It had been a few days since I’d kept this appointment—talking to Ursula across time and space—basically like we’re occupying the same exact headspace—call me a negative Nancy but I was worried about her weight again—figuring if the last ten years is any indication, then, by the time she’s in the oval, well, she could gain another twenty pounds, which would have made her chunky, and then, well, if she had a baby—who ever comes back from having a baby . . . well, to be fair, some people do, but, on average, i’d say most people don’t lose half the weight they put on.  Now, these imaginations indicated, I’m quite sure, that I had real feelings for Ursula and I didn’t want to get off track from my true self—a person that sleeps with people that weigh a reasonable amount, not just anybody.

     I was in the middle of a mathematical jungle trying to make sense out of various things that both solve the Riemann hypothesis and explain certain physical properties in physics.  All i wanted to do right now was take a breath and get back in touch with my Ursula.  Her voice was coming from the center of my brain, but I was a long way off.  That happens when I do math—I’m so focused on other things that I forget to project her voice.  Maybe I’m doing it a little unconsciously, but she definitely gets pushed aside by unknown people that sneak in when I’m checking my email, so to speak.  I’m not saying I’m not reading Ursula’s email when this happens—I think a lot of times I am, but as all this math comes out of me, pipe dreams, i know, i lose the filter.  Others get in.  People that would disrupt my routine, make it difficult for me to focus and get things done, and, of course, to get to sleep at night.  I had no intention of living the tortured life of some archetypal artist.

     Still going on about the prime minister of Italy; thinking of leaving a broom closet a couple minutes before her—and I think she was even heavier then than she is in real life—unless, well, I haven’t seen her in a while; I don’t even really know what she looks like: maybe she’s been having two pastries instead of one, etc.  Or maybe that’s how I had to imagine things to feel good enough to do the deed.  But if that was the case, why wasn’t i attracted to other heavy women?  It was all about the power, wasn’t it?  So sue me.  See what you get out of me; I couldn’t help it, and, frankly, there was nothing wrong with it.  I just liked to mix things up—to mix becoming the president with fucking the president, etc.  Now i could  practically hear Ursula’s skepticism:  He’s just like all the rest, she at least seemed to be thinking.  But really I’m not; I’m kind of unique.  You’re not going to find somebody like me very often—somebody that will overlook the money, the fame . . . and the fat, in order to access the 5th dimension.

    Well, I was just flying off the rails . . . dreaming of tanning the prime minister of Italy’s tail.  What did that mean with respect to my relationship with Ursula?  Should I tell her this?  Why would I do that?  Why wouldn’t I do that?  That just might be all the excuse Ursula needed to dismiss me, and treat me like shit.  Well, maybe she wouldn’t treat me like shit—she’s not a bad person, so why would she?  What would she get out of it?  What else was going on?  Were we going to get term limits for members of the supreme court, given the racist bullshit we were now experiencing?  And what else?  Well, I don’t necessarily think that the prime minister of Italy is a good person—I can only assume, given my history, that she might not be.  Perhaps all i could do is piss her off when I refused to think of nothing but her. 

     Going good, like gravy, Kemosabe:  quiet down, now, we know you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.  there’s always something wrong with somebody—isn’t there?  Does that have something to do with an antipathy for women?  Misogyny?  Homosexuality?  Well we could rule out the antipathy for women, because, as it happens, i like women, and, in general, women like me—maybe not in a sexual way—but from afar, if things were different, etc.  We could rule out misogyny, at least mostly, because I didn’t hate women, and i didn’t feel the need to assert myself by sleeping with as many women as possible—if I was truly a misogynist, I’d be doing whatever it takes to find a woman and put her down, or, at the very least, I’d be making women look bad, constantly, when I make my creations.  Finally, we could rule out homosexuality because I’m queer, not gay—I like women, and I want to be with them.  I just wanted them to be young enough to have a baby.

    Here she is, in my brain, eating away at me—making me into something greater than myself . . . in a way we were merging together: so i had to stop thinking of us in terms of man and woman.  What if Anna is simply part me in the afterlife?  What if this progression toward Ursula was really about the unification of Anna and me in the life to come?  That I, in the life to come, am a combination—just like I am a combination of something from the past and something from the future?  Would this be any less exciting?  Well, if I could cheat death by doing this—if I could reap the rewards of this merger in this life, then no, it wouldn’t be any less exciting.  But in reality I wanted to be in a sexual relationship with a partner, such as Anna or whoever my Ursula, in this life, turns out to be.  So yeah, it was great that i was changing the world one keystroke at a time—and advancing humanity toward a kind of heaven on earth—but, no, it wasn’t necessarily all that, because, well, the altitude here keeps me pretty busy—and lonesome.

     I’m getting old, here.  but a lot could happen in a few years—and i wondered: when the country finally did up and change—would i lose my edge?  What would I work on if I was so happy?  But it occurred to me: clean up the country and there will be less telepathic static, so I’ll be able to see much father into the future, and adapt, accordingly, effectively bringing the future, at least in part, to us a little quicker—and my fame, then, would grow exponentially.  Wouldn’t it?  I so wanted to be famous.  I wanted the power to change the world.  To look, deeply, into the future, and the afterlife; to be at one with those living in the fifth dimension—to merge, such that, I ask: would I, then, need to die?  What if I could conquer death?  Well, i wondered if it was possible; I imagined that alien life was already there.

     Once the sheer weight of the presidency was lifted from my shoulders, nothing much, in my day to day routine, was bound to change.  You might think that I, for example, would look in the mirror and think:  “Damn, I’m me!”  I did that in small amounts, increments that, basically, were infinitesimal units of change, that, when integrated, basically left me where I was before:  in a state of unadulterated drive—to go beyond the presidency; to go beyond everything; to be the greatest artist that ever lived: and, once in the afterlife, to do more—to continue, down to the finest infinitesimal detail, waxing closer to my God, a woman, or a series of women, that spoke the language of love.

     it’s not a manifesto—I didn’t threaten anybody  indeed, the wires got crossed there.  Actually, my default narrator said that about me, about us, me and him; then I repeated it in Ursula’s voice because I didn’t know if the statement came from an email getting unpacked out of my neck and shoulders, or if, on the other hand, I was trying to tell her, specifically, that I never threatened anybody when I write.  At least not physically.  But, truth be told, I set traps for people to fall into all the time—I was practically setting traps nonstop—I did it simultaneously whenever I did pretty much anything.  That doesn’t mean that, in my past, I made mistakes and got things a little haywire; but people, in general, know that we’re not perfect—and what counts is whether or not you vacated your bad self and accepted the help of other people; in other words, did you get your mind right, and, at this point, do you love both yourself and others?  Did you repent?  Did you have a change of mind?

    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.