how is that?  “what?”  you’ve no chance of meeting a celebrity—why do you think you’ll meet me?  i’m virtually a celebrity.  “I don’t think that.”  Glad you’re out of reach, honestly.  my papers will never be read; i have to jump through too many hoops.  That was intoned for Alex.      Mr. Speaker: greetings.  […]

     Crushed—okay, maybe just cut down a size, but I plan to make it up to you.  That was mostly my internal narrator—who i won’t necessarily italicize or quote since that voice runs on autopilot—perhaps controlled by outside forces or even just one person but done in such a way that i can’t tell the

     i just always sent her pictures of my paintings.  that was my response to AOC when I told her I was also talking to a math person, who happened to be from the future.  Did AOC have any reason to be jealous?  Technically, I was asexual, so i could have partnered with a woman

     The path to asylum, and a drug free community, is inadequate.  If you want tan skin, then let the Latine do their thing—and, in so doing, raise a happy family.  If, then, we should intermarry (which is inevitable) we shan’t need to go to the tanning bed anymore, right?       Alex did not appear

     this wasn’t what i expected   somebody said in my voice; that might’ve meant that AOC was projecting her neutral shield—her natural voice, and, in so doing, she was planting thoughts in my head, thoughts that might help me move in a positive direction.  but it could’ve been somebody else doing the same thing.  oust

     It occurred to me that, in the future, I cast a shadow, Alex said; i couldn’t argue with that, but I also knew that representatives of congress come and go; so AOC, i think, might have hijacked Alex’s channel.  But then it occurred to me that Alex and or AOC were unhappy with the

    “I’m not there yet,” I said, although I heard it first, and it sounded like Alex’s voice.  If, by “there,” we meant prepared for each other’s company, then I had to agree:  That doesn’t mean it’s over.  But what was that?  What was not over—or over?  The presidency?  Should i even run   and I

     “Was that a red flag?” i asked.  You, me, and three’s company   “so where do we go from here?”  I was getting better at sounding my thoughts in my natural voice as opposed to the sound of my internal narrator—which I was certainly a function of, but which, at some point, was more like

     I did that, and I still gained a pound!  Oh well.  That’s my hat.  give it back to me.  I usually don’t wear hats unless I’m mowing the grass—guess I might if I lost all the hair on top of my head, but that hadn’t happened yet.      The voice sounded kind of like

     I went to an art show and ate all this food: I was coming down.  I had to try a little harder to get AOC’s voice right in my head when I was using my shield.  All too often, it sounded as if I was using my natural voice alone—which was my default mechanism—but