I was clandestine in my actions, but I didn’t feel too much shame about any of this—nose picking was too much something I had to do. But as I got older, the lamp was looking more and more terrible, and there was talk of throwing it out. I secretly tried to clean it, but the blue-green streaks would not go away. But I didn’t want this lamp to be forsaken by my family; things back then, objects, were nearly animate to me, dear even, and to lose a thing from the living room, my special room of TV and darkness, would be terrible. I wanted everything to stay the same forever; and, too, I felt horribly guilty that I was killing this lamp. So I pleaded with my parents on its behalf, told them I loved the lamp, and it wasn’t thrown away. With this reprieve, I tried not to wipe my snots on it anymore, to only coat the bottom of the coffee table and feed my beautiful dog, but sometimes I would weaken, and I’d find a new unstreaked spot—I could feel them with my fingers—and so I’d make my mark, my hydrocarbonated snot—there must be hydrogen and carbon in my mucous, all the elements of the world must be in me, in everyone—would mingle with the copper and make a union, a new thing, alchemically, chemically, pigmentally. And that thing was the color bice, a good color, I think, because it has brought back to me that TV and darkened living room and childhood and lamp and coffee table and beloved dog—all things gone a long time ago. All things that didn’t last forever.