I started this piece after reading a story from the gender stereotype project N. and I are currently working on. In this story a man shares his long moment of trepidation in the store: he is contemplating probably having to buy this fancy cheese, because he’s a man and has to be generous and a provider of goods…

Here they come, the mouse and the flying cow, caught up in conversation. I’m fairly sure it’s something deep. I tried to take a peek at the cow’s manuscript, but I couldn’t make out the words. I’m nearsighted.

As I was working on this, I was still thinking about mermaids. A friend of mine dropped a few days ago and said that clearly, mermaids would not be interested in sex, because they do not reproduce in the first place: the way the mermaid population grows is through young miserable human women drowning themselves.

I started this piece a few days ago, it might have been a day off, or J. was home on sick leave, he had just washed his hair and was curled up on the sofa hugging the Dogster. Those two spend a massive amount of time cuddling. Sometimes I almost feel jealous.

As J. was sitting in my lap with his long legs folded against my hip, I thought how the fold of his legs resembled a mermaid’s tail. We think of mermaids as sexy.

They’re standing somewhere in between side to side and back to back. The girl is looking up and away from the bear, her head slightly turned. It might be a proud and arrogant tilt of the head, but much more likely is that she’s lost in thought and either looking at something in wonder or staring off into space caught up in her thoughts.