You’re going to drive me crazy but, “You’re already crazy,” and then, that’s just it—i’m not. Ok—so there were two ways we used the word crazy—it was a slang way of talking about something that was very impressive and, also, it was a derogatory term used to describe someone with a disability. Ursula was not crazy—she was ahead of her time, and, if outside, alien forces got to her, then they could drive her crazy, yes—that was what I meant. But right now—all things considered and in heaven, at least, no—the real Ursula would never be crazy unless other people were so impressed by her talents that they couldn’t understand it. As in, “how is that even possible?” But it was nice that Ursula was self-aware—that, given some not so unrealistic possibilities and circumstances—she would lose her mind. No doubt about it. But to think that I was going to do that to her was wrong. I wouldn’t do anything but get intimate with her, and, if, in that process, of being in love, something got processed wrong, and she lost her mind—well, that wouldn’t be my fault. When people break up and one person goes nuts it’s not because the other person is the reason that happened—but it does happen, all too often, that when someone does go nuts—the person that was quote unquote in love with them does little or nothing to help.
Those people are bad people—I’m not one of them. Well, i was toying a little—just checking in, to my four count breathing mechanism, four beats in and four beats out, in the new Ursula voice—the voice of my Norway blond (on the vowels) and my voice on the consonants. Am i blocking you out? now, here she was—the problem with dating someone that is both younger than you and in love with you is that they will stare at you and follow you around—like they are an underfoot dog. My Ursula was a little like that—sometimes, but, you might ask, why do I complain? Isn’t being loved what I want? But here’s the catch: when you’re like that you might find that it’s actually a phase—that you’re actually a little more unstable than you are healthy—and, consequently, it is difficult to fall in love with someone that behaves that way—because they might fall out of love as quickly as they fell into it.
Norway blond was actually kind of familiar—and that made sense, because, well, all this time that I was talking to Ocasio-Cortez—well, it wasn’t just Ocasio-Cortez. It was Ursula, the woman behind Ocasio-Cortez. So yes, we kind of knew each other; therefore the fact that Ursula was staring at me today wasn’t so bad—it’s good to be king, as they say, and that’s what love does to you—it makes you feel like you are at the top of the world, and, because nothing is more important than a love that goes hand in hand with a purpose, you kind of are on top of the world. Perk up, kid funny . . . Ursula was very clever—she knew how to turn the tables on a situation—making it more or less important, often employing her sense of humor, and I was a believer because of that. Your wife—or whoever you wind up partnering with, must have a good sense of humor, at least when it comes to sharing a sense of humor. Especially when everything else in your life is so serious and potentially meaningful—a sense of humor sort of balances things.
Now—i was swearing little in my book-length poem that i was writing—my answer to Shakespearean plays—naturally, it wasn’t Hamlet—but the goal, in the long run, was to get that good and productive. But the mix of high brow and low brow literature seemed to be working. I have to admit, swearing a little, at strategic times, made me feel a little more alive, as if I was getting across a more accurate depiction of my telepathic state. Now, I wonder: where did Ursula see herself in five years? it was a tough, and tricky, deceptive question intended to get you to expose yourself as if you were drunk, and speaking hidden truths that could or could not work in your favor. So I asked her—using my quasi middle English with its quasi Appalachian cadence and pitch variation along with the more European pronunciation of vowels, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” In the Caribbean.
I had a first cousin once removed, that, if I’m right, studied medicine on an island in the Caribbean, so this was a little curious. This cousin actually read one of my approximately six hundred page absurdist books—an impressive feat for anyone, much less someone that I’m related to, which, in many cases, leaves us feeling a little embarrassed, since the things we reveal to our families are often contained by secrets and private thoughts that we might think, of course, belong to us and us alone. On the other hand, we might find ourselves a little shocked and forced into accepting something that we’re not ready to deal with—such as a family member’s sexuality, for example. I remember my father saying to me after reading one of my crime books: leave out the “raw sex” stuff or you’ll lose your audience. But I had an approach that was similar to the best way that anybody can approach politics, if, that is, they’re the real deal: you don’t measure what the American people will accept; you stick to your plan, and your values, and measure what the American people would accept, if, that is, you are the real thing.
But the American people, and people in general, will not accept someone that is doing what they think the American people will accept; after a while they realize that you’re a fraud—one person, in particular, that I am thinking of, someone that actually compared losing the presidency to losing their mother—two things that shouldn’t be associated with each other, and that, because of that, betrayed an awful lot of conceit. I know all about conceit, too, since I allowed myself to think, for a time, that I was so good at the arts that alien life and the spirit world noticed and, in so doing, promised a companion—someone that i could have sex with—nearly every Sunday—and, of course, every Sunday I was let down, seeing as, in fact, everybody in the building was the opposite of attractive, and, often enough, grossly overweight; now, it made sense that some people would be overweight because they’re bodies just handled calories like they were on risperidone, but it did not make sense that almost everybody would be overweight—that almost everybody had a bad metabolism. It made more sense, i think, to say, “Something is not right here—why are so many people overeating so much? What is wrong? Is it the fact that we’re forced to compensate for working a job that is boring, meaningless, and cruel?”
Now, the question that was coming to mind, especially, was, “How much weight is Ocasio-Cortez going to put on when she has a baby?” But the question should have been directed to Norway blond—because Norway blond, for now, represents Ursula. So I ignored the question, which, hopefully, other people would ignore, too, and asked Ursula flat out: “How much weight are you going to gain when you get pregnant and have a baby? Does that mean that you’re going to say to hell with it, let yourself go, and expect me to either ignore the fact that we’re not having sex—that we’re not in love, or, on the other hand, force me to have sex with someone that doesn’t give a hoot about their body?” If I was on risperidone, and i could keep my weight down, then shouldn’t women that get pregnant also be able to keep their weight down? What was with the fact that whenever someone had a baby that got fat and didn’t give a shit?
i hope not—but, if i do, I’ll lose it after the baby is born fair enough; my weight had fluctuated over the years—I too, succumbed to ignoring my weight when, for example, getting drunk and stuffing my face went hand in hand with the person i was—and the person that i was trying to recover. But even after that (so I’ll cut everybody some slack) I ate ice cream every day before going to bed after I quit drinking and didn’t have the faith or the presence of mind to embrace my purpose—of being the greatest artist that ever lived. Now, here Ursula warned me: stop saying your purpose is to be the greatest artist that ever lived: say, instead, that your purpose is to change the world. The two things meant about the same thing to me, but she had a point. If i put that out there too much, then I’d be scrutinized in a bad way, and it would be like shooting myself in the foot—or talking about a no-hitter in the seventh inning.