July 3
Meghan must have been really tired, 'cause when I woke up she was still flat on her stomach, sound asleep. The towel had come off during the night, so I pulled it back up (she was still on top of all the blankets) and then I got up and went to my desk and wrote my bio for WWMT which I should have done already, and then I wrote in my journal.
Sometimes it was hard to keep up with it. I had a lot of long, busy days, and it was hard to make time, but it was important.
I heard her roll over in bed, and dropped the pen out of my mouth and turned to see her reaching for covers, but she'd kind of pushed the towel away from her and trapped it under her legs.
I don't think that she was really all the way awake yet, and so I got back in bed with her and covered her with my wing. Even with me nestled up right against her, my coverts only reached down to her knees, but I guess that was enough, because she stopped moving around and then I heard her start to softly snore again.
She probably snoozed for another third of an hour, then she woke up and brushed her hand over my wing and kind of pushed it off to the side, and I obliged her by pulling it in and out of the way.
She was still a bit stumbly as she went to the bathroom but she made it without my help. Then she went into the kitchen and drank two glasses of water and came out and asked me if I had any aspirin.
I did, so I got some out of my desk drawer and she took it into the kitchen and had a third glass of water and some aspirins and then sat down on the futon and said that she was going back to sleep. Then she rolled up in the covers like a little burrito. I kissed her on the forehead and she ran her hand through my forelock and said that she was sorry she was being a bad friend but she'd had too much to drink last night.
I said it was okay, and once she was asleep I went over to my desk and turned on my computer and copied the bio I'd written into a computer letter and then sent it to Cyndi.
Then I left my computer on in case they wanted to send a reply, and went out the balcony door to get my mail. I knew that it didn't get delivered on Sundays, but maybe there had been some that came yesterday while we were riding horses.
I was glad I did, 'cause I got a letter from Gusty, and as soon as I got back up to my apartment and checked on Meghan (she was fast asleep) I opened it.
She said that because of how well she'd done in A Midsummer Night's Dream, an agent that South Pole knew had negotiated to get her a recurring role on four episodes of Orange is the New Black, where she was playing an new inmate who was being held before transfer back to Equestria. She said that they hadn't really given her too much background at first, because they wanted to see how she'd do, but after her first scene they'd really liked her, and so in her second appearance she had a monologue about how she was a wanted fugitive in Equestria who had stolen another pony's identity and made her way to America on forged papers but then had gotten caught. She said it was kind of a silly premise, because the filmmakers really didn't understand that much about ponies, and I laughed when she said that there was a flashback scene of her inking her hoof and stamping it on a piece of paper because that was one thing that humans used to keep track of who was who.
And she said that if she'd really been in prison, she could have just used magic to escape, since the director didn't have her wearing a suppressor on her horn, and there weren't any magical barriers at all. She'd mentioned that, but the director said that the audience wouldn't know the difference anyway.
She said it was really different than theatre. She had to be up early so that they could put on makeup because they didn't trust her to dress herself, and then they'd shoot one little bit of a scene again and again until they were satisfied with it and then they'd move on to another one. And a lot of it was out of order, which made it kind of confusing to know how it fit in, and there was a lot of time when she had to just sit and wait.
The whole thing seemed pretty chaotic, and she said it was hard to imagine how it turned into an actual episode, but she'd seen rough cuts of the first episode she'd been in and it all made sense when it was together.
Gusty said that the episodes were filmed in New York and one weekend some of the girls had taken her to New York City and they'd seen a play on Broadway called Les Miserables.
When she wasn't filming, she said that she used Skype to talk to Nicky, who was in England, and she also talked to her agent about getting another film role after this one was over. She knew that she wasn't going to be able to get a main role in any major production, because she just didn't have time for it, but she hoped that she could still get a secondary role.
Then she reminded me that she'd be in Stratford the second week of August for their production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and that they had a whole week there of rehearsals before the actual show on the weekend and she'd be really happy if I could come.
At the very end she said that she'd put some pictures of her with some of the stars on Flickr, which is a computer photo album, and she included instructions for how I could look at them.
Each one of the pictures had the names of the people written in it, although I didn't know who any of them were. But they looked like they were happy and so did Gusty. Some of them were posed but there was also a really nice candid picture of her looking up at a small cloth ball that she was floating over her head while a woman named Ruby Rose watched. I could see cameras and stuff in the background, so that must have been on the set.
Meghan got up while I was looking at the pictures and came over to see what I was doing, so I told her all about what Gusty had said, and then went through the pictures again.
Then I checked my computer mail and I'd gotten a letter from Cyndi who wanted to know if I could come in in the afternoon to do a brief interview that they could put on their Facebook page. She said it would be really short, and it would be with her and Alex. She said that around three would be good, and I thought that the way she worded it made it not sound like they were flexible on the time.
So I said I would.
Meghan and I ate the leftover waffles, and then we took a shower together and when that was over she dried me and fussed over my coat and hair because she said that I needed to look my best to be on television.
She wanted to come with me and I guess we could have taken an Uber-Car but the TV station wasn't that far away and it was a nice day to be out.
So we had a little snack before leaving. I had some more alfalfa and Meghan tried a piece, too, and said it wasn't bad. And she filled a bottle she had with water in case we wanted some then she checked herself in the mirror before we left.
I let her lock the front door—I didn't like using human keys at all—and then I told her she might as well keep the key because I had a spare and I didn't think I'd need it anyway. My balcony door didn't have a lock, because nobody could get up there except me.
She knew about cars not paying attention when they turn, and always looked to make sure that there weren't any coming even when the walking man said we could go. I was surprised that people that careless were allowed to drive, but Meghan said that once you got your license it was really hard to lose it.
