There comes a time in every person’s life when you become responsible for the life of another. One is not always ready to become a parent. One does not always expect to become a parent. But when you come face to face with your child for the first time, and it looks up at you with its giant, trusting, slightly bulging eyes, and you hold its small tank in your arms in the midst of the chaos of an East Village bar, and your child is an albino African Clawed Frog, you fall in love. And you know that you will do whatever it takes, like capturing baby cockroaches and mosquitos and house flies, to make your child happy.

Meet Mazefield. He likes Yayoi Kusama installations, Ariana Grande sing-alongs, hiding inside of an egg-cup, and grabbing food with both front hands and stuffing it into his mouth, because his species doesn’t have a tongue. Mazefield also likes it when I crouch in front of his tank going, “Is he depressed? Do you think he’s depressed? Does he look depressed?” and Mazefield’s more well-adjusted co-parent says, “I think he looks like a frog.”

Mazefield in hiding