In the sixth grade I referred to myself as 'Olivia the Great'. I assume this title emerged as a result of our class discussions involving Alexander the Great, and my adoption of it was in no way meant to be disrespectful to his, eh, greatness. As sixth grade came to a close, my title became less widely known. I would, occasionally, use it, but only as a seasoning to make myself seem more interesting than as a means of identification. As I prepared for my last few months as a fourteen year old and embarked on the treacherous journey into the ninth grade (also called "high school"), however, I brought the name back. This time, instead of verbally expressing my alias, it was written in the form of a name tag. These decorative tags were used in Earth Science class so that our teacher, Mr Spisek, could remember our names. When he'd finally learned them, he began to refer to me as "OTG" (an abbreviation of Olivia the Great), which, after several days of unconcealed confusion, I took to nicely.
Why, you might ask, am I informing you of the history behind my self-proclaimed nickname? I'll be glad to tell you. You see, this nickname was the foundation* for another name, a much more important name, a name that had been floating around in my head for several years prior. I wasn't even really sure of what this name would turn out to be. Rex? Spot? All very hackneyed, and too basic^.
Most of this wondering took place inside of a scratched blue Subaro Outlander with my mother at the helm. I provided plenty of noise in the background... "can I have a horse?" "Can I have a horse?" "Can I please have a horse?"
I'd been interested in owning a horse only a short while after I started horseback riding lessons at the Biltmore Equestrian Center in my artistic, hippie-filled, Bible-belt located town of Asheville, North Carolina. While riding with my first instructor, Emily (who was a western, non-competing woman), I wrote a book -on this very site- entitled "Horses, Boys, Dreams, and Relationships" in which I owned a perfect, dappled gray horse named Picasso. My twelve year old lack of writing prowess ensured that it was deleted almost immediately after the sequels came out (yes, there were sequels). At that point I had been riding for two years, and had enough fervent interest in owning a horse that many horse-centered novels were spawned on my behalf. Not only that, but a couple of horse-crazy friends aided me in my writings. Our original account, TearsonPaper44, was tragically deleted.
Anyway, as I sat in our dinged-up Subaru, preaching the horse gospel to my mother, I had no idea that the wait for a horse would end sooner than I expected (but much later than I'd hoped).
*See: "Foundation" mentioned many times throughout the course of this book. Hopefully.
^See: "Hypocrisy" mentioned (indirectly) many times throughout the course of this book. Definitely.
