He’ll still every once in a while try to take control of the show in little ways: like, now that they’re filming the second season, whenever the cameras are around, he’ll try to get their attention by talking about something really strange or controversial, and he’ll try to insert himself into conversations that my mom is having with her friends for no reason—like, he’ll go into the kitchen if my mom is in there talking with somebody, and he’ll just start doing the dishes, you know? Like, Bob never does the dishes, but he’ll just start doing them so that he can chime in and be included, and he’ll try to say all this shit that he thinks will sound interesting, but since it has nothing to do with what anyone’s talking about and since it’s all kind of forced and awkward, it always ends up just falling flat, and then sometimes one of my mom’s friends will look into the camera like: What the fuck is he talking about?—but, for the most part, Bob’s been keeping his shit together. I mean, honestly, I’m a little worried that when they start editing the second season, Bob’s gonna end up looking like this crazy person, you know? Or like, some really annoying roommate who’s always hanging around in the background and won’t shut up. But whatever. He can handle it. As long as he’s not fucking with my mom’s vibe, I’m good. He pretends that he doesn’t really care about the show and that he was never that invested to begin with, and my mom pretends that she believes him, and that honestly seems to be working for everybody, so I’m not gonna rock the boat.

The show’s already totally changed the game for her just in terms of her business and her image and all the different opportunities it’s been opening up. She’s been going on talk shows and getting all these orders online for her stuff and getting profiled in magazines, and, for the first time since she was thrust into the spotlight however many years ago, it feels like she’s being looked at for her, you know, for something she’s doing for herself, so she’s honestly just been kind of busy. She kind of seems like she’s too busy to really think about Bob at all. She never wants to talk about it. And, so far at least, Bob’s been able to keep his shit under control to the extent that it’s not blowing up in anyone’s face, so I guess that’s all you can ask for. I mean, I don’t know. It’s kind of insane how low the bar has been set when it comes to the behavior I’m calling acceptable—like, my mom is supposed to be thrilled that Bob is basically doing the bare minimum of not completely ruining a good thing that’s happening in spite of him—but, as long as my mom is fine with the system they’ve set up for themselves, who am I to say it’s unsustainable? I’ve definitely seen worse. She’s definitely been inside worse.