12
Weird: AOC waved at me—now, i know that AOC waving at the camera didn’t mean that Alex knew anything about me—but one of the things about schizophrenia (apparently, even if you’re taking your medication), is that everything seems to have some greater purpose when it comes to the big picture. Naturally, then, as a schizophrenic, i could and do take such a wave at the camera to be, in this context, a wave from my orphan—the super talented AOC from the future—the one I looked after and the one that inspired me with all kinds of futuristic and groundbreaking thoughts.
i’m sure there’s a very good reason for me to look like what I look like ah, the hurdle—“I don’t doubt that,” I said, and, “I only consider this because I care about you—now, i know, mainly, it’s because i care about me—i want the best life possible for the best child possible, and, because weight for some of us, could be an issue in my family, somebody had to reconsider when looking for a spouse: what kind of genes am i going to be passing on to my children? Now—i know, of course, that AOC’s intelligence is bar none, and i also know that she’s a good person and she cares about people like me—i know she really does, that’s not just talk.
But was she right for me? I ask myself that even though i know that she’s out of my league—anybody that’s a member of congress and lives in New York or Washington DC is way out of me league. I do this, however, because, as a middling painter and writer in a little podunk town called Rex, i sometimes need to entertain myself. It’s not lost on me that the spacetime continuum managed, for whatever reasons—i like to think of it as God’s call—to name the place that I live Rex—Latin for king.
It was really weird to see AOC wave at the camera—i guess she might’ve been waving at the camera, she could have been waving at someone next to the camera—and she was probably waving at her mother or her boyfriend or something, but, in my world, which, i’m aware, only exists in the future, she was waving at me because we talk, every day, for an hour or so while i write this book. i found that validating and rewarding, no matter how schizophrenic such a thought might turn out to be—and let’s remember: a schizophrenic, in my opinion, is neurodivergent, which means they learn things in a different way than most people do—perhaps on a different time schedule or within the boundaries of a group home—or, in my case, i’m unable to work and incapable of life without the assistance of my parents—and my entire family, to be exact.
My schizophrenia simply prioritized the work that I do do, such as write this book, even though i can’t support myself by working on this—hence the term disabled, and neurodivergent. People that don’t understand that you learn differently from other people—that simply look at your symptoms and think of you as disabled (or, on the other hand, fully able, and, as such, responsible for things that are beyond your control) and worthy of contempt, can really make you feel like an idiot—and, let me tell you something: i’m quite talented, and i’m not an idiot.
Anyhow, i was writing, and, at times, pausing to retune or get back to AOC’s frequency, and i thought it was kind of neat (and odd) that if AOC and I were to meet for some positive reason, i really felt that she wouldn’t look at me like i was an idiot, but, on the contrary, would see me as neurodivergent and treat me with respect. i knew, of course, to be on my best behavior, since, as it happens, i don’t get out much, and it would be easy to get a little too excited that AOC—somebody like that—cared about me and start thinking that she (in real life) wanted me to be her boyfriend. That, in fact, was an invasive thought in so much that it did not relate to the writing of this book. It was not something i wanted to think of as real unless the odds were in my favor, and, as a drop in the ocean, the odds were not in my favor. I just loved writing about things that lived in subjunctive and conditional realms—and exploring the idea that a subjunctive act like talking to AOC (through my telepathic powers—and no, i don’t wear a tinfoil hat or think that people are out to get me or even be aware of me in any way, positive of negative)—could lead to some future contingency such as a spouse sprung from behind this AOC—this path that I am determined to follow.
But yeah, getting waved at, even if, solely, i suppose, for the purposes of this book and my entertainment, was kind of neat. It didn’t make me feel happy, exactly. It didn’t necessarily make me feel anything until now, having processed this maneuver. It was just weird, but weird in a good way, like hearing AOC’s voice on my phone after having used it to tap into the basis of this, and other aspects, of my writing.