Now the ground had shifted entirely.  All of a sudden Ursula got closer to me in my mind’s eye—and, as she did, i realized that I can’t keep using Ocasio-Cortez’s voice to represent Ursula.  At least not entirely.   A kind of reality had set in, the kind that said: it’s never going to happen because by the time you meet her she won’t be able to get pregnant—and that, sadly, was turning out to be a dealbreaker.  I felt her slipping away—if I ever had her; I was using a voice now that I associated with a fellow painter—a woman that lived in Norway, that, if I’m not mistaken, hailed, originally, from Hungary.  I didn’t know what this woman’s voice really sounded like—but I had a voice that I heard when I thought of her.  I was now using that voice as my primary counting voice.  It was not as distinct as Ocasio-Cortez’s voice—it was both seemingly easier to produce and yet harder to tell how it was different from my voice, but it was a definite voice.  So what the hell was going on?

     Oh my.  We’d really let loose and I have to tell you: I switched back to Ursula’s voice on the vowels and my voice on the consonants.  I think too much of the future (where people, in conjunction with the imperfect past, sometimes dump their backs without mercy) was getting in and wearing me down a little.  Everything was so raw right now—like I hadn’t slept, like I’d done a little speed—like I was trying to be Bob Dylan or something.  I’ve said some mean things about Bob in the past and I should say: well, now that I’ve recovered myself—the guy that also considers himself to be a folk singer—well, i realize there’s no reason for me to be threatened.  He may have been dumping his back like crazy when he was doing all that speed, but I did listen to his music for a time when I was lost; and, although I felt misled for a time—thinking i needed to learn how to play the guitar and follow in his footsteps at least a little—i now see that he was actually leaving a little trail of breadcrumbs that, once I sobered up, led right back to me.  A more complete version of myself—a more authentic version of myself than I’d been able to live with in the past.

    I’m here, Dad.  But I was seeing Ursula.  i wonder, then, if Gwen had the ability to reach me, then maybe she also had the ability to contribute to my creative endeavors.  Sounded plausible.  You’re not the only one  that was Ursula talking to Gwen . . . i can’t manage all that.  The were saying I’m wonderful—was I privy to the line?  I am a kind of switchboard operator.  Calls come and go through me—a hub, of sorts.  Still feeling this annoying semi-drunk feeling (minus the feel good chemicals) and couldn’t do much math today either—although made critical progress in the time allotted.  Oh, well.  Sometimes it’s better to quit before trying to learn so much that you run out of space to store it and process it between one working day and the next.  What was I also thinking?  I’m freaking hungry; don’t  know what that was about.  “Once I get off the risperidone, and I can eat lunch again, maybe we can have lunch together.”  Sounds good  but, i wondered, does Ursula eat lunch?  Maybe not.  I know she doesn’t take a lot of breaks—and her teeth look kind of white so she must not fuel everything with coffee.  Hey, that’s great.  I wonder—is there anything negative about her?  Other than the fact that she likes to argue?

    nice to know that someone else goes on a rant every now and then—but what if we blow up?  “that’s a chance i’m willing to take for love.”  then somebody said, and it sounded kind of like my Dad’s voice, “we appreciate the prompt response.”  that was probably Mozart talking; i don’t know—maybe it was just my Dad talking.  I suppose that’s possible.  but if it were my Dad talking I might expect to see Mozart in my mind’s eye, for example, since my Dad represents Mozart and Mozart represents my Dad.  How is the music going, anyhow?”  “Well, I’m trying to talk myself out of it, but I’m thinking of recording another song today.”  And the instrumental pieces—the work that, given the size of your brain, people expect from you?  Good point.

     Now i was tuning—I’d done some tuning while painting, which wasn’t something i normally did—i normally just used my own voice—if i even thought about it at all—but today I was touching base with Ursula’s voice every so often.  Not as much as I should, but enough to count as a change in my pattern.  i like clothes!  I can’t be seen wearing the same thing too often!  Now, Ursula would never say something like that out loud, but I often saw her in outfits that I’d never seen before—and I was wondering how she fit all those clothes into her closet, especially when, considering her net worth, it didn’t seem likely to me that she could afford a large apartment with a spacious closet.  So was she buying clothes and then giving them to good will?  I don’t know.  She must have been storing them at her mom’s house or something.

