You didn’t pray for me. It’s true, I’d forgotten to pray for her because I’d been so wrapped up in my own stuff. I had gotten ready to watch TV by taking a hot shower, and I’d had, for the first hour, cold raspberry lime seltzer water instead of hot tea, and I’d felt much more relaxed and comfortable in my own skin. But when it came time to go to sleep, I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know if the shower made me think I was getting ready for a new day—and woke me up somehow, which is something, I hoped, would not continue to happen—that i would adapt, and get used to the new routine; it also seemed to have something to do with trying out sleeping naked again after a very long time, and discovering that, well, I couldn’t stop thinking about sex, and the fact that I had this bed all to myself. So at some point that night, I can’t remember when, now, I put my boxer briefs back on, which helped, I think, to put me more in, “I need to go to sleep mode,” as opposed to, “I should be having sex mode.” So, I’d decided to stick with my boxer briefs, for now, but I’d also decided to continue taking a shower, and hope I get used to it, as the relaxation benefits were noticeable.
So I’d actually prayed that I would get some sleep that night, and then, that morning, I gave thanks for the sleep I did get, and prayed that I might accept God’s plan for me, to know the difference between right and wrong, to not ask for that which was wrong, and to only do that which was good for me, that which would help me to accept myself. So I’d actually considered that a modest amount of pornography might be good for me, but I didn’t know, as it could definitely have adverse effects, especially if you watched too much of it—and I hadn’t watched it in so long, and I was so unsure about it, that, well, I decided to put it off a little longer—but, nonetheless, this, I think, was the result i got from trying to sleep naked—to wonder if a little pornography might help me to accept myself, especially as I have no one to have sex with, and, also, to wonder if, on the other hand, it would be better to rely exclusively on women I saw on Instagram—and my imagination. I honestly didn’t know. Hence the prayer. But yeah, I forgot to pray for Ursula.
We’re all going to hell, before we die. I didn’t know if everybody experienced some form of hell before they died, if that, somehow, was a function of living a mortal life, but I certainly had. I wonder what hell meant for her. For me it meant thinking that i was being watched, that agents could read my thoughts, that people were constantly dumping their backs on me, and that, although it was supposed to get better, eventually, it only got worse and worse, with no hope of getting better. All I could do was watch TV all day, and I couldn’t even do that, since, to occupy myself, I invented all these scenarios in my mind—and tried to work out ways, such as controlling my blinking, to counteract the people that were watching me, and trying to read my thoughts. That was hell, and then, when it led to booze and cigarettes all over again, to get through the day, and all that TV, well, naturally, things, eventually, got worse than they’d ever been before. That was my hell on earth. I lived it, and it’s how I appreciate, now, what I have—and it’s why I’m so grateful, and thankful, that I’m taken care of. Maybe other people also go through hell before they can be happy, too, or maybe they don’t—but I didn’t see how you could really know yourself, and your limits, if you never experienced some degree of hell, not necessarily the degree that I experienced, but a degree, to some extent.
I’d woken up early, and laid in bed, awake, unable to drift, mostly only able to measure my breathing, and shake my foot, for a long time, this morning, and I’d gotten up about a half hour early, so it was 10:00 now, and I’d had three cups of coffee, one more than the two I’d been having, and dangerously close to the four that threw me for a loop. But I’d recently read about the songwriter Leonard Cohen, and how he used to get up really early and meditate for a couple hours and then brew a pot of coffee. Well, a pot of coffee is like six cups of coffee—and I knew that a lot of people drank coffee, so, frankly, I didn’t see why I should be so sensitive to it—as, in the past, I’d drunk a lot of it, sometimes, albeit, getting drunk at the end of the day, but, also during sober times—and I wondered if my trouble mainly had to do with the fact that I hadn’t had any in so long, and then I suddenly had four cups, and if, today, for example, now that I’d been having a couple cups a day for a while, three cups, if i stopped there, wouldn’t make my heart feel like it was beating too fast, and wouldn’t keep me up at night. Incidentally, I only had two cups yesterday, so I think not being able to sleep was down to the shower, and making myself think, somehow, that I had a full day ahead of me, since I’ve never taken a lot of showers at the end of the day, and my mind, I suppose, is not used to it, and that, just as a shower could mean you’re getting ready for the day, it could also mean that your washing the day off, and getting ready for bed. So, I thought, with a little luck, I’ll be okay tonight. But I really couldn’t say for sure—I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait to get used to the changes that were taking place, right now, in my life.
Well I’d published my second book in this series, and I’d defined it as a satire, and a philosophical comedy, which it was, even if, when I was writing it, i was taking it much more seriously. I think that, when I write, I am really going through the things that I’m writing about, but I also think that, as I do it, I’m not entirely myself, that the book becomes a part of my life, and changes me a little, much like a character an actor is playing can become a part of their life, and change them, a little. That is to say—deep down, did I really believe I was communicating with Anna, and Ursula, somewhere, deep in the recesses of our minds? Did I really believe in telepathy, and the fifth dimension? Well, yes, I did, but I also know how that sounds, and how costly it would be to say such things out loud—and I also knew how, in my writing, things got blown out of proportion, and overanalyzed, such that i became a kind of cartoon of myself—that I had this persona, in my writing, that wasn’t entirely real, that I knew that, and, for the sake of the creation, I rolled with it anyhow—determined to make something that might be of interest to other people, people that would be entertained solely by the satire and or people that would identify, in some small way, with a germ, in there, of truth.