“Does it make you smarter?” she asked.

“Quite the opposite, actually,” I said. “The brew is most efficacious in preventing excess thought processes.”

“Well,” replied Helen, “if it doesn’t make you smarter, why is it called Brainier Ale?”

“I guess it must be some sort of marketing gimmick,” I lied.

Brainier Ale! What a concept!

Theodore, however, questioned one of my recent philanthropic acts.

“I fear, David,” he said, “that the projection of one’s satisfaction as someone else’s is a trap you should avoid.”

I did not appreciate Theodore’s advice, or any other observation that exposes my selfishness.

Marisa’s an extraordinarily intelligent young woman, but I’m surprised at the gaps in her knowledge. For example, when we were listening to prerecorded music back at the laboratory, Marisa asked me about the songs.

“They’re from Talking Heads 1977,” I said. “You haven’t heard them before?”

“I think I may have been a fetus at the time,” Marisa answered.

This is where time gets confusing. I have no problem understanding that dinosaurs roamed the earth zilllions of years ago, but how can I be eating lunch with a person who’s not much younger than me—not much at all, really!—who’s never heard Talking Heads 1977?

I guess there’s a lot about parenting that I don’t understand.

I asked Matthew whether the voices his patients heard might be real. Since so many people hear voices, I thought that there was a good chance that the voices were really there.

Matthew pondered the question before replying.

“Nah, they’re all loony-tunes crazy,” Matthew said. “There are no voices.”

I nodded in assent, even though he didn’t look particularly sure of himself.

“I needed something about which to write today,” I answered truthfully.

Andy thought about the proposition for a small fraction of a second, smiled, punched the air, then said, “So be it.”

(Or words to that effect.)