     So my Dad caught me writing a poem about “Ocasio-Cortez,” and warned me not to use her name because the FBI might get the wrong idea.  Don’t know what he would think of all this.  Maybe it would give him a panic attack.  But I haven’t done anything wrong—I could do something wrong if i tried to trick people and put words in her mouth—or say things that people might think were true, but I wasn’t doing that; i was clearly talking about telepathic communications, which, clearly, are not believable.  Now you might say, yeah, but you believe it.  And you’d be right, but, again, I’m not trying to make this woman look bad—the worst thing that could happen is that I’d come off as a creep and she wouldn’t like me, but nobody, so far, could punish me for having a crush on this real person.  Do you have any idea how many people have a crush on this person?  What are you going to do, put them in jail because they hope that she’ll break up with her boyfriend and be with them?  There’s not enough room in prison.  Anyhow, if she wants to be president, that’s something she needs to be conscious of—that people will fall in love with her.

     taking a Dr. Pepper to the head; wondering, basically, if we can change the subject—since, somehow, I feel i’m in hot water.  You have made me angry  but that wasn’t her talking to me—that was her talking to her boyfriend—but since the things she said to her boyfriend might’ve been meant for me, well, she was talking to me, possibly, and, if she was angry, then, well, she was angry with me.  Did it have to do with my ingrained, visceral, almost instinctive racism?  I didn’t think so, because i think deep down Ursula knew, despite her need for assurances, that she was, in fact, superior to most white women, if not all of them, both because of her looks and, also, because of her job.  I never met a blond that compared to Ursula, and it seemed more likely that I’d die a bachelor because of it.  When it comes to relationships I didn’t want to feel like each new person was a step down—beauty-wise—from the last.  If anything, they look better—to a point; the wild card being their age.

     What are you getting yourself into?  i didn’t know, but things were changing—shifting.  The ground was shifting a little, and, if you didn’t know any better, you might think that you would get swallowed up.  Nothing so complicated, right now, as intoning my voice on the consonants and Ursula’s voice on the vowels, except, in a way, it kind of was, because that’s what I was used to doing, so it took a little effort to paint over everything in Ursula’s voice.  So, reality check: most people are not a walking metronome that projects different voices.  Most people broadcast in their minds, when they’re winding down, the things that they said throughout the day.  They send out a blanket frequency that you can attach yourself to or not.  So, realistically, Ocasio-Cortez, at least, was not talking to me directly.  She was talking to others in a way that aligned with what she wanted to say to me—on my frequency, and then she was reporting those things, both to herself—as if she just wanted to remember something—and to others—but not exactly me and me alone.  To do that she’d either have to project my voice or project a substitute voice that she assigned to do this.  Hence, although Ursula, who was from the future, could count and project, Ocasio-Cortez, in her current form, could not.  At least that was overwhelmingly probable.

     getting a little stressed out over understanding some integral stuff—and so, consequently, i studied it a little over the past three days but did nothing on my actual paper.  Didn’t do much today—got too stressed out; got fidgety with an itch at the back of my throat—a desire, no less, for oblivion.  Now—I’d stopped taking the Lexapro altogether; so i had to be careful about getting stressed out—if it became a constant thing i might need to find another option—something that I could take instead of Lexapro, something that wouldn’t ruin my ability to have sex—and there had been some (but not enough) improvement in that area now that I’d been off it for a few days.  We’ll see what happens after a week and a half or so.  I guess this stuff can take a while to totally get out of your system.

    Wow—you’re really moving freight!  I think she was excited because I’d figured out how to publish my music to those that could play it (like Amazon music)—in fact, in about ten days, I’d be able to listen to my jazz piece through Alexa, Amazon’s music (speaker) and player.  Now, I know what you’re thinking: that’s not such a big deal—nobody is going to be able to find you, and, even if they did, they might listen to one song for ten seconds and decide they weren’t interested.  So yeah, publishing the music was more about investing in a legacy than it was making money or getting any kind of notoriety whatsoever.  People, including Ursula, (and including me) needed to understand that.  But I think Ursula did understand that, and she was simply excited for me for what it was—something that she could turn on in the background at her convenience.