ALL I DO IS WIN WIN WIN NO MATTER WHAT

ACTUALLY JUST TWO TIMES BUT STILL

Okay. Hello, minions. It's been a while. How have you been? For the sake of not getting sidetracked, I'll assume your answer was "great."

So this week was the first (and next to last) horse show of the season for me. As you might possibly know, this entails going to the fairgrounds with my riding friends, our teacher, and our occasionally agreeable, scarily intelligent half-ton mounts with the intention of entering the ring for a total of ten minutes and attempting to prove that we do indeed know how to walk, trot, and canter. As you also might possibly know, the aforementioned mount of my choosing is Jack, a small, aggressive, argumentative, athletic, and often manipulative black Morgan. (I often ask myself why I like him as much as I do. He grows on you.) Usually, when I go to a show, he likes to play a little joke on me where he pretends he has no idea what any of my cues mean unless they could be interpreted as "go faster." This, along with his vertical deficiency and lack of a glowing pale coat, means that he and I have only won a few decent ribbons.

UNTIL THIS TIME~~~~~*~*~*~*~*~!
On Thursday, we came to the show for our morning class. Donning our ridiculously spiffy riding/business outfits complete with head-exaggerating helmets and gloves that reduce the functioning capacity of our hands, we mounted our horses and walked through the barn (it was raining) to the practice ring. Jack took off on the wrong lead going into the canter, one of the riders had a borderline mental breakdown, and we had trouble convincing horses to enter the ring, but it was managed somehow. And, aside from one horse attempting to race for half the class and the continuation of a breakdown, we all had a good class. So it was time for the ribbons.
Usually, we have a variety of numbers, but for this show, our riders were 126, 127, 128 (me), and 129. So when the announcer called out the places, it was more tense than usual. The winner of this class was number one hundred and twenty








....













.









..............
















1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1.
In case you cannot perform basic arithmetic, it was 128. And in case you can't check back for who had which number, it was me.
Needless to say, I was all WHOA WUT IS THERE A MISTAKE LOL DID I WIN A THING?
There was no mistake. I did win a thing. I collected my ribbon, took a glorious victory lap, gave Jack several handfuls of carrot pieces, and spent the rest of the day sleeping.


The next day was our afternoon class. We arrived three hours early, so I read D. Gray-Man in full show attire and agreed with my friend while hiding painful exorcist-related emotions that Allen was indeed the cutest thing.
We went to the practice ring. I sang random lyrics to Jack, including Les Mis and a couple of irritating songs that were stuck in my head. Then we were supposed to canter, and Jack decided he would rather run sideways to the middle of the ring. It took a whole lap to get him to the rail, but he calmed down as soon as he picked up the canter. The class before us took forever to get into the ring because the class before it had some mishap, but they eventually left. Then I tried to lead the way into the ring, gave up when Jack started whipping around, and followed my friend, whose horse had barely stopped attempting to be stupid when the gate closed and judging began. Aside from trying to turn the wrong way going into the canter, Jack did a good job of being sane. As did everyone else (surprisingly, the two most difficult horses behaved the best). So it was time for ribbons again. First place


Went











T





O











Me again!
Again, I was pretty shocked despite being aware of how wonderfully amazing I am. I got a tricolor championship ribbon and a plate that was confusingly decorated with a dragonfly, and Jack got more handfuls of carrots and the chance to take his bit and tight braids out.
After the show, we all loaded the trailer because our teacher needed to get back home as soon as possible, then we went to Longhorn for dinner. As a consumer of no meat that is not bacon (which is pretty much too glorious not to eat), I would not have been excited if there hadn't been macaroni and cheese with bacon mixed in on the menu. I had that, and our table consumed four baskets of bread within ten minutes. Then we left because we were about to die from exhaustion.


And, after getting up early again to play my trombone, here I am.

I hope you liked my story.


Farewell. Peace out, homedudebroskilletdog.
-Xenon

Things, I suppose.

So HeEeEeEy you guys.
How have you been?
Just kidding, you don't have to answer that, this is a blog and I have long since given up on interacting with my sparse readers.

So this is a four-day weekend for me, which is pretty great, and my mother informed me that I was /going/ to go and do social activities and have fun this weekend /or I would never have fun again in my short and miserable little life/.
(Paraphrased slightly.)
Yesterday, in addition to our plans to possibly go to a movie tomorrow or something, my friends and I went to the mall for books and shenanigans. We spent most of our time in Barnes and Noble (no, what, Xenon in a bookstore?) and I made use of my ten dollars left over from something to buy Hamlet and Totally Pink Mad Libs. I'm sure my purchase made total sense to the lady at the register. We also cried inwardly over expensive but beautiful leather journals, found a bunch of stuffed things that were really, really totes adorbz, and read a book about How to Talk to Mom that involved the dark side for some reason. And then we did other stuff, but now I'm just rambling about nothing and I try not to do that but usually fail.

