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// May 19 [Home-cooked Breakfast] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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May 19

When we were done in bed, Aric got dressed and went downstairs to make breakfast like he'd promised. He said he was going to make scrambled eggs and pancakes and hash browns.

I asked if he minded if I watched, and he said that he didn't mind at all.

The first thing he did was to make coffee, though. He has a pot called Mister Coffee and it makes the coffee for you, so he filled it with ground coffee seeds and started it. I think if I'd still been upstairs, the smell would have been enough to bring me down.

For some reason, he kept the eggs and butter and cheese in the refrigerator. I'd noticed that at the grocery store, too, but I hadn't asked why, so I asked Aric, and he said that they would go bad otherwise. They must be different on Earth, then, because in Equestria they'll keep for weeks out in the open.

His stove made little snapping noises when he turned the knobs, and then it started burning all on its own. He got out pans for everything and let them start warming up and melting the butter while he was making the pancake batter.

Humans have really clever pancake batter. It was in a yellow jug and he just added some water and shook it up a lot and all of a sudden it was batter.

It didn't take too long before all the food was cooking, and I heard some footsteps on the stairs. Pretty soon David opened the door to the kitchen and I think he was surprised to see me there.

I was surprised to see him, too. Even though I knew he lived downstairs, I didn't know that the stairs went up into the kitchen. Plus, he wasn't wearing a shirt and I saw he had earrings in his nipples and belly button which I had never seen before.

He mumbled a greeting and went to the bathroom. Aric said that he was glad he'd bought enough breakfast for everyone, and just then remembered that the pancakes needed to be turned.

When David was on his way back downstairs, Aric asked him if he wanted breakfast, and he said he did, and that probably Angela would, too.

She came upstairs right after he left, and she was wearing a white shirt and a pair of sleeping shorts that had fire trucks on them. When Aric saw them, he asked if they were David's, or if she had her own pair, and she said that they were his fire truck boxers, but she was only wearing them because he was wearing her underwear. Aric said that he didn't need to know that, and she shrugged and then asked him if he wanted any help cooking.

I could tell that she thought he wasn't doing it right, but she kept her mouth shut and cooked the pancakes while he stirred the eggs and made sure that the hash browns weren't burning again, and then they filled up plates when they were done, and David set out places with plates and silverware that were exactly like the ones that the college dining hall had. The coffee cups all said Denny's on them.

People like advertising stuff on their clothes and on their cars and on their coffee cups, too, I guess.

It was kind of crowded at the table, and Angela had to sit on David's lap because there weren't enough chairs for everyone. But we had a nice breakfast even if the hash browns were a little bit burned and a couple of pancakes weren't all the way cooked through. I bet if Aric practiced a little bit he could be a really good cook.

When breakfast was over, Angela said that she and David would clean up the kitchen, and Aric and I went out to the front porch, where I got dressed and then got permission to fly.

It was a beautiful day for it: the sky was perfectly clear, so you could see everything. I was glad it was Dori giving directions, 'cause I wanted to be as high as I could just so I could look around and see the world. And it was worth it, even though there was a bit of nagging guilt at the thought of airplanes getting re-directed because of me. I couldn't quite see Lake Michigan—I thought maybe I was, but the haze at the horizon could have been fooling me. It always looks a bit ocean-y right where the horizon is, unless there are mountains.

I flew around for a while, not really exercising but just having fun, until it was time to go back.

I didn't notice until I had landed but my blinking light had stopped working while I was flying, so when I was getting undressed, I changed the batteries before I forgot. Then I went to the shower and cleaned myself off before I went to lunch.

I was just on the way out when Brianna came in. I hadn't talked to her in a while, and I thought about how I had said that I was going to try and invite Aquamarine for a weekend, and then I'd forgotten to do it. I'd have to do it soon, there wasn't much more time left before the end of the year.

I did remember to bring the poem to read. When I sat down I told Leon that he looked more tan, even though he really looked the same as he had yesterday and the day before that. But it's always nice to compliment a person.

