i had such a sore throat this morning—it was difficult and painful to swallow, and i thought, “what if i still had my tonsils? what would that be like? would i be unable to swallow at all? And, if that were the case, would i end up drooling and spitting an unlimited amount of spit? How wretched my life could be—but I took some Tylenol and that seemed to reduce the swelling a fair amount. i did wonder what was going on with Ursula—i realized that, because i’d established a limited connection with the person that comes after Ursula—a zillion years away—Ursula had kind of become my friend—she was able to reach me from places in her future that made her, at that time, older than me. She was guiding me, and teaching me how to use, and control, my powers. Sometimes you think you’re on to something, and it fits, somewhere, perhaps in a corner, and everything is happening right there. But in reality things are changing everywhere, and, sometimes, every change, we discover, is related or connected to what is taking place in the area that we’d been focusing on. I wondered, a little, how much i might’ve missed out on if i hadn’t kept myself working on all my projects—as opposed to wearing myself out on just the one—and making myself tired.
then i thought: maybe i shouldn’t look at anything (for a while) while i paint—maybe i should do everything from my imagination—and why not? Would I, however, just end up painting variations of the same generalized woman with generalized features over and over? How would i go about painting a landscape? what would determine the details of each picture that would’ve made each picture a product of my interaction with something else? i might just end up painting the same generalized tree or rock without knowing how to add the shadows or the idiosyncrasies that keep a landscape from looking generic. well, i was painting people, for the time being, so i guess i could worry about the landscapes a few months from now, or something like that.
Ursula was totally living in my head right now—and sometimes it was like i couldn’t exactly think of anything because i was too busy counting and projecting her voice—but other times i’d forget a little that i was counting and something would come to mind; that’s how i did all my writing, for example. I didn’t base it on anything but me and what I was dealing with and i figured maybe i should apply that to my painting, too, since i was getting a little weary of doing pretty much the same thing over and over. Sometimes, when i was counting, i was doing it to prevent myself from thinking intrusive thoughts or negative thoughts, even if the negative thoughts sometimes harbored the best and most valuable information behind them (they were protected, in this way, such that others wouldn’t be interested in them). I’d recapture the way i remembered my voice saying, “johnny, this is your digital sub-scripted line” (i actually said that, once, when i was getting started on my investigations and experiments with telepathic communications). Then, also, i’d think of the way i remembered my voice sounding on my answering machine—that was my way of telling Ursula i’d get back to her; it was also my way of screening my calls and or politely letting people know that they didn’t have anything of interest to me.
“you have reached john swofford,” it said. “please leave a message.” I happened to think of instances with Ursula, too, instances that i would go back to when I was trying to recreate her voice. the word “pierced,” comes to mind, especially when i was trying to recreate that vowel sound—it was an integrable part of my counting slash chanting. Now, i not only did all these things but, for a time, and I was giving it a try again, i’d breathe in for a four count instead of a three count. That meant, instead of my usual inhale for three units and exhale for three units i was doing four instead—it was slightly more of a meditative state—one i could use when I wanted to tap into the heart of something, or listen to my messages—or listen to other people at one time or another in general—sometimes, even as if we were talking—everything just depended on how physically active i was, i guess, and who, in fact, was trying to get through.
basically Ursula wanted me to look within a little more—she wanted me to dig in a little deeper and tell her things that really motivated or defined me—things that lovers might say. i don’t know for sure, but i think, at one time, she was drinking two bottles of wine a day, and now she was making up for that by teaching me how to use my telepathic abilities—by opening my eyes to how profoundly different the future might turn out to be. so it was about the things that mattered to me—that was the only way i was ever going to end up (successfully) in bed with her—if she knew me, if she saw my dreams and believed in me—only then would a sexual relationship make sense, and, as much as I loved Ursula—she had to get to know me as i see me before anything permanent or huge could happen.
“that’s fine,” she told me—i think she was even pleased, and it was nice, getting feedback from her, on this topic. It occurred to me that I could be talking to her from different points in time—as if, one conversation at one point in time was connected to another conversation at another point time—like reading two different emails at once—selecting what i could—what was most relevant to me at this time. anyhow the government shut-down is definitely not my fault—it’s nobody’s fault; it’s simply indicative of wildly different values: you have those that want to get rich and be rich forever (likely, but not necessarily, at the expense of others) and then you had those that wanted to stand out as equal and viable without having to work two jobs. It is a total failure of democracy if anybody, ever, has to work two jobs. So, yeah, you had some people that were rich and wanted to help others—and that was cool; we needed everybody, however, to be free of poverty and despair. In short, the government needed to do whatever was necessary to support a comfortable living wage that made it possible to have a house and everything that went along with that, like health insurance and car insurance, for example, and, most all, a family that had every chance to follow their ambitions and or their dreams.