Riot Horse

I love horses. Even though I know city horses are pissed and bored, and in the case of police horses, working, I still want to walk up and pet them and you know, run my fingers through their manes. When I was in second and third grade, I stayed after school for a program called CARE. My brother and I would hang out there for a couple hours until one of our parents picked us up. CARE was managed by this lovely hippie lady who read cool books to us and let us hang out and do whatever. At one point, my friends and I played "Jack the Ripper", which involved one person being Jack and the others wandering around the playground unwittingly until they were killed. They were then led by Jack to the jungle gym dome thing and forced inside, where they had to stay because they were dead and in a strange fog-filled purgatory. We loved this game. The odd thing about this game is that I distinctly remember overhearing a man (there was a man observing us on the playground. This is probably a red flag and he may have a Jack the Ripper type, but we are still alive today) say, "Jesus, nice game." He found our game disturbing. I find the fact that there was an adult man on the playground disturbing.

But anyway, the thing that proves I have always loved horses was that during my time in CARE I perfected an accurate imitation of the gallop on my hands and knees. This was not just running on my hands and knees. This was galloping. This skill was developed through watching a lot of horse movies, acting like a horse on a regular basis, and generally being obsessed with horses from a young age. It was uncanny. It was faster than any other method of running on hands and knees, and we regularly put mats out across the gym floor and had horse races. I always won. Always. Because, the gallop.

But anyway, this afternoon Kyle ran into my office to tell me there were horses outside. And there were. Apparently there's an Occupy thing going on down the way (which explains the giant puppet capitalist pig head thing we saw earlier) and the riot police and their riot horses are out. Look at the riot horse gear. So cute. I had to fight the urge to run out there and pet the horses in their riot gear.

That's all.

DFP (double fist pump)

Florence + The Machine tickets are mine. I have to tell you, it was like watching someone you love run through a minefield or performing open heart surgery using blunt instruments. My nerves are shot. I was refreshing my browser, pushing buttons, mistakenly typing the wrong letters in that stupid code thing (for the love of god, why are they always so illegible?), and then waiting, waiting, and waiting until they finally came through. Liz got some too. We were on the gchat together, keeping each other updated on progress and hyping each other up. I'm not sure I would have made it to the other side if it wasn't for her. Going through stuff like that, it really changes you. 

Anyway, happy Friday! 

Here are some links to make your weekend that much better (if all you're doing is sitting around looking at stuff on the internet). 

Robyn in GIF form. Prepare to be mesmerized. If you're not careful, this could be your Friday night. 

This annoying article about living alone. Like people who live with other people don't do weird things. And since when is it totally quirky and only okay for single people to sing in the shower, do random home aerobics, or eat random things like a sweet potato for dinner? Please. 

A dog on things. I want a dog. 

And in that same ilk, Kim Jong-Il looking at things. I don't think I want a Kim, but the more that I look at this, maybe I do . . . . 

Ask and you shall receive

Sam made this bench for me and my shoes. Wow, right? Now I need to make sure that I don't cover it with superfluous clothing and detritus of life, so I can continue to appreciate all that recycled wood glory. 

Taking a Break

I'm never one to turn down much of anything. Cake. Fried food. Ribs. A glass of wine. I mean, life is pretty short and I like all those things. But lately, with winter and the general doldrums that entails, I've been on this cleansing kick. It's not a Cleanse. I don't do stuff like that and I think it's completely illogical to assume your body will somehow function better when trying to subsist on nettle tea or lemon juice or whatever. My "cleanse" will be brief and vague (I mean, birthday cake doesn't count because it's birthday cake), but I think it's good to do this kind of thing once in a while, even for a short amount of time. At the moment, I am abstaining from two things:

1. Sugar

But only kind of. The thing about sugar is that it's in everything. I'm not abstaining from fruit, or refusing to eat whole wheat bread with tiny amounts of whatever in it. But I am passing on desserts of any sort. It's hard. I love sweets. I have always been obsessed with sugar.

When I was young, probably about 10, I was visiting my mom at her work. She works at a hospital. She gave me a dollar so that I could go get a drink from the soda machine. I took that dollar and went to the soda machine, but then, once I was there, I noticed I was standing next to the candy machine (this story is horrible). Unable to control my urge for candy, I spent that dollar on a king-size Three Musketeers (not even the best of the candy bars!) which I took to the bathroom (so many germs!), hid in the handicapped stall (you know, just in case a nurse tried to stop me or something), and ate the entire thing. My memory is not completely clear, but I am pretty sure I told her the machine ate my dollar or some other depraved lie, and then was probably given another dollar to get something to drink. I totally got away with this. I'm not saying I was the worse behaved child in the world, but I would say I was average-to-poor at times.

So anyway. I'm giving up sweets for a while. I do this on occasion so that my body does not get so addicted to sugar that I wake up craving a bowl of ice cream first thing in the morning. Because that has been known to happen. This is called Resetting my Sugar Levels. It's science.

2. Alcohol

I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory. I don't have any funny stories about my 10-year-old self and alcohol.



What about you? Do you ever take a break from certain vices? Do you believe in Cleanses? Tell me all about your colon in the comments.

P.S. When I'm done with this mini-break from vice, I'm really excited to check this out.

The best compliment (almost ever)

Look at this. Saturday night at Choptsticks will live forever on the internets (thanks Keighty). And by the way, it was Kyle's first time back since his now infamous engagement party and I'm happy to report that he left unscathed. He even ran into the guy who was holding his hand in this picture. Hilarious.