Cedric thought that was pretty funny, and then I asked if they minded if I read a poem, and they both said that I could.

Of course when I was done they were both laughing and joking about it. Cedric said that the part about the housemaids ought to be familiar to Leon, and he swore that none of their maids were despondent but that the butler had a rather hangdog look to him. And then Cedric admitted that it did kind of remind him of waking up in the city, that it never really went to sleep but it sort of napped at night and in the afternoon on hot days. He said that it had been hard to get used to how quiet the college was, and I thought that was funny because it was a lot louder than I was used to.

Conrad began by reading us a poem called Rhapsody on a Windy Night, and I thought about what Cedric had said about the city never sleeping. I had seen it half-awake in the morning, the sidewalks empty and the traffic lights signaling cars that aren't there. But I had never seen it at night, and I thought that maybe I should.

I liked poems about the sky and the sea and the forest and open plains, but why shouldn't the cities have poems of their own? I could almost imagine myself walking through the downtown of Kalamazoo at night, with nothing but the light of the moon and the streetlights to guide my hooves.

We followed that by a poem called Gerontion, which was kind of sad. It was about an old man who had never done anything that he thought was useful, and I could kind of think of how a pony person might think that, 'cause I think that they like to remember their heroes.

But maybe that's not right. Apple Bread never did anything heroic, except every morning he was at his bakery from sunup 'till sundown, and the village just wasn't the same without him.

He finished with Portrait of a Lady, which felt like kind of the opposite view to me. Like it was about him being young and her being older and wiser.

I think that there are two worlds, the one of the old and the one of the young. To the old it's changing and decaying from what they knew, but to the young it's new and full of promise. And I guess it's the same world no matter what, so perhaps the thing is to always see it as if you're young, and look for the wonders of it.

At the very end of class, he said that if we wanted to, we should read The Waste Land, and Morgan asked him if there was extra credit and he got that little smile I liked and said the satisfaction of having read it was extra credit enough.

I was still thinking about the poems at dinner, and so I didn't really pay all that much attention to what everyone was saying. Nobody really noticed; they were talking around me, and that was okay. Just before I got up to get dessert, Peggy rubbed my mane and by that I knew that she'd noticed.

I wonder if she misses me? I haven't slept in our room in a while.

Liz and I talked about bad kings and flawed prophets. She reminded me that the Bible was written by one tribe of people, and that I should keep in mind that who was a bad king to the Israelites might have been a very good king to the Philistines or the Babylonians or any of the other tribes who lived there that the Israelites were fighting with, which was something I hadn't thought of.

So I told her about what I'd thought about Eliot's poems, and how it was a matter of perspective, and she said that she thought I was getting wiser.

I asked her if she was going to stay at college for the summer, and she said that she lived in Kalamazoo, and we could meet at her house and continue our discussions if I was in town. It didn't have to be Thursdays, either; she could meet whenever we wanted.

And then I asked her about the bears, and she said that it was a difficult passage. She said that the youths were challenging Elisha's right to speak for God, and God's authority as well, and so right there in front of everybody as proof, God made the bears maul the youths.

I wasn't too happy with that explanation, but I guess at least He didn't flood the world again or destroy the whole city. And she reminded me that the people of Bethel were supposed to be following God's word, and they weren't.

When I got back to my room, I wrote a letter to Aquamarine inviting her to come to Kalamazoo the weekend after next if she could, and then I made another dreamcatcher, while I was thinking about if I should go to Meghan's room or spend the night with Peggy instead.

I finally asked her if she minded if I invited Meghan over to spend the night, which would kill two birds with one stone, and Peggy said that she didn't mind so long as we didn't have sex. So I sent a telephone telegram to Meghan, and she came over while I was finishing up helping Peggy with her math.

The three of us chatted for a little bit—it was kind of tense at first, but we all had a couple of bottles of beer which maybe wasn't so wise, but it really lightened the mood. And it was kind of late when we went to bed, but I felt like I was going to sleep really well, and I was right.