Horse Party

I wanted a horse as a kid. Not in that gentle, nurturing way—the actual desire for speed and control, something untamed that was yours to command. Money was tight, so I lived it differently: Wendy reruns, cartoons, afternoons at riding stables where I felt like I was getting closer to something.

All of that was building toward something, though I didn’t know it at the time. Turns out it was this: a party with an actual horse. Girl Talk and Rainbow Arabia and Kleerup spinning. The specific strangeness of it—that someone decided this was worth doing, that it exists at all—makes it more real than the childhood fantasy ever was. Some things take years to arrive, and when they do they’re weirder than you thought.