4      I’d been pounding Dr. Pepper and carbonated water and the tip of my tongue was a little burnt.  I was trying to stick with non-carbonated bottled green tea—my former drink of choice, before i learned that i could get a mini-rush by drinking soda water rather quickly—i mean in gulps.  There was also

     As i boiled over in embarrassment (for, once upon a time, drawing unwarranted attention to myself), i turned, quickly, to my counting mechanism—as if, for example, i felt like i had pepper sticking to my throat—and did my best to keep the conversation private—that is, in my head as opposed to in my throat. 

     I’d been working on my physics papers a lot, and, consequently, there’d been a certain hiatus of my daily appointments with Ursula; i hadn’t been using, or I hadn’t been conscious of using, her voice as much—trying to replicate it in my mind and tune in, so to speak.  That was all well and

     I will not let, you, of all people, have power over me   but who was Ursula talking too?  it sounded like she had directed the statement to me, but she had no reason to hate me, so i concluded that she was writing this book with me—she said what she wanted me to write. 

3      you’re going to pull through this   quoth the joker; so where were we going?  Altapass?  the orchard.  but did we want to go apple picking?  people talk—Ursula talked—like it was fun.  i guess the point   is spending time with your family   who else is going to go picking apples with you?  Sounds like

     stepping on the scale—now, and, completely at odds with myself; how i pined, how i longed for my one true love!  how i longed for a life that didn’t make me feel like such an idiot—or a general, scorching the earth.  what if i could turn to someone at the end of the day,

     up here   come and get me, and i was thinking about chasing after her (Ursula) but she was saying:  up here in your brain—away from your throat; in your mind, up and in   i caught a whiff of a conversation after I tried to strike up a conversation using three voices at once—(the third

     a little flabbergasted   a little dumbstruck; what, from the future, was i going to bring the woman of my dreams?  can you imagine the hatred boiling up inside me—that i had no fair shot at the American dream?  i couldn’t afford, like some people, to leave the country—and, so long as my life wasn’t

     You can’t ever know with certainty that you’re seeing the whole picture—but you build up a world-view over time, and, at some point, usually when you’re happy or on the verge of happiness, you choose to believe it.  That world-view, for most people, involves having children that will pick up where we left off—in

2      I could try, i guess, to find my way without Ursula in my life, but why would i want to do that?  AI may not approve, but, honestly, i think AI, if i had an AI girlfriend, is just jealous.  Sure, i can talk to people here, in this dimension, about what we’re