I don’t like to think of myself as being harsh or overly judgmental; instead, I see myself as possessing a very sensitive “artist’s eye.” It is this artist’s eye of mine that causes me to wince at stuffed Garfield collections and horse posters. It’s my sensitivity that demands Ethan change his shirt lest my day be ruined by its belled sleeves and superfluous front pouch.

Ethan doesn’t seem to appreciate my creative directing. He has sarcastically encouraged me to start a column with a title like Ami Draws the Line, Straight Talk with Ami, or According to Ami. Maybe with a weekly spot in a popular periodical, I can share my wisdom with a larger audience. I can discuss things like the pump: It’s either a flat or a high heel; anything else is wishy-washy. And I can tell you how much toilet paper is okay to take from a public restroom. You’ll find out next week in Straight Talk with Ami.

It is this unrelenting artist’s eye that creates entire personalities for people I don’t know based on a few small details. Here is Felicia. Felicia is wearing a derby cap and large hoop earrings. She likes to eat at the food court and wear uncomfortable shoes. Felicia has a porcelain doll collection. She smokes while chewing bubblegum and watches reality television.

This is Adam. Adam wears a raccoon tail hanging from his pants. He was the kid in school who pretended not to like pudding, just so he could be the kid who didn’t like pudding. Everyone would ask him,“How can you not like pudding?” In truth, Adam loved pudding—he couldn’t wait to get home, where he could eat his pudding in secret. But more than pudding, he loved the attention he got from being an outsider. Now he wears duct-taped boots and hangs bushy raccoon tails from his trousers. Adam lives on the edge.

Meet Judith. Judith seems uncomfortable in her low-cut blouse. She tries to be daring in the bedroom but never quite gets it right. Judith decides to surprise her man with a whipped-cream bikini, but adds whipped-cream high tops. Judith walks around in nothing but socks and wears too much perfume. These things aren’t sexy, Judith.

It’s a dangerous world I live in sometimes. If the tables were turned, I admit I’m terrified at the thought of someone defining me based on my personal belongings. The common areas of the house wouldn’t be so bad, but the bedroom is where my true self is hidden. Oversized calculators and sunglasses, a giant novelty toothbrush, huge scissors—the kind used at ribbon cutting ceremonies (just in case the mayor calls). Clearly, this is a person suffering from delusions of grandeur.

Child abuse, cruelty to grandmas, screaming at strangers—these things are generally frowned upon by everyone. Gold picture frames, sexy Halloween costumes, mini-backpacks on overweight people—it’s time to stop cutting so much slack.

In the meantime, I’ll be working to help Russian immigrants with their sartorial discrepancies.  It’s still 1992 in their country, for fuck’s sake. They haven’t even experienced the flannel double-whammy phenomenon—one flannel shirt worn, one tied around your waist—yet.

My visits to Redding always remind me how much I love my dad. How could you not love a man who spends his Social Security money on scuba diving gear and a gas-powered golf cart? The golf cart, I am told, has a Harley Davidson engine and has been modified to resemble a small fire engine. Dad has welded pieces of a ladder to the back and he rides it up and down a dirt road where he lives, howling and screaming, “Where’s the fire?” He loves to drive but lost his license permanently, so this is one of his biggest kicks.

Dad took me on a tour of the estate during our visit and showed me which tree he has buried his silver under, just in case something happens to him. Should I need to, it’ll be easy to find the tree again, as my dad has marked it with a stuffed bear.

It’s strange for me to see my father obeying the law by not driving. I grew up thinking that anything in a store I could fit under my shirt was mine. I was raised to believe that traffic lights did not apply to Rick Jerome. I have vivid memories of Dad taking me on motorcycle rides without a helmet at a very young age. I’d close my eyes and cling to him as my grandma put her hands over her face, shook her head and said, “No, no, no!” just like she eventually does during every holiday gathering.

My dad lives outside the perimeter of ordinary people’s social and moral obligations. He thinks it’s reasonable to recycle his teeth with his aluminum cans. According to him, it not only makes his load weigh more, but ensures that his DNA is “getting out there.” There could be bits of my father in your soft drink.

Among other things from my father, I’ve inherited his money management skills. In the past, while traveling with my friend Arnica on a very limited budget, if we had only a dollar left, rather than food, I’d buy wax lips or a switchblade comb. I also suffer from an all-or-nothing complex. If I’m going to starve, I should really starve.

This disorder extends to almost every area of my life. The other day Ethan offered me vitamins and I explained that I didn’t need them because I hadn’t yet applied face lotion or exercised. He looked puzzled and I had to explain that I take my vitamins only if I’ve done all the other things I’m supposed to do to prepare for the day. He told me that this is crazy. But in my mind, what’s the point of taking vitamins if you’ve eaten cold baked potatoes all day long? Why apply lotion if you haven’t brushed your teeth? Who needs exercise if the oven is dirty? Ethan says eating a mono diet all day is a reason to take vitamins, but it makes sense to me: Either I do everything right, or I spend the day sitting on a couch in dirty sweatpants, eating mayonnaise out of the jar. There is no in between.

For people who claim to value critical reasoning and logic so much, my father and I tend to make some of the worst decisions. If I were lost in a desert and was given the choice between water and fake dog poop, I’d take the dog poop, hide behind a cactus and wait for a sucker to come along. The thrill of tricking someone into thinking there was a fresh pile of dog poop out in the middle of the desert would be too great to resist. Man, the look on their face….