October 20
I woke up kinda early and I had a bit of hay for a snack, then I went to the bathroom and filled my camelback, then got in my flight gear. I thought about putting my saddlebags on, but anchovy cans were pretty small, and I could fit a bunch of them in my vest pockets and camelback pouches.
I went down to the boardwalk and turned on my blinking light, then called the airplane directors. I said that I was going to go west over the 43 road, and Dori told me that I could and reminded me of the little grass airport that was west of town.
So I took off and climbed over the trees at the end of the parking lot, and I would have liked to visit with Caleb and Lindy and Trinity but it was too early, and I didn't want to wait, 'cause I wanted to get a good long flight in before lunch.
I think I was in the air before the sun came over the horizon, but it was completely overcast, so I couldn't be sure.
I flew west over Main Street, and I didn't start climbing when I crossed the 131 Highway because I thought they'd be happier if I went to Meijer before I flew and not after when I was all lathered. And the anchovies didn't weigh that much anyway.
I got a basket and carried it back to the canned fish and I had to fly up and get the anchovies because they kept them on the very top shelf. I got a dozen tins and took them up front and I tried to used the computer cashier. I wasn't very good at it, and it kept telling me to put my anchovies on the belt and to get my hooves off the scale and I had to keep apologizing to it when I did something wrong.
The screen was really annoying to use too, because I had to push the buttons with my muzzle and I kept pushing the wrong thing and finally a man came over and helped me out but I decided that I wasn't going to try using it again. It was so much easier and faster to have a cashier do it for me.
I tucked all the cans away and then went out and sat down on the front porch and ate one of my cans of anchovies for energy, then I put the empty can in the wastebasket and flew off, curving over the parking lot once I'd gotten higher than the lampposts.
As I went west, I climbed until I was right at the base of the clouds, close enough that sometimes I broke off the little misty bits hanging down from the bottoms of the cloud. And that gave me a really good feel for the cloud, and there wasn't really enough moisture in it to rain out, and I thought that maybe they'd break up in the afternoon, if they were the tail end of a storm. I'd smelled just a little bit of rain, so probably it had rained last night and these were all that was left.
Or they could have been the leading edge of a slow front that was pushing its way through.
As I got close to the grass airport, I called out on my radio to small airplanes, but there weren't any of them near me, and when I flew by, I saw that the one airplane that was sitting outside still had covers over its windows.
A little bit past that I went by Gene the Pumpkin Man's pumpkin patch, and his fields were full of big, ripe pumpkins that looked pretty tasty. The seeds were really good, too, if you roasted them. Zucche did that every year, and it was a nice treat to celebrate the end of the season.
Sometimes she'd also make a nice vegetable stew and bring it out inside of a pumpkin.
When I got all the way out to the 40 road, I decided I'd got a little bit north, so I told Dori and then followed the road all the way to Gobles. And when I got over town I circled around and checked my watch, and I had plenty of time to get back, so instead of taking the roads or using my watch to give me an almost direct bearing, I decided to follow above the Kal-Haven trail instead.
I was a little bit north of the trail, and from my altitude I could easily see how it bent south and then back north, so I didn't follow it at first, but flew above the road out of town, and when I was to the next little town which was Kendall, the trail was almost right next to the road, and so then when it bent away I stayed over it.
Past a rectangular forest, it crossed over an electric wire path, and then curved a little bit north, and I stayed over it until it made its final turn south to get to the trailhead, and by then I could easily see the 131 Bus highway so I started descending and aimed for that, and flew along it until I got to the dirt mines, and then I turned south to get back to campus.
I landed on the boardwalk and went inside and put away my flight gear and anchovies and then I ate some more hay before getting into the shower.
I sat on my bed and groomed myself and got some more loose feathers off, then I took my book of poetry back to the library, because I thought I should exchange it for a different book. And I looked around until I found one by Alice Walker that looked good, and the librarian asked if I was going to return my World War One book or if I wanted to renew it which meant I could keep it longer and I thought that was a good idea, so I did.
