The Power of Horses

You might think this is a blog about my girlhood obsession with collecting model horses. Breyer horses. The finest model horses in the world. You’re expecting, perhaps, a long whimsical recreation of the hours I spent dusting Secretariat’s perfectly miniaturized face with a Q-tip.

Or maybe you’re geared up for a discussion of Cormac McCarthy’s work. The American west, aching lonesome souls in a world of disorder and disappearing civilizations, the mysterious, untamed, violent beauty of a horse. Blah blah blah.

Lest we forget the possibility that I feel like talking about Robert Redford and his uncanny ability, circa 1998, to really pick up what a horse is putting down.

But no! I am talking about the power of several horses encased in one fine piece of machinery! Yes, horsepower. Or, in the case of my recently purchased Hyundai Accent, the power of a small donkey with Leukemia. But this donkey beats the hell out of the T. AND it’s good for increasing the chances that we’ll all be under water in, say, 50 years. And there are plenty of poor people in Kansas who could use a good bit of beachfront property. Just doing my part, people.

Here are just a few of the spectacular perks I’ve recently discovered as the proud owner of a motor vehicle:

A place to put stuff. There is a drawer in the kitchen filled with the manuals for appliances I can’t find, batteries that don’t work, the glove that matches a glove somewhere so I can’t throw it out. That drawer is full. So now I get to put stuff in the TRUNK! It’s a traveling misc. drawer. That way if I’m ever trapped on the highway with a VCR, I can program it correctly while waiting for AAA.

Sing-a-longs. The only thing better than singing along with Disney Classics Volume One is singing along with Disney Classics Volume One at a red light and watching people’s reactions. Don’t judge me. Elton John and Time Rice get together and that shit is pure magic my friends.

A quick getaway after glaring at pedestrians. When you’re five feet two inches tall with a foot that tends to break, you don’t walk very fast. Or at least not fast enough to get a comfortable distance from people immediately after you leer at them. Not any more! I can now stare down those stuffy-ass popped collar brats crossing JFK in a hurry to get to a squash game, make eye contact, and then speed away. Sometimes I stick out my tongue. Because I am mature.

Bumper stickers. I am always looking for new ways to make people angry. And as if my sub-par driving skills and tendency to stare at boys running along the Charles instead of driving through the green lights on Memorial Drive weren’t annoying enough, now I get to piss people off with my IDEAS! I’m going to cover the whole damn car! Besides the requisite “Got Democracy?” and “Think, it’s not illegal yet” type stickers I’m thinking of getting some of my own design. Like, “This abortion is really sucking the life out of me.”

Oh man that was wrong.

Kelly vs. Mt. Washington

Kelly: 1
Mt. Washington: Zero


I am tired. But, before bed, this favorite moment: I'm on my way down and I pass a guy headed up. He stares up the ravine I am about to descend. It's steep and requires hands. He's carrying poles and has to hook them onto his bag and start the all-fours climb. He leans against a tree and sighs, "You have got to be kidding me."

This makes me happy. Because that's basically what I was thinking on the way up. I'm glad someone else was willing to actually sigh at the mountain and question its decision to stack these damn rocks in such a challenging manner.