Of Men And Horses

In order to stay sane and not lapse into saying things like "I make a painting congruent with itself", people of artistic and intellectual bent must regularly exercise outdoors. Settings with lots of manure work best.

With this in mind, I went horse-riding. It was a group trip put together by a dating service. The idea is brilliant. Even if you don't meet anyone interesting, you'll still have fun instead of sitting through a tooth-peeling first date with a man who may or may not tempt you to feed him a live grenade.

After some hours, or possibly days, of driving out of the city, we matrimonially challenged people stood in front of a bunch of horses.

The first thing I noticed was that horses are big. The head alone is the size of my whole cat. I tried to talk to a horse, and I kept addressing the mouth, until I noticed an eye hovering above me, looking perplexed. I gave up and scrambled onto the beast, which was kind of like climbing a half-shed, half-bicycle rack, or maybe the Wall of China.

In order to ride a horse, you have to communicate with it. I was still getting used to the idea of an animal as big as my apartment, and now I had to tell it what to do. It was like the dreams where I drive a car even though I don't know how. But this? This was no dream - it was someone else's car, it was alive and it had attitude.

My horse's name was Flash, which is also what I use in my day job. Just like Flash the Adobe Product, Flash the horse greeted my commands with "DOES NOT COMPUTE, YOU DEMENTED FREAK."

If you are stuck for fun things to do, ask a graphic designer about clients, and watch the cerebral hemorrhage unfold. Clients are people who say things like, "I like this portrait series, but it has too many lips. Can we do something about that?" As I rode Flash, I realized that I now was that client. I told him where to turn even though he already knew. I picked the best path through the mud even though I had never used hoofs before. I told him simultaneously to turn left, to turn right and to go backwards. When I understood Flash's pain, I apologized to him and hugged him with my legs the best I could.

Many horse commands involve kicking, which I was unwilling to do at that point. In desperation, I tried "please" and "thank you". Just like your parents told you, it worked - some of the time. The rest of the time, the horse ahead of us kept Flash in line by smacking him on the nose with her tail.

Back at the ranch, I fumbled back to earth and led Flash to the barn. He thumped me with his head. I fed him an apple. He tried to eat my arm. I think we became friends.

And what of the men, you ask? Well, what of the men? The trip was great in that it was cold and raining the whole time. Whether or not a Man comes of it, I became utterly content with my life because it contained the ultimate miracle of human existence - a hot bath.