On my walk to Subtropical the next morning, it’s sunny and warm for the first time in a few weeks. I don’t typically like this kind of weather, but today the sun energizes me. This must be how Leos feel. I am wearing my pink Juicy tracksuit, and I don’t even care if I run into Beau looking like a junior high schooler from 2003. It doesn’t matter what I wear. I am enigmatic no matter what. That’s what the Mirror Box girls think.

Fueled by the sun, I fire off a bunch of text messages.

First to my dad: I rewatched Inborn last night. Nico said he wanted all his actors to watch it before filming. It was even better the second time.

Then I text Cinnamon: Thanks again for the drinks and emotional labor last night. Once I get a few more Venmo payments in, I’m going to buy an eighth of top-shelf weed and we can smoke it all while you vent your problems to me.

Then I text Thomas: Good call on Nico Nadler.

My dad texts back first. Good assignment from Nico. On the second watch, I was struck by the Freudian themes. Of course, there are the dream sequences. But also the way Cassie destroys phallic objects, like cutting off squirrels’ heads. It seems to be a reaction against castration trauma.

This text reminds me of when I used to watch Q&As with directors all the time on YouTube. Freud always came up. I am proud that my dad can talk articulately about film, even though I am sort of over Freud, who just feels like this secret language old white men use to make whatever they are talking about seem inaccessible. Freud just gives cloaked terms to universal aspects of the human experience, kind of like astrology.

Freud is just astrology for men.

I’m not going to tell my dad that, though. Instead I text back, Nico is very influenced by Freud, so you hit the nail on the he— phallus.

Haha! my dad types back immediately. I can’t help but smile. It feels nice to be riffing with my father, even if it’s about Freud’s obsession with dick.

Thomas texts back next. I’ve actually never seen his movies, but every actress I’ve slept with won’t shut up about him.

Now I am laughing. I text back, Bless Thomas’s heaux. Seriously. They dress me, they help me develop convincing lies to my father, and they prevent Thomas from being too needy. If I wasn’t trying to save money, I would get Thomas a robe that says BLESS THOMAS’S HEAUX in gold script for Christmas.

I text my dad back. Have you seen anything else good recently? It’s nice to get recommendations from people who aren’t in “the industry.”

Then Cinnamon texts me back. Yessss bish!