here i was, then, back at it, switching to a four count breathing mechanism—chanting, using the passwords, etc.  Don’t know, exactly, if i want to pick right up where we left off, because, as it happens, I’ve come to realize that when Ursula looks at me like I’m weird—she’s doing that because, well, I tried for months to get her to ignore her boyfriend and agree to an affair with me.  I quit doing that once I realized that I’m already her man—and because of that, a physical relationship already existed.  But, of course, she thought that was weird, too, so what can I do?  Just be yourself  something that people used to say to me, growing up; but I couldn’t be myself, back then, because, at the time, it was not acceptable or even safe to be LGBTQ—since I hailed, of course, from the states of Utah and North Carolina—both proud members of the Jack Daniels fan club.  Overall, cruel, small-minded racists that thought of nothing but themselves.  But it was more than being LGBTQ.  I’ve turned out to be a remarkable artist, with talents that most people would denigrate if I’d put it all out there, as if I deserved to be treated as if I was special, when, in fact, I didn’t have the product to back up the talent, and, mind you, that talent was hidden, even from me—it was stashed in there with that LGBTQ person—and, for a long time, because of that, I didn’t have access to it.  If I tried to protest the direction my  life appeared to be taking, then I would have been ridiculed.

    I was considering (really considering) going back to my old voice for Ursula—but this feels like backsliding, and i don’t know if i should.  the problem is that I can hardly hear Norway blond, and my internal narrator, the general voice that goes on without these checks and balances, was beginning to take over—and I was losing my connection to the future—or at least that’s how it seemed.  But to avoid backsliding and an unhealthy obsession with a person that is out of my sphere, I rename Ocasio-Cortez as Anna—I sometimes called her Anna Karenina in a couple books that preceded this series—a book of poetry and a novel.  It should be understood then, as I’ve said before, that Ocasio-Cortez represents Ursula—but she is not entirely Ursula—because Ursula is a superposition of women.  Ocasio-Cortez just happens to be a very beautiful and powerful woman, a perfect conduit for channeling the future.  If she becomes president, which is what I hope for more than anything, then I will have, i think, maximum connection to the future—and the voice of Norway blond—which reminds me of my great-grandmother, a woman that used to talk to her television, will serve as an address but not a filter.  I’m going back to Anna, then, as a filter.  But yeah, she feels like an ex, and this really feels like backsliding—but her voice is just so much easier to project and pick up on in the nether regions of the center of my admittedly both gifted and schizophrenic brain.  I’d be lying, however, if I didn’t wonder what, in our time apart, had changed. 

     ”Share it with real people,” some still small voice said, wondering, that is, what AI would say if the Riemann hypothesis turned out to be true.  Guess AI knew that wasn’t going to happen—what a bummer; Norway blond had been in touch: i was trying to conjure her voice right now.  Don’t conjure my voice.  Don’t know why she said that.  Was telepathic communications more simple than I made it out to be?  Did conjuring her voice, at times, force her out?  Perhaps the voice I was using needed to change a little; i don’t know.  Ursula said the strangest things sometimes.  I’m here eating cheese, for example.  What was that about?  I used to think that cheese, incidentally, would protect my teeth from too much coffee—thinking that coffee could somehow rot my teeth.  Maybe thinking, too, that a piece of cheese would take it off my breath—like hitting a reset button.  That’s essentially what I was doing.  Switching from a cup of coffee every hour for around eight hours to nothing at all.

     pounding Dr. Pepper, pounding sparkling water, trying to get this woman that I wanted to have a baby with out of my mind—just the mere fact that I wanted so badly to get her pregnant betrayed the impossibility of a relationship.  You just don’t talk about things like that until you’ve given somebody—and where they are, and what they want, by choice—a chance.  wild thoughts went through my mind—but I was mainly worried about my music, right now.  My jazz piece had been in review for almost a month, and i wanted so badly for it to hurry up and be complete—distributed and playable.  I wanted to listen to it, for heaven’s sake.  Don’t know why it was taking so long—don’t know why it was taking me so long—to be discovered, that is, since, in my mind, well, everything I did was good enough to attract a buttload of attention.

