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.

     I was trying to get Ursula on the line but I kept seeing her picture and thinking: what’s there to write?  She already loves me!  But she wasn’t talking for like 20 minutes as I sat here drinking sparkling water and getting a little buzz off it.  I kept listening for some still small voice to speak up, but we’d pretty much covered where we’re at yesterday.  Or at least that’s how it seemed right now.  In reality, however, she was back there—but I was writing, in this instance, after painting instead of before—so she might be at a different address right now—I’m really not sure.  You want me to come back  there, she finally said something—so i told her, “of course i want you to come back.”  We’re going somewhere special, you and I.  i was only thinking, right now, about getting a truck, filling it up with paintings, and convincing one of my brothers to drive it.  We were running out of space here—so, yes, we must’ve been talking about space, or she was thinking about it, and how much of a problem that was going to be for me—since she can’t afford, to my knowledge, to look after me.  Eventually she will be able to, i think, but for right now?  She doesn’t curtsy for rich people—which is one of the main reasons i like her, but that also meant that we couldn’t be together.

     Still using, at this point, just Ursula’s voice—that was getting me into conversation land—short “texts” that we sent back and forth—sometimes with space between them and other times back and forth.  You don’t know how i feel  so i figured i’d touched a nerve; i think what she was really saying was that her boyfriend didn’t know how she felt.  I wondered, sometimes, if he loved her more that she loved him, or if, on the other hand, he was just doing what he thought he was supposed to do, i.e. get married, be the first husband, maybe have kids if she wanted them, maybe not if she didn’t—as opposed to doing something that defined him outside of working hours.  But I wasn’t going to ask her about that—and then i thought, well, it is only natural to talk to the person you’re having an affair with about the person you’re cheating on and how they make you unhappy.  That was what forward progress in an affair looked like.  All affairs, at least a little, amounted to gossip.

    Now—I don’t want to be a negative Nancy, but I told Ursula that she would be attacked in her presidential campaign if she didn’t put an end to being a fiancé and get married—otherwise she needed to break it off.  This was her weakness, and, the more she put it off, the more vulnerable she became.  I expressly told her this.  You don’t know what i need.  touchy subject, of course.  So I decided i would do my best not to say anything more about that—if I did, I risked having an argument with her—and let’s be real: you don’t argue with someone that you’re in love with unless something isn’t right about the relationship—which, is often the case, and hence this idea that all is fair in love and war.  I didn’t really want to get into an argument with Ursula, not with something that could lead to ultimatums, or saying things that we can’t exactly walk back a little.

     We’re all going to make it—we’re going to be rich and famous!  that was the actress Margot Robbie talking; she used to live jammed up in an apartment (in NYC i guess) with the man that was to become her husband; i have to admit, I wasn’t exactly sure how her marriage worked—but nobody was talking about divorce and i would probably know, given the amount of time, of late, I’ve spent scrolling on Instagram, a social media outlet . . . but the odd thing about it was, no: that was Ursula’s voice—that was Ursula talking, so i wondered if my 5D self was trying to tell me something.  I don’t know why Margot Robbie popped in my head—but here’s the thing: she was already rich and famous—so what was Ursula saying?  That she loved me in the way that Margot Robbie loved the man (Jacob Elordi) she partnered with in the movie Wuthering Heights?  But our love, like their love, was never meant to be, i.e., would she go back to her fiancé after the completion of this book?

    I was sticking with just Ursula’s voice for now—on both the consonants and the vowels.  I had also revealed her identity in one of my book-length poems, which was invigorating, if not misleading.  But her identity here, must remain a mystery because this book is about Ursula—the woman of my dreams, and, well, an election was taking place: would a blond come for me?  Or would a darker woman come for me?  Bleakness versus darkness—and, well, I considered myself a little dark—so it seemed that bleakness might have been a better match, given my desire for someone that takes life seriously.  And why wouldn’t they?  the person that we are in this life is a general indication of the person and the life we share in the afterlife—so that’s important.  But nobody could top going with the president of the United States—a woman that would save me the current tab of 643 dollars a month for health insurance, making it impossible for me to save money for the future.

    this is Ursula  holding on, now, to repressed parts of me?  like what?  solving the Riemann hypothesis? which wasn’t even the main objective—the main objective was to use the hypothesis to prove or argue in favor the afterlife and the possibilities of contact with the dead.  what about writing triple notes for the piano?  Scales?  the sky was the limit—but what could music do for me existentially?  Granted, my newfangled experience was coupling with the way i write—but what did it have to do with philosophy, physics, and, most importantly, the future?  i felt the ground shifting a little—i was changing, perhaps, in part, with the reduction of Lexapro—i was a few days in, now, so part of it should have been leaving my system.  May have been getting  a few more erections at night—but no feeling of desire; no chance at orgasm; no chance of invoking an erection—nothing much had really changed.  I needed to get off the Lexapro completely, and, because of my faith, I didn’t feel so drawn to oblivion; on the contrary i was motivated to learn as much as i could, and take it with me, in the life to come.  i needed, to be clear, to get off the risperidone, or, for the time being, at least, cut the dose in half.  But I wouldn’t be able to do that without working with my doctor, which wouldn’t happen for another five weeks.