know that shit is necessary.

So I've put tornado survival plan into play. That includes packing the bag I should have had packed a month ago AKA the things I can't lose. I pack it every year. It's a backpack with everything I need to not die should my home be destroyed.

This bag constantly keeps all of my super important stuff in it and hangs on the back of my door. If I need something, I take it out. It's no more inconvenient than a shelf. There are three parts to it: sentimental, genuinely important to my survival, and basic care.

The sentimental stuff is pretty much my photo album, a couple of letters from my childhood, and the necklace my friend gave me before he died. The important stuff is a lot more extensive: all of my ID, my med insurance, renter's insurance, art portfolios with original art in them, Oleo's vet records, customer contracts, etc. Basically adult stuff. Then some basic care stuff so I can deal like a travel kit type thing. Deodorant, a brush, toothpaste, etc. My purse goes the bag as well so it can come with me and bring things like my iPod, camera, wallet, etc.

Basically, the plan is: in case of tornado, toss my laptop in the bag, grab the bag and my animals, hide under stairs. If the house is destroyed, I have everything important to me with me and I survive like a rock star.

It's pretty similar for zombies except that includes grabbing the bag, the animals, a few swords (have 'em hanging on my wall... thank you martial arts!) and hijacking an SUV to get to Costco to wait the suckers out.

The only thing I haven't QUITE figured out about all of these survival things is how to transport the animals without them killing each other. Theoretically the cat would hang miserably from his stomach in my arms and the snake would go around my neck, but I think situational panic would decide that for me.

I don't know where I was really going with this other than to kill time while I sit up in my bed, super exhausted and in the grips of panic. Welcome to 3am me, blog.

"Living like a child."

In my last post I realized I said I get to live like a child every day and then did NOT expand on it at all. Instead of editing, I thought I would make it its own post.

I'm just going to straight up give an example as to why I figure I don't have to grow up.

Yesterday, I got out of bed, ate peanut butter toast, then came upstairs and started my "work day."

I spent the next 8 hours sitting on the floor watching Harry Potter while getting covered to the elbows in paint, just painted all day. I didn't wear pants, either. Then, late late late in the evening, my friend burst into my room yelling "PUT YOUR PANTS ON WE'RE GOING TO SEE SPIDERMAN." and I was like "OKAY" and we went and watched a superhero movie.

How awesome was YOUR day?!

Today will be a repeat, without the Spiderman. I really really need to finish this painting. AND I need to write another chapter which is starting to make my life a little less childlike. Writing actually requires some degree of sophistication. Painting doesn't.

The "look"

There's a look from people that I get when I tell them I'm a professional artist. It's along the lines of "I don't believe you" and "that's not a thing." As a socially quiet person, I tend to watch faces for emotional cues so I know when it's time to run for the hills and this is what I see in 90% of people.

Their eyebrows shoot up, their mouth closes, their eyes dart to the side quickly, and they usually do a teeny little head-bob. The response I get, regardless of their opinion is always "Really!" The ones who dislike the idea draw it out and their eyes go a little too wide for genuine interest.

The same reaction happens when I say that I'm a professional musician.

So I'm going to point something out, quickly. 90% of people think being an artist is SUPER COOL. Even when I meet other professionals I'm just in awe of their awesome skill and ability to use it for their career. Especially if they're more established than me. It's like a rock musician meets the boys of Zep every time I meet a well-known/famous artist (which happens because I freak out every time they come to the art gallery and go). People, especially those who can't draw, are genuinely impressed that I can draw. They love to LOOK at the paintings and the drawings and they think they're the most awesome things, and some even want some of their own.

However, what they don't like is that it's my job. They figure people should do it, but it shouldn't be a career. All the same goes for music.

I get the inevitable question "so what else do you do for work?"

And USUALLY, because more than half the time I lead with being a fine artist (despite the speech I typed out last week for you guys haha) I answer "oh, I gig. With a band."

And it disqualifies me from any real-life-grown-up opinions for the rest of the conversation.

And part of me gets really frustrated but the other just laughs, because recently I realized that I am literally living like a child, AND I'm making money off of it. Enough to pay my bills, anyways.

I don't ever have to grow up, SUCKERS. Until both the art and the music industry tank. Then I'll be in for it...

Painting in the heat.

Okay. So I'm from Alberta, Canada, and something very awesome is happening right now. It's going to be above 30C (right now it's 35C which is around 95F) for OVER A WEEK and as someone who despises the ridiculously long winters we get (like, October - April...) I'm ecstatic. I am a woman, therefore I am just unstoppably cold all the time. Why do you think I have guy friends? I might PRETEND it's because I'm terrified of women, but REALLY it's because they are natural heaters and if you have good guy friends they let you hug them randomly.

Besides not being cold and not having to rely on being in a friend's personal space bubble to avoid hypothermia, it also means I don't have to wear pants as much. By that, I mean I can spend time sitting around in my underwear and a teeny shirt painting and no one can judge me because they're all like "OMFG IT'S HOT OUT" and I'm all like "SCORE NO PANTS DAY!" and they see my lack of pants and they're either super jealous or they join me.

And by they I mean my roommates because I can't leave my house in my underpants, that would be ridiculous.

So right now I am basking in this gloriously hot day, watching Harry Potter (more British people...) and painting all day in my sunny sunny bedroom, camped out on the floor because that's where I paint.

Fun fact of the day, spell check will recognize the word "whoopee!" That's outstanding.

I now leave you with a YouTube video that makes me cry laughing every time.

More on today plus what's going to happen tomorrow.

So Saturday nights are always a gamble for me, because I'm all like, super cool and religious and stuff. And half the time I'm playing in the church band so I've got to get my sorry act together super early to go and practice for the set with the band.

Tonight is one of those nights.

My awesome day has gotten so much more awesome because one of my best friends randomly showed up and we did more marshmallows and then went and played Super Mario Smash Brothers for a bit, but now it's 1:30 and I need to be up at 6, so naturally I'm going to skip desperate sleep and blog instead.

Tomorrow morning is NOT going to be as awesome. When I know that my mornings are going to be shit, I also know that I cannot function in those mornings without a specific list of things to do. If I don't give myself directions, I will walk out of the house without pants or something.

You laugh, but I accidentally ended up outside in my boxer-PJs yesterday because I thought they were shorts.

So here's what it looks like. I realized the lists always end up as my conscience narrates stuff to me, so I thought I'd share here.



You've just woken up and you're dead tired and bitchy at the world.

GOOD MORNING. PSYCHED FOR CHURCH?! I bet you are! Here are some things to get you through the morning.

1. Go get coffee on the go. Now. RIGHT NOW.
2. Shower like the champ you are.
3. Get dressed, in your dress, to save time later for naps and shit.
4. Blow dry your hair because you're gonna put it up because guess what? It's freaking hot out.
5. No, seriously. Put your hair up. No, it won't look better down because you'll be slicked in sweat.
6. Go make breakfast. You just bought food so it will be epic breakfast. Are you psyched?
7. E-mail your customer with her update picture because you procrastinated yesterday and she wants it. Try to be coherent. PLEASE.
8. It's probably almost time for church now. Go rush your makeup like you always do and stagger out the door before John leaves you behind and you're stuck at home having got up and ready for absolutely no reason.