don’t zone out, listen to me, in here and by in here she meant at the center of my brain, basically. A quiet place that yielded a quiet voice—which was something that started between your ears as opposed to in your throat. But here my wine drinking uncle was saying something that I couldn’t make out, something like—you’re just going to leave me here? He seemed angry—I think he wanted me to get back to putting my poems to music and getting them on my website. But I was dead-focused, for now, on a jazz score—a contemporary jazz composition—which required a little music theory when trying to determine what should sound harmonious and what should sound tense. the main problem, which i corrected this morning, was that, at first, all four instruments chimed in with no distinct melody or primary instrument. I toned some things down and added some slurs which pretty much corrected the problem.
you’re going to be great, one day, “thank-you, mam.” I don’t know why i called her mam—probably because she was a full blown woman with no small confidence and no obvious conceit. I felt a great respect for her, and, furthermore, when she spoke for real, I could see that she was out of my league—not that my league was any worse than hers, more so that she lived in a different league, a place that, as a homebody, with humble means, I couldn’t access. I was probably every bit as “mature” as her, but she was mature at 35, and I wasn’t—furthermore, how could I degrade someone that behaved like she did? But, of course, that’s my old self getting in the way, I guess. Why did I need to degrade something? Why would I degrade her? And the answer was that, because, necessarily, I would have been trying to level the playing field by cutting her down.
That meant that I wasn’t ready for her—my former self was still waiting around in the background, eager to deny me the recovery I achieved when, thanks to Ursula, I applied myself to writing music and assigning a voice to represent my physics and math personality. I was determined to solve the Riemann hypothesis, no small feat, which I might or might not have sort of done already (but probably not) so I was going back over my work, expanding and explaining, learning as much as I could (I wanted to be able to talk about it, without expecting people to do all the heavy lifting, trying to understand what happened). I was looking for mistakes, of course, but I had some understanding of what I was doing, and, even though something, statistically speaking, must have gone wrong, i was ready, if called upon, to fix whatever problem I might encounter.
I knew better, of course, than to wear this information on my sleeve—or punish myself by submitting my work to someone that was probably dismissive and or incompetent. I’m glad you can hear me, now. I had to wonder, what was so different about speaking from my throat and speaking from the center of my brain? The quiet place? What was actually taking place—I can only assume I was using a different part of my brain, a place, perhaps, specifically designed for telepathic and or electromagnetic and extradimensional communications. Get a job she joked. I guess she felt empowered to say that now that I had won back some small portion of my confidence—having regained some modicum of sexual desire—a thing that proved possible, as in physically possible, which, for a time, we might’ve thought, well, that there was something physically wrong or deathly opposed to the medication that trumped any possibility of a sex life.
You can hear me now, my wine uncle said, still a little perturbed—quite serious, in fact. what is this animosity you feel for your family? I didn’t feel animosity for my family—but it was true I didn’t think that highly of my uncles—or even the famous people they represented. That was part of the reason I used them—because our heroes are real people that we might overlook if we were obsessed with starshine. But yeah, I didn’t care a whole lot for my uncles—I’d at least met them and heard their voices and integrated them with my world, but, in real life, well, they treated me as if there was something inherently superior about them. In short, they got high off my starshine and tried to take all the credit for the energy that entered the room when I dedicated myself to learning from them.Good morning, starshine and I was taken aback, for a moment. What was she doing? What light, now, was there for me to acknowledge and embrace? I guess the change in my condition (however difficult) had inspired the both of us. Yes, I wouldn’t need to run if impressed by her company—the possibility of a sex life existed, which meant that a dedicated friendship also waited in the wings. I might be able to get a rush again—or feel, for a moment, truly alive, as if I was connected (in a good way) to the lives of other people—I could better understand them, and they, too, could better understand me. Take it to heart. Then my scotch uncle said, you know i’m here. But where was that? In a world that favored those that they could impress—or use as an amplifier to hear themselves talk? Perhaps people can’t help how much they weigh, but, in the scotch uncle’s case, i might’ve expected a little humility, as if he, at least, was aware of the fact that he had a mark against him.