It’s a drooping flower with a penis for a stem. It could mean anything, or it could just mean he wanted to paint sad penises and used flowers to cover them up. Let the artist come out and say, Yes, this was a way for me to express my sadness after I was forcibly removed from my teaching post at Notre Dame for showing up on campus naked. It makes it more difficult if the artist is dead or too crazy to answer, but then we should just look at it. And that’s it. We shouldn’t pretend we understand.
I just want to hear it in their voice. I don’t want someone else who has no idea what their work means to speak for him. He probably spent the rest of his pathetic life trying to get people to listen to him. But they wouldn’t because he was crazy. So he painted instead. And rather than let him tell someone exactly what his work meant, they send some lady with a BA in art history and an ugly green blazer to do it.
But maybe you didn’t bring me there for the freak show artist part. Maybe it was the other exhibit you actually brought me to see. The culinary one.
I’d never seen food like that before. The cake towers were pretty impressive. And the rows of perfect fruit tarts that looked like jewels. I can see why they belonged in an exhibit. I’ve never seen food look so beautiful before.
It was a lot of color. Like all the cooks and bakers had gotten high and blasted their ingredients with psychedelic paint. But I liked it. I liked the way everything was stacked precisely, like an army of food.
The thing I like most about it is that I can do it. It isn’t inaccessible like most art. It was beautiful because it was real.
Anyway, thanks for taking me.
DOSAGE: 3.5 mg. Same dosage.
MAY 1, 2013
Yeah, I feel fine. Like I said, I’m better when I’m baking. It removes the distractions.
And cream puffs might sound easy, but they’re actually pretty technical. Even if you get the pastry part right, you never know if you’ve filled them enough. I had to cut a few of them open before I knew they were okay.
And I did it with an audience. Rebecca was watching me from her kitchen stool, smiling every so often at the ingredients. She frowned when the mobsters walked right into the kitchen and let off a couple rounds into the ceiling, knocking chunks off the wall and into the sink.
“Can’t ignore me forever,” the mob boss said. But I kept filling the cream puffs, and he eventually moved to the corner of the room to watch the festivities.
I think you probably know that I hadn’t exactly been looking forward to this baby shower. I wasn’t expected to serve food or entertain guests or participate in any of the absurd games, but the event itself was not what I’d call a good time. On the plus side, I have never seen my mom so excited for a party. And my desserts were amazing.
Paul’s mom was ushered immediately into the living room with the rest of the guests before she could open her racist, homophobic mouth—that incidentally looks like a dog’s anus.
She just nodded in my direction and was dragged into the midst of the celebration by my mom’s friend Mauve, who was coordinating all the activities. Yes, Mauve is a ridiculous name. It will not be on my list of suggestions for the baby if it happens to be a girl. Paul’s mom sat rigidly on the couch and then immediately started speaking to Janice, my mom’s old boss, the nicest person in the world. I wish I could’ve warned her, but that would’ve meant going over there, and I was not willing to do that. I just had to hope that Janice’s kindness would not be destroyed when it came in contact with Paul’s mom.
Maya burst through the door a few minutes later, wearing quite possibly the ugliest sundress I’ve ever seen, which I didn’t tell her. Before waving at her, I waited for my mom to say hello. I handed her a plate of cream puffs, and we watched the party unfold like visitors at some exotic zoo.
Dwight’s mom walked through the door like a pale, skinny stork. She waved at both of us before joining the crowd of squealing women flocking to my mom. I told Dwight about the party and that he was more than welcome to come, too, unless he’d rather stick pins in his eyes or get diarrhea or do almost ANYTHING else. For some reason, he opted out.
Again, I had to hear about breastfeeding because my mom got a breast pump as a gift. And then someone at one end of the room criticized someone at the other end of the room for using formula, and shit was about to get real. Everyone looked uncomfortable. Even Maya, who normally didn’t pay attention to such things, leaned forward and said in a low, creepy voice, “Blood in the water.”
But Mauve was a professional. She chose that exact moment to start another game while my mom was opening gifts. The game was being able to identify the melted chocolate bar in the diaper. I will never understand why that was an appropriate use of chocolate.
My head twinged a little bit on and off, but nothing too terrible. Maya distracted me with questions about the guests and a few robot-like observations.
“You know, you probably aren’t going to sleep much when the kid is born. They’ll probably cry and wake you up. My brothers did.”
“Thanks, Maya.”
“And the weirdest thing is going to be how nervous you are when it’s sleeping.”
“What?”
“You’re going to check on it every time you pass its room just to make sure it’s breathing.”
“Babies don’t breathe?” This was a legitimate question. I wasn’t exactly sure what babies were capable of.
“They breathe very softly. Sometimes you can’t tell.”
“Awesome.”
Sometimes it’s not actually a good idea to talk about this stuff with Maya. She’s a little too clinical, a little too real. I don’t want people to give me fluff, but I think I’d be okay if people didn’t tell me directly that I’d be worried about a kid that is not mine. She could sugarcoat things a little. When I told her this, she shrugged.
“This is your kid,” she said. “Your mom and Paul are going to rely on you way more than they would under other circumstances. You’re old enough. You’re responsible. You can handle it.”
That was when I felt the guilt. I wasn’t going to be able to help the way I was supposed to. I wasn’t going to be the big brother my mom needed me to be.
Even though I’ve been doing really well and the drug still works, they’d never leave me alone with their baby. The kid is going to grow up knowing that I am different, and then it might even feel obligated to take care of me. That was what I was thinking until the end of the party, and even though Maya didn’t say it, I could tell she was waiting for me to tell her what was on my mind. I never did. So she changed the subject.
“Hey, the prom. You’re taking me, right?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Aren’t I supposed to ask you?”
“I guess.”
“Why didn’t you let me, then?” I’d completely forgotten about it.
“Sorry, go ahead.” She sat back, waiting.
“Well, there’s no magic in it now.”
She rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m asking you. Will you go to prom with me?”
“I’m still missing the magic, Maya.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” she said, but her lip curled ever so slightly into a smile.