I think that’s probably why Bob’s never dealt with it: because he thinks he’s entitled to only think about interesting things. He’s assumed for all the decades he’s been alive that if something is boring, that must mean it’s not worth thinking about. And I bet whenever anyone would bring it up with him, he would just be like: This is boring. Why can’t we talk about something else? I mean, actually, I know he would do that. He used to do that shit to Mandy back in the day whenever she would ask him why he said that thing about gay people or why he was saying that people like her parents were barely alive or even just why he was being such an asshole to her, you know? And I used to watch the two of them arguing and think: Bob’s right. This IS boring. Mandy is making us think about boring things. But the truth is that a lot of shit is boring—a lot of really important shit is boring—and if you create a situation for yourself where you’re afraid of thinking about the boring shit, where you don’t even want to look at the boring shit for more than a second because you think that it will make you boring, what actually ends up happening is that you do become boring. Your worst fear comes true, and it’s only happening because you’re afraid of it. And at a certain point, that becomes the difference between children and adults, you know? You can say all the crazy shit you want, and you can be the smartest person in the room, but if you’re talking to an adult and you haven’t dealt with your boring shit, at a certain point, they’re gonna be like: Oh. This is a child. And then, in their mind, they’re gonna be done with you. Or, at the very least, they’re gonna put you in a box where they put children who look like adults.

I mean, honestly, that seems to be what Mandy’s been doing with Bob. Ever since she had her sort of awakening, she and Bob disagree on like, absolutely everything when it comes to the world, but they seem to at least be getting along a lot better and having a good time talking to each other. And for a while, I thought it was because they were finding some common ground, but now I think it’s just because Mandy can see that Bob is a child, you know? She’s not really bothered by him anymore. She can just sort of laugh at him now.

At a certain point during the party, Mandy and I found ourselves alone in the house. I’m saying it like it was an accident, but Mandy sort of tugged at my sleeve and started walking in, and I followed her. And I was thinking like: Whoa, okay, maybe this is starting up again, you know? I mean, there’s been something about Mandy that’s been like, really sexy recently. Or, beyond sexy even: She’s just got all of this confidence—like, she’s got this AURA around her. Whatever vibe she’s on right now is one that I want to get closer to.