If I had been smarter I would have had my saddlebags with my astronomy things but I wasn't, and I didn't. So I had to go back to my room with my new poetry book in my mouth, and then I packed everything for my class and went to lunch.
I wasn't too upset that they didn't have any good fish again, since I had all my anchovies, and so I just got a salad and also a piece of pumpkin pie, and I went and sat down with Leon and Cedric and Trevor.
They were really happy to see me, and both Leon and Cedric bumped my hoof with their fists, and they mostly talked about football and I said that I thought it would be fun to be a cheerleader at one of their games, and they both said that I should try. So I was going to have to ask Jessica about it, and soon, too, because we were getting close to the end of the quarter.
I didn't like the whipped cream that was on top of my pie; it didn't taste very good at all, and after one bite I scraped it off even though I hated wasting food. And then I got out my poetry book and Leon laughed when he saw the title, but Cedric said that it was true; and not only did horses make a landscape look more beautiful, but ponies also make life more beautiful.
I gave the book to Trevor so he could pick a poem, and he chose one about the fall called These Mornings of Rain, and I read it and I really liked it. I'd never really thought about how rain might feel and sound in the city, but Cedric said it was just like the poem.
After lunch, I went to astronomy, and Professor Miller thanked me in front of class for helping to push clouds out of the way, and she said that everyone else in the class had missed it. And then she told us a little bit about Einstein and how he had come up with his theories and how they had been all published in the same year and they were all very important, and she explained how experiments had proved that light couldn't move any faster than its top speed even if it got a running start.
Then she told us about general relativity and how it included gravity. And she said it was weird because all things responded the same way to gravity, and Newton didn't know why, so Einstein figured it out and said that gravity wasn't a force, but it was a curve in space-time instead and that was kind of strange to think about. And that added a fourth dimension which was time, and she said that the Earth moved ten thousand times further in space-time as it did in just plain distance, which was strange to think about. And there was an equation that used a distance called the Schwarzschild Radius, and when it was small the old physics worked but when it was big they didn't.
And she ended class by saying that how time appeared depended on who did the measuring and that we'd start talking more about black holes next.
I had a little bit of free time after astronomy class before I had to meet Meghan, so I turned on my computer and I studied the weather for a little bit, then I checked my computer mailbox and I'd gotten a computer letter from Miss Cherilyn saying that Gusty's next play was next weekend if I wanted to go, and so I wrote her a letter back saying that I did.
Meghan came over to my room while I was still telling my computer what to write, and I had to stop to let her in and then I told her that I needed to finish if I had time and she said that we did. So I finished it and sent it and then Meghan asked what it was about so I told her.
She called for an Uber-Car and while we were waiting for it she said that Maura had said that the farrier would be there, too.
So we went downstairs to wait for the Uber-Car and it arrived a few minutes after we got there. It was sleek car called a Camry Hybrid, and it could run on a normal engine or electricity or both and so it wasn't broken when the engine turned off at traffic signals.
He dropped us off at the salon and we went inside and first me and Meghan sat in the chairs so that Meghan could get her hair trimmed and I could get my mane and tail trimmed, and we gossipped with the stylists. The one who was doing Meghan's hair had seen me on the television and said that it was kind of scary seeing all the footage from my camera, and I told her that it wasn't the worst storm I'd flown in, and Meghan told her how to find my movies on YouTube and she said that she would look for them.
Stefan came in while we were still getting trimmed, and so he waited around until we were finished and then we went into the little side room. He noticed right away that I was moulting, because he had chickens and they did that too, and he ran his fingers over my pinfeathers and said that was something he'd never expected to see on an equine.
Maura asked Meghan if she wanted to go into the other room right now or if she wanted to stay with me, and she said that she'd rather that we stay together.
