where are you headed now? i’m going to my grave “but there’s a lot of things that can happen in between that, right?” And there were: for example: i could marry someone else. I don’t know if i was trying to make Alexandria jealous or what, but I told her (just like I was texting her—using her voice—which was a mad combination of Alex’s voice and AOC’s voice, which would’ve been Alex’s voice as much as I could, and my internal narrator’s voice filling in the gaps)—but anyhow, i told her that i could marry someone else, and i think that really turned her off, because it didn’t seem to me that she wanted to marry—because, if she did, she would’ve married her fiancée of a handful of years by now, or, on the other hand, she would’ve left him because that relationship would not appear to have a future. she was more complicated than you might think.
but i like complicated, if, that is, you can be complicated and in love at the same time. we’re all rising to the top just like churning milk into cream, and, if we weren’t, i might’ve been worried. so yeah, i was on the way up, so to speak, but i wasn’t a politician, and no matter how much i might’ve wanted to be one, the arc i was taking was more likely to land me in Europe than it was to land me in New York or DC (where i’d still be a drop in the ocean)—even if I were living off my art—lots of people live off their art, and it doesn’t mean that they are going to wind up orbiting the White House. ah—where would i be in five years? where did i even want to be—if not here, both safe and happy?
i suppose it was mostly me i needed to worry about, or, if i didn’t need to worry, then i might’ve needed to consider the possibility that this was my life—regardless of where i was or what i was doing. i wasn’t going to escape from whatever problems i might or might not have been having by doing anything but sticking to my routine and trying to become one of the greatest artists that ever lived—like Van Gogh, for example, minus all the violence.
you want that? but i was just getting started; i wanted more of this, of course, but i wanted to take things to another level—another dimension, if possible (unless i’d already done that, and i didn’t need, therefore, to make great changes to my path—such as moving somewhere, searching for a partner (who, given all they’d have to give up to be with me, mightn’t have been something for sore eyes to see) or changing my routine. if i went out, if i did anything other than what i’m doing (and change comes when it needs to—i’m not bored), i’d be bombarded, like i always am, by outlandish negative and intrusive thoughts, imagery that was entirely unhappy to look at.
Alexandria and I were talking about the competition, now. Our conclusion was that both Biden and Harris were ego maniacs and that, when it came to getting something done, Harris didn’t stand for anything but abortion, which was entirely unpleasant, however necessary, to make your campaign about. Newsom, however, stood for several things, such as universal healthcare, clean energy, LGBTQ+ rights, assault weapons bans, universal pre-K and tuition free community college programs, rehabilitation over incarceration and raising the minimum wage and taxing the wealthy to pay for social programs. In short, I was pleased by this and didn’t feel as reluctant to support him as I had been before, when he (perhaps strategically) used swear words in an interview.
Alexandria meant all these thing to me, too—i just thought that she might mean all these things a little more and, furthermore, i wanted a brown woman in the white house, if, that is, they met the criteria that Alexandria meets. What did this mean, then, for my love for Alexandria? Would I love her less if she never made it to the white house? Was that what made me love her? In short, no. My love for Alexandria was based on several things besides a rise to power—and the chance to really do something: she was pretty; she had a voice that was great for telepathic communications; i didn’t want to live down the importance of engaging with the melting pot, and, finally, she was both intelligent and strong willed. But, most of all, perhaps, I identified AOC—my super talented orphan of the future—with both Alexandria’s appearance and her voice. She’d been in the right place at the right time when I decided to assign physical characteristics to my love-child.