“It’s totally a pose! I’m taking this combination zazen meditation/tantric yoga class at the community center. It’s really trippy stuff. Like, did you know doing something is expressing our own nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. Also, the instructor is way hot and there are brownies at the end of class.”

“Listen. LISTEN. The ball is talking. I’m not full of it, you’re full of it. I bet if you opened that ball there would be a little dude alien in it like in Men in Black. No, not the cockroach. The one who was the antique dealer and had the galaxy in the marble on the cat’s collar. Anyway, I bet you there is a little dude in that ball and it’s talking to me right now. He’s saying that they need to bring Mr. Pibb back like it used to be. Dude, I swear that’s what he’s saying.”

“I’m totally listening to every word you’re saying.

You just said something about cookies.

You’re right, I’m thinking about cookies and just hoping you mentioned cookies.”

“So, I met a clown. Shut up! Listen! I met a clown at the supermarket. It was a lady with all this red makeup on and had a weird striped jumpsuit on and was making balloon animals and everything. I just started laughing and the clown was all like, “I’m glad you’re happy” and I just blurted out, “You look like Diane Ladd in Wild at Heart!” And this kid, like fifteen years old, lost his shit. Man, how does a fifteen-year-old know about Wild at Heart!

Oh, and I ate all the Pringles. Sorry.”

“Ahh, man, how can you not like Fogelberg? What? Dan Fogelberg?! Oh, man, you’ve never heard of Fogelberg? Longer? Longer is the best jam ever. You know he wrote that song in a hammock? Oh man, now… now… Now, I’m just sad.”

“So, like, listen. Listen. LISTEN. What if life really was a dream. Like, what if reality was actually a figment of your imagination and all of the pain and happiness you experience you had total control over but you’re so imprisoned by other people’s imagined realities that you can’t tell what is your reality and their reality. Which is really crazy since reality isn’t real! Oh man! This is crazy!”