Anyway, we got out of school early on Friday, which almost made this a five-day weekend, and my friend and I went to the barn as can be expected from people who enjoy their ponies as much as we do. Our riding teacher told us to get Rain Man, the stallion, instead of our usual steeds, and we took turns riding him. He was thrilled to have a rider, and, since I was the first one to ride him, I got to sit on him while he pranced around and cantered for way too long. I say "sit" because I actually didn't have to do anything due to his lack of any shred of malice. I asked him to turn a couple of times, and his response was not so much obedience as it was "Oh, you want to turn? That sounds like an awesome idea! I was just thinking about turning! Let's do that! Then everyone can see how awesome we are at turning!"
My impression of him is that he's fairly similar to Jack in that both of them are friendly in a nearly human way, are fond of going fast, and never do anything to hurt their rider, but where Jack takes pride in how mad he can make said rider (durr what is a lead change can I just step on this horse), Rain Man judges himself on how comfortable he can make him/her.

TL;DR: I rode a stallion who is a better gentleman than any other horse I've ridden. Take that, horse stereotypes.

I am still reading Lord of the Rings as well as Homestuck and several awful fanfics. Not to put Homestuck in a category with bad fanfiction, because it's amazing and I recommend it if you have a good memory and are okay with becoming emotionally attached to the many excellent characters, then watching Andrew Hussie take said emotions, pull them out of your brain through your eyes, crush them to death with a broom, and leave them somewhere in the cancerous universe to twitch indefinitely.

Also it's pretty funny.

I've said pretty much everything that isn't entirely mindless babbling (heh I like that word).
Peace. Xenon out.

Xenon Reads Some Books

Hey yo sup humans.
I'm back.
Hope you missed me.

No yeah, you totally did, don't lie.

So lately I've been reading Lord of the Rings because I think I've spent enough time having not read it and I should start having read them. (<-- not grammatically weird at all) I started reading them now because a) my cousins and I watched The Fellowship, which reminded me that it was a thing, and b) I was at Barnes and Noble and there was a stack of LOTR/Hobbit stuff which included the books and they were right in front of me so I got them despite it using up all of my Christmas money.
I do not regret it. They are beautiful books. I want to hug them except hugging books is weird. I'm glad I didn't try them when I was little, since 10-year-old Xenon could not stand any book that was not intense within five pages. And I counted-- Fellowship plot events that do not involve walking a lot begin at page 260. It's still wonderful and I've found a few parts where I really want to turn a particular sequence of words into a person so we can be soulmates. Also I want to go to Middle Earth and I want the things and people and places and everything to be real, I don't even mind Orcs and stuff being real if it means so is everything else.

Wait, wow, I actually said serious things? New talent discovered, you guys!
I need to stop that.
So along with the beautiful experience that is Lord of the Rings, I have some weird jokes and stupid stuff. Among which are:
-Merry and Pimpin' (my family is weird and we couldn't not make the movie about gangsta swag, okay?)
-A couple of lovely works of art, which I might post if I feel like it.
-My dad's comments on my (flawed) explanation of the story: "Has anyone tried giving Orcs therapy?" "Aww, cute little Elves!" *points to a Les Mis poster, featuring one of many grossly underfed characters* "He looks like a Hobbit."
-My actual explanation of the story: "So Bilbo left to go to a place because reasons and then Frodo was all, no wait this is years later, but anyway he goes "k doods I am 'moving' to 'another house' and do you want to 'help' me 'move?'" And the other hobbits are all "YOLO swag let's go" and then later Aragorn goes "K you guys are stupid stop that stop being stupid." And then some other stuff happens."
-My adventures in watching 40 minutes of a 10-hour loop of "They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard," during which I did some homework and melted my brain considerably and still haven't gotten it out of my head.
-Bad fanfiction. Holy frigglesticks. Monstrosities of fanfiction. Why.
-Slamming my hands on the table in shock every time something happens.
-Other stuff I forgot about.

Um okay this is getting to be a really long post.
Pictures, I guess!
These are my LOTR-inspired masterpieces, except for the one that says Texas. That one is a sign I made for my friends' swim meet because I am the best friend (the fact that we don't live in Texas is irrelevant because it's an inside joke or something).