Even though she'd seen it before, Meghan looked a little bit uncomfortable when he was trimming my hooves, although he didn't have to do very much since I went shoeless. And he said that my hooves looked a little bit better than last time and I told him I'd been doing more flying and less walking and that had probably helped, and I was trotting mostly on dirt now, which didn't wear them down the same as concrete did.
He said that he was going to file them the same as last time if I didn't mind, and I said that that had worked well, so I gave him one hoof at a time to work on. It always feels a little bit strange after having my hooves filed to stand on them again, and it would probably take a couple of days before they started to feel normal again.
When he'd finished, he reached into his pocket and got me a carrot which I'd been smelling the whole time he'd been working, and he started to offer it to me and then he kind of pulled it back and said that he was sorry, he'd forgotten I wasn't a horse, and I said that I'd still eat the carrot, so he gave it back, and Maura laughed and said that he had quite the way with the ladies.
I hugged him and thanked him, and then we all went to a different room and it smelled kind of waxy in the room, and Meghan asked me if I wanted to see how a Brazilian wax was done, or if I'd rather not watch. I was curious, so I said that I'd stay and Maura offered to bring me a chair because there weren't any extras but I didn't mind standing on my hooves and getting used to how they felt now. And so Maura put on a pair of gloves and Meghan took off her pants and panties and it looked like it was really painful and I don't know why anybody would want to do that.
And so I moved right next to Meghan and she put her hand on my back and squeezed every time Maura pulled another strip of wax off, and we were both really glad when it was over.
After Meghan had gotten dressed again we both thanked Maura, and Meghan ordered another Uber-Car to come and get us. And it took about a half hour, so we sat in the front and chatted and made plans for the weekend. The weather was supposed to be really nice and so we thought it would be fun to go to the beach tomorrow if Aric wanted to.
The car we got to go back to campus in was called a Sonic, and it wasn't as nice as the Camry had been.
We had enough time for dinner together, and everyone was kind of surprised to see me, so I explained how Pastor Liz had had to cancel our meeting because she was going to a protest.
I'd gotten a kind of light dinner, because afterwards I'd be fighting, and I hated doing a lot of exercise on a full belly.
Me and Peggy and Meghan walked back to our dorm together, and Meghan asked if Aric would pick her up after bell choir, and I said that I'd tell him to, and then she crouched down and nuzzled me, which Peggy thought was really funny. And she said that maybe Meghan was turning into a pony, and Meghan said back in Equestrian that Peggy was just jealous.
So I got my glaive and then I walked down to the park so that I could get more used to the new feel of my hooves. And we all stretched out and went through the warmups, and then we got to do one-on-one fighting and I got to practice with Stellan and Seth and Karla and Aric, and when we took a break before she set up a little challenge, I told them about the little fight that me and Aquamarine had gotten into last weekend (it was mostly Aquamarine). So then I had to explain how obvious it was that she was trying to make him back down but he hadn't figured it out and nobody else really knew either, so Stellan got his boxing gloves and we put them on my hind hooves and so I demonstrated. He knew what was coming, since we'd done it together before.
But he let me hit him anyway, since it was a learning opportunity for everyone else. And I didn't put as much force into it as I could have, and only used one hind leg, and aimed for the thick muscle in his thigh which also had armor over it. Even if I had gone for a full kick, I couldn't hit as hard as an earth pony.
So then everyone else wanted to try, even Aric, and Karla had to remind everyone to move slow the first time, and I said that if they were trying to dodge I couldn't be sure I'd hit where I meant to, but we did it anyway.
The boxing shoes made it really weird, because my nose was down a bit and my hind hooves didn't move like they usually did, but I did pretty well, so everyone got the opportunity to feel what it was like. And then they were curious just how hard I could kick if I really wanted to, so we found a board in the back of Stellan's car, and he fastened it to the side of a tree so it stuck out and was a decent target for me, and Aric helped me get the boxing gloves off, and then I tried a practice kick at it to make sure that it was at a good height, and then I got it a second time and I didn't break it all the way off but I cracked the wood, and I said that Aquamarine probably would have broken it off if she'd kicked it, 'cause she was a lot stronger than I was.