I led her until we were on Westnedge, and then after that we walked side-by-side. There weren't too many people out walking: I'd noticed that people liked to run in the morning and after three in the afternoon but the rest of the time there weren't too many people on the sidewalk except downtown.
It took us about an hour to get there and as soon as we'd signed in Meghan ran off to the bathroom, saying she wanted to make sure she was presentable. I just sat down in the chairs and waited.
We didn't have to wait too long. Cyndi came out and shook my hoof and Meghan introduced herself and then we all went back and went to the studio. Meghan had to stand in the back, behind the cameras, and promise not to make noise.
An assistant put a microphone on me, which gave him all sorts of trouble. Cyndi's was clipped to the neck of her shirt, but my coat was too short for it to stay and so he finally got a little piece of gaffer's tape and stuck it to me with that, then he strung the wire around my back and clipped the little box to my tail.
Then when I was ready, I sat in a chair and they had to make a couple of adjustments until they thought I was sitting at the right height, and then when everything was set, Cyndi sat down. She said that they'd decided to do two interviews; she'd ask me weather questions and then Alex would ask me general questions. And she said it was best to give short answers when I could because they'd want to chop it up some for editing.
So we had a little practice, and she asked me about what we did on weather patrols, and so I explained how we sometimes broke up storms and sometimes brought rain, and we also patrolled the sea near the coast for ships that were in trouble.
Then she asked me some questions about stormwatching, and asked me how it was different to be in the air in the heart of a storm as opposed to being on the ground feeling its effects.
Every now and then we'd have to stop because the cameraman had to do something, and once I answered a question too long and she had me go back and try again. And my microphone fell off and had to be taped back on, because I was sweating under the hot studio lights. I couldn't imagine how it must feel while wearing all those clothes.
When she was done, Alex came in and shook my hoof and mostly had me expand on what I'd said in my bio. She also wanted to know what I thought about Kalamazoo and I said it was the biggest place I'd ever lived and there was so much to do that I couldn't possibly get it in in one year. She asked what some of my goals were, and I told her that I wanted to fly to Chicago and that I wanted to go to a nudist resort and she had me do that question again without mentioning the nudist resort because she said that wasn't the kind of thing that their viewers really wanted to know.
And then she asked me how it felt to be a YouTube celebrity, and I said that I didn't know that I was. So she told me that the video that Gates had made of me flying had gotten millions of views which was hard to believe.
Then she asked me a couple of questions about how hard it had been adjusting to life in America, and I said that everyone at college had really been helpful, and it was the little things that took the most getting used to, like how a lot of the door handles were really hard to use with hooves and that there were coins and paper money and plastic money and that was all a lot to keep track of.
When she was done, they turned off the bright lights and she shook my hoof again and said that there would be a teaser on the evening news and that they'd air my weather interview in the morning before I did the weather and then they'd put on the one she'd done.
And she said that I should be at the station at 5 am in order to get ready.
I heard Meghan groan at that.
Then we got shooed out because they had to get ready for their evening news show. But Cyndi waved at me again on my way out.
It was a little easier walking back, 'cause it was more downhill. It also felt really good to get back outside, because the studio had been uncomfortably hot, which was maybe why Gusty said that they did the filming in little bits and then had breaks.
I asked Meghan how she thought I'd done, 'cause she'd probably seen other TV interviews, and she said that I'd done a really good job. And she thought it had been funny how the tape had come unstuck from me and made my microphone fall onto the desk.
We were both hungry for dinner by the time we got back to downtown, so we stopped at a little cafe called Bagel Beanery which was right next to Fourth Coast, but we couldn't stay too long because they were closing. I thought it was really early for them to close, but I guess on Sundays some places don't stay open very late.
So we took our sandwiches away in a little bag—we could have stayed, but Meghan said that they'd be happier if they could close up the store on time—and then walked a couple of blocks until she saw a small park with some hanging straps she called swings. They reminded me of the bos'n chairs some ships had.
They weren't very comfortable for me, but I didn't mind sitting on the ground.
When we were done eating we took our time going back to my apartment. She said that she'd like to go with me to the TV station in the morning, and I reminded her that meant that we had to leave at four in the morning, and she said that she would do it.
Then I said that meant we'd have to get up at three, and she said that was okay. And I kind of didn't think she'd really want to, but she was determined to do it, and she said that she'd gotten plenty of sleep this morning so that it wouldn't be any trouble at all.
So when we got back to my apartment, we sat on the papasan for a little while and watched the birds and then she reminded me that if we were going to get up that early we ought to go to bed now.
It was really strange getting ready for bed when it was so light out still, and I asked her one more time if she really meant to get up that early because she didn't have to, and if I went by myself I could leave a little bit later because it was faster to fly there, and I could just have a little nap now on the papasan and then get a half-night's sleep later and I'd be fine.
Meghan insisted that she wanted to, though. So she got undressed and got in bed and I curled up next to her.
It's really hard to force yourself to go to sleep, even when you know that you're going to need it. Neither of us was all that tired—Meghan had just gotten up less than a dozen hours ago—so we shifted around a lot trying to find a comfortable position.
It didn't help that there was a lot of noise outside. I could hear Caleb, Lindy, and Trinity playing next door, and the birds were still pretty active, and then around dusk we started to hear people sending off fireworks to celebrate.
Meghan muttered something about assholes who didn't have to get up at three, and put her head under her pillow to muffle the sound.
I thought that was a good idea, so I put my pillow over my head and tried to ignore the louder bangs that got through it and thought that I probably wouldn't get back to sleep.