11
Once the sheer weight of the presidency was lifted from my shoulders, nothing much, in my day to day routine, was bound to change. You might think that I, for example, would look in the mirror and think: “Damn, I’m me!” I did that in small amounts, increments that, basically, were infinitesimal units of change, that, when integrated, basically left me where I was before: in a state of unadulterated drive—to go beyond the presidency; to go beyond everything; to be the greatest artist that ever lived: and, once in the afterlife, to do more—to continue, down to the finest infinitesimal detail, waxing closer to my God, a woman, or a series of women, that spoke the language of love.
Am I then, a typical man? A simpleton wanting to sleep with as many women as possible? If you thought that, then you had no idea how complicated i was. if anything, the typical man is nothing like me; he just wants to make you think he is because he’s afraid that you’ll leave him for me. i may be 47 at this point in my life, approaching a little death, if, truth be told, a part of Shakespeare lives in me, shaped, as I am, by his hand. Switched voices now to Picasso’s voice—a man that I let into my life because, in part, of how successful he was: i felt the need to integrate what made him successful so that I could outstrip him, ultimately – he was chanting now, inside my head, instead of Ursula. Don’t ask me how I remember his voice, having heard it only once, during an interview, when he said the word, “Si.”
you’re not talking to me, that was Ursula, who, clearly, could penetrate the filter I used by projecting Picasso’s voice—as I expected. “No, I’m not talking to you,” I said in Picasso’s voice—a new idea, for me: to respond to Ursula in somebody else’s voice. Fuck, man, I’m so far ahead of my time it’s ridiculous. I almost feel like I’m trapped here—that i might actually be miserable, as if I literally travelled through time and got abandoned here. “What’s up?” “Basically trying to relax my neck and shoulders, which like to climb, and tense up—probably in anticipation of becoming the president of the USA.
Right now i was kind of basically thinking that Einstein was an idiot—that, when he dismissed Kaluza-Klein theory instead of making something out of it, well, what? Good for me? But I think my life might’ve been a little easier if the existence of a fifth dimension (a potential afterlife) had made it into a respectable theory—a valid way of understanding the universe. I used to go around like a maniac—I was so paranoid that somebody would steal my sketch book with all my notes and take these physics and math discoveries away from me: I was out of my mind. Except, not really, if you just think about it, and imagine that, indeed, my goal of being the greatest artist that ever lived could have been jeopardized if somebody else proved the existence of an afterlife before I could do it myself. So living in the past is a tradeoff, i guess, You get to be a part of something that is as real and cutting edge as it gets, but, as we become the person that does this, truly, we suffer a shitload—like a lot, both physically and mentally, if you include all the things that you put into your body, trying to keep it together, to continue, to be whole, to achieve victory.
“You can do that,” Picasso said. Don’t know why, exactly, he was on my side, since the Picasso I imagine was not the loving tutor that we might want him to be; on the contrary, I think he wanted to be the greatest artist that ever lived, and, I think, he’d want to hold onto that title forever. But here he was, supporting me, telling me that more things were achievable. “If you put your mind to it.” So what? I asked Ursula how she was doing in Picasso’s voice, and she didn’t respond immediately: then she said, get that man out of my house so yeah, I kind of felt bad for Picasso—I don’t know if he was hitting on her or not, but I wonder if he was, since Ursula was telling him to leave. Probably had something to do with all the cigarettes, that, ultimately, made you into a kind of bull in a China shop. But I don’t think that Ursula was telling him to get out so much as she was telling me, in no uncertain terms, that the person i was when I measured myself with respect to Picasso’s worldly achievements was not me—that person, she seemed to be saying, was not welcome to exist.
So we get reduced, sometimes. But then I rethought my interpretation. She wasn’t telling Picasso, or me, to get out of her house so much as she was telling all the people that were behind us—that passed, through us, into Ursula’s brain, hurting her. In effect, we were dumping our backs a little because we had to—because so many people were dumping their backs on us. That’s understandable. But you can’t bring that shit into my house. So, not to point out the elephant in the room, but the clue here was this: Ursula was referring to her house, so I wondered: does that mean that we don’t live together? And, if we don’t live together, how are we ever going to see each other? You can live with me part of the time, but not all the time, since, as we both know, you’re not meant to spend your life with one soul. You’re a part of other souls, souls that, like you, go in different directions than the direction that, frankly, I prefer.
So there were some differences. But none of what she was saying was necessarily true. The trouble was that she was confusing me with a man that didn’t exist, a man that was insupportable, regardless of his telepathic talents, or how attractive a target he might’ve made for people that like to dump their backs and call it a day. “Si.” Whatever that meant. So I switched back to using Ursula as my filter—good, now we’re back to normal. But I don’t think this was really about her dislike or disapproval of Picasso and the way he lived his life; i think this was about the fact that, when I aimed to be, or was heavily influenced by Picasso, I was hiding from my true self—a queer man that not only competes with anybody that paints, or ever painted, but somebody that also does all these other things, like living a life that would make it possible to achieve my destiny: to become the president of the USA, and to fundamentally restructure this country—without getting shot and killed for my trouble. Make no bones about it—I refused that.