That had taken up most of the time that Karla had planned for a battle, and I told her I was sorry, but she said that it was okay, because it had been very educational, and everyone now knew how to tell if a pony was about to kick them. And Aric said that the best thing to do was get out of the way, which I agreed with.
Aric and I got in Winston and I told him that we needed to pick up Meghan, so he drove up to Trowbridge and since we weren't going to be inside for very long, and there weren't any spaces to park in anyway, he stopped right by the door and turned on the flashing lights, and we went inside to her room.
This time, she'd packed a duffel bag, and so the three of us went down and got in Winston and I told Aric about our plan to go to the beach and he liked that plan. And just as soon as we'd said that it started raining, and he said that was a good omen.
When he got to Dartmouth Street, he stopped Winston and asked me if I wanted to drive the rest of the way, and Meghan said that that was a dumb idea, and I told her that we'd done it a bunch of times and I could even pick gears, and she shook her head and asked him if her seat belt worked right. He said that there was no way to know for sure unless we tried it, and he'd rather not find out, and he explained that he was working the pedals, so if I messed up, he could stop Winston, and I don't think that reassured her too much but I got all the way to his driveway without crashing again.
I asked if the movie of me that Cyndi had made was on the internet and Aric said that we could find it, so we went up to his room and I sat on his lap and Meghan stood behind him and he found the movie and played it a couple of times.
It was kind of embarrassing how many nice things Cyndi said about me, and they weren't all quite true, either, but I guess they were close enough for most people who would watch the movie. And it was really neat how cleverly she'd mixed everything together, from her talking to me and the view from the ground and the view from the GoPro. And Mel looked like he was a little uncomfortable being interviewed but also enthusiastic, and he also had a lot of nice things to say about me.
Then Aric said that we should get some beer, and we didn't feel like taking Winston, so we walked to Tiffany's and picked some out, and when we got back home he looked through all the movie-records that were by the television, and he asked Meghan how she felt about watching Labyrinth. And she said that she liked that movie, and I'd wanted to watch it, too, so he put that in and we all sat on the couch with me in the middle.
I thought that the goblin king was kind of mean, but I don't think he could help himself, and that Sarah kind of deserved it for being bad and not taking care of her little brother like she should have. Sometimes younger siblings are annoying but you need to watch out for them and take care of them and keep them safe.
It was really neat how he moved the glass balls in his hand, and Meghan said that she'd forgotten just how much of David Bowie you could see in the movie and how had they gotten away with letting him wear pants like that, and Aric said it made him a little uncomfortable, and Meghan asked if he was worried that he couldn't measure up. And Aric admitted that it was true, but he said that in his defense not many men could measure up to David Bowie.
We talked for a little bit about how in the human world almost everything in the movie was make-believe, and that was kind of strange to me because there wasn't a lot in the movie that I thought was made-up. I guess I hadn't been thinking of it from the human perspective, and I could imagine Discord being a goblin king and I think he would do almost the same things if he were. I don't think he'd want a baby, though, but he might pretend he did just to annoy somepony else.
It was kinda late when we finally went upstairs but it didn't matter because we didn't have any classes tomorrow. And after Aric had peed, Meghan went to the bathroom to put on her sleeping clothes, and Aric put on the fuzzy pants she'd borrowed last weekend while she was in there. The button that held the front shut was unbuttoned and I was thinking about taking advantage of that but I knew that I probably shouldn't because when Meghan came back she wouldn't want to see that.
She got on the inside again, and I got up next to her and snuggled against her, and then Aric laid down on the outside of the bed and they banged their legs together and Aric apologized and she said it was okay, and it took a couple of minutes before we were all comfortable, and then when we were I kissed both of them and Meghan put her hand on the top of my head and scratched me behind the ears.