     You’re going to drive me crazy  but, “You’re already crazy,” and then, that’s just it—i’m not.  Ok—so there were two ways we used the word crazy—it was a slang way of talking about something that was very impressive and, also, it was a derogatory term used to describe someone with a disability.  Ursula was not crazy—she was ahead of her time, and, if outside, alien forces got to her, then they could drive her crazy, yes—that was what I meant.  But right now—all things considered and in heaven, at least, no—the real Ursula would never be crazy unless other people were so impressed by her talents that they couldn’t understand it.  As in, “how is that even possible?”  But it was nice that Ursula was self-aware—that, given some not so unrealistic possibilities and circumstances—she would lose her mind.  No doubt about it.  But to think that I was going to do that to her was wrong.  I wouldn’t do anything but get intimate with her, and, if, in that process, of being in love, something got processed wrong, and she lost her mind—well, that wouldn’t be my fault.  When people break up and one person goes nuts it’s not because the other person is the reason that happened—but it does happen, all too often, that when someone does go nuts—the person that was quote unquote in love with them does little or nothing to help.

     Quietly, now: i can hear her lurking in the background—taking on the physical address of my great grandmother; except that it was an address that wasn’t what my great grandmother really looked like.  It was more vague than than, as if she was starting there, and sort of overlapping with her in such a way that everything looked a little blurry.  The fat was there—many movie stars, in fact, get fat when they quit working, as they get old.  Was my Ursula a movie star?  what, then, exists between us?  But my Ursula, barring a miracle, won’t appear on my screen—my Ursula is more than that.  And, because she’s more than that, she won’t appear on a screen unless greatness is thrust upon her—and she rises to the call.  Now, for the past couple of hours people were talking about me inside my head; they were impressed by me, and they were saying things that made me sound like a big-shot; I tried not to pay too much attention to it—can I help it, however, if, sometimes I agree with them?

     I’m just getting rid of some trash; what kind of trash?  white trash?  I wondered: did Ursula come from a red state?  was she surrounded by republicans?  if so, she wouldn’t be her authentic self for years.  But, that said, i might have been talking to the future version of Ursula.  i may have gone in for a blond, but many blonds were racists, and bad people; random blond idiots, we call them—those that, because they dye their hair blond, are given the chance to express an opinion that they stole from someone else—someone that sleeps with them, usually.  Some women get laid and then they think that gives them the authority and the presence of mind to talk about politics.  It might not be so bad if they had something meaningful to say—but really they were just saying whatever those that elevated them wanted to hear—such as, Jack Daniels shouldn’t have to leave his house to go to a party—he needs a ballroom.

     two-tone skin  a thing of the past  just something to think about huh?  i’m just talking shit  idiot girlfriend, i knew better all along; but, even still, some effort to interact with people on a friendly level proved to be progress.  are you going to screw me?  Don’t know why this particular Ursula—the Ursula—was being so vulgar.  If she was trying to turn me on—then good luck: my prolactin levels are through the roof.  I just went to the doctor the other day.  that’s a downer  ”yeah, but I’m doing something about it—it’s just not going to happen overnight.”  I still can’t believe I broke up with you know who.  I get a similar feeling when I look at her as I do when I imagine any ex; a shameful waste of time that could’ve been spent getting ready for someone else.  So what if i didn’t find the right person until later in life?  that’s the way this pans out.

    This is just to confirm: yes, I am no longer using Ocasio-Cortez to broadcast my WIFI.  I am using the voice mentioned in the above—and I don’t know if it’s easier or more difficult.  Now you’re talking  a standard response, but, nonetheless, made in Ursula’s—the “new” Ursula’s—voice.  She was very kind—she was happy that I liked her, etc., but for some reason she couldn’t be with me because of her job as a radiologist.  Obviously a radiologist job shouldn’t keep here from being with me—so maybe she meant her job as a mom, or her job as someone else’s girlfriend, something like that.  I guess it could have been Ocasio-Cortez saying that she couldn’t be with me because of the optics—which would interfere with that which was more important than both of us—her rise to power, and universal health care.

    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?