Marc Maron sold another dog portrait for me. He didn’t cold-call Pepper’s owner and suggest he hire me to paint a portrait as a Mother’s Day gift, but by talking about me on his show or on Instagram. This is the second commission I know for sure resulted from Maron. I’m not on Instagram, but the woman who ordered the first one last Christmas sends me a screenshot anytime there’s any Samarov-related chatter or visuals on that feed. Good to have well-places spies in places I don’t want to venture.

I’ll thank him if we ever talk.

After I finish the portrait, I scan it for archiving. Then I put the file through Photoshop to make it presentable. When I go to save it as pepper.jpg, my computer helpfully lets me know that there is already a pepper.jpg, so she becomes pepper2.jpg.

Who is the first Pepper? I open the picture and look at it. Cute dog, but I have no clue whose she is, the circumstances of my painting her portrait. My memory’s for shit. All I know is Marc Maron had nothing to do with her.