You’re supposed to relax yourself, so, needless to say, when someone defends their drinking by saying that it relaxes them, then you know that person is unhappy. Sometimes Regina wished that happiness were outlawed so she wouldn’t have to compare herself to that which was doing better than she was. Mark, ironically enough, was happy—he had no problem with the fact that Regina was unhappy because, as he understood it, she wanted to be unhappy. Mark thought the whole thing was kind of funny, and if Regina wanted to entertain him with her rock and roll lifestyle, so be it. She’d snap out of it eventually—he just hoped she wouldn’t turn into a different person—someone that no longer loved him and or someone that he no longer loved. But Regina could do something amazing—she had something going for her: she could play the guitar without looking at her guitar.
That meant that she could not only play the guitar, but she could perform and respond to her audience. Her time traveling kept her from going on tour because, at some point, her risperidone might take her to a time when she hadn’t been born, and so her body would exist back then and prove unable to entertain a crowd of people. But she played so much, and she was so good at it that she had fans that subscribed to her music—a lot of fans, and, hence, Mark didn’t have to work—which he made up for by making furniture in their basement; he sold his furniture, too—so, in a way, he was working; but he’d never make the kind of money Regina made no matter how important his furniture was. Regina wanted to spend time with him, anyhow. She didn’t want to have the whole house to herself, even if she was practicing for several hours a day.
Regina didn’t know exactly how place factored into her time traveling—if, that is, her risperidone was dead set on taking her somewhere that she hadn’t anticipated or hoped for. Furthermore, how could she go somewhere, in the past, if she’d never been there in the past? And yet that was possible. For example, she’d found herself at a Bruce Springsteen concert, recently, is which the boss, as he was called, spoke out about the state of his country and everything that was wrong with it. She remembered feeling a little annoyed, since her risperidone started wearing off and she was afraid she was going to miss her favorite songs. The trip, in fact, made her process her risperidone faster—she had to take more of it when she finished her trip to combat her problem with intrusive thinking.
She didn’t know a whole lot about Springsteen other than the fact that he was skinny and looked like he spent time in a tanning bed—something she’d never do—unless she had acne, which she didn’t. After the concert Trump bashed the boss, saying he never liked Springsteen, and so on and so forth, which made other people that were also opposed to the direction the country was taking rally to his side—something, Regina got the feeling, that made Springsteen profoundly uncomfortable. That’s not to say he didn’t feel flattered, and grateful, too. Regina just got the impression that Springsteen might’ve been speaking of the cuff, and, because of that, he might not have completely understood the significance of his actions. Regina figured Springsteen was hurt by Trumps’s comments, even though, as he knew, Trump could find fault with anyone but himself.
Now—here’s the thing; sometimes Regina blacked out—you’re not supposed to drink alcohol when taking most psychiatric medications—the two factors can interfere and, if abused, hurt both you and your body. But Regina needed the risperidone, and she felt she needed the alcohol. She didn’t black out every time, but, Regina did black out around the time of Springsteen’s concert, and, she figured, that was because she’d ended up at a Springsteen concert with her future self. Black outs, to say the least, were scary, but she didn’t always black out—if you regularly drink six beers a night you probably won’t black out, but, sometimes, even then, you do—but time was also measured differently when you tripped: a moment in the past could account for an entire trip for the future Regina, so doing things, in the past, that Regina couldn’t remember doing, was only natural.
People sometimes referred to Regina, as “the boss,” and that was something that she didn’t quite understand. Was it a compliment to be compared to a man that bears his soul on stage? Is that what people really wanted? Regina felt that Springsteen sounded so desperate, at times, that she felt the need to ask him if he was ok—instead of telling him how much she enjoyed his various talents. But the fact of the matter was that Regina, too, sounded, from time to time, like she was coming down when she sang; she also gave the impression that she, in fact, wasn’t ok. People worried about her, too; and she worried about other people who might’ve liked her music precisely because they weren’t okay either, and they might’ve been doing things that would only serve to make everybody even unhappier than they were.