I guess I’m just staring at the ceiling fan again, it’s got that little click-click-click sound that usually pisses me off but tonight it’s just sort of there, like background noise for my own stupidity. We went to my parents’ place for dinner—my sister, Jess, she’s ten years younger than me but sometimes it feels like she’s the one who actually grew up and I’m just some kind of perpetual teenager hiding in a 38-year-old’s skin. Anyway, the drive over there is always the same, past the old feed mill that’s been closed since the 90s and that one dog on Miller Road that always tries to bite my tires, and I’m thinking about my commission work, which is basically just painting people's dead cats for fifty bucks a pop at this point. It’s a living, I guess, or at least it pays for the gas and the cheap wine, but god damn, it’s not exactly what I envisioned back when I was at the institute. My mom made a pot roast, which was fine, a bit dry maybe but she tries, she really does, and she kept asking if I’d seen the new mural at the library which is honestly a piece of shit but I just nodded because I don't have the energy to explain color theory to a woman who thinks "Live Laugh Love" is high art.