Boxes full of Pepe (2022)

Q1

My relationship with Susan rapidly deteriorated after the new year.

I was, at this point, certain that she snooped around my house while I was away in New York. She simply revealed herself to know way too much about changes (or lack thereof) in the state of my property.

I’d talked about the issue at length with Kristina and my therapist. Vickie thought it unlikely she would ever admit to having done it, unless maybe I simply told her that I knew she did it.

I was waffling as to how I should proceed, and was a bit preoccupied with the whole Freemason-UFO thing. Susan forced my hand when she basically invited herself over early in January; at which point I had little choice but to tell her “no” in no uncertain terms.

I did the necessary during our little weekly call I’d better not forget about. I told her I knew she did it; and that I didn’t feel comfortable with her coming to my house.

The acronym “DARVO” stands for “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender”. It’s a neologism in the self-help community for the sort of abuse often reflexively spewed out by people with certain personality-disordered traits.

I can’t write a blockquote encapsulating everything Captain DARVO said, or rather screamed, over the next fifteen minutes or so. This’ll have to do as an approximation.

You’re so STUPID!
How could you DO this to me!
I’m your MOTHER!

One thing was certain after our chat; she definitely did it. I struck a nerve.

I had a rough time with this. I want to believe Susan; I really do. I’m afraid this person might just be a pathological liar; a phrase I first learned in elementary school as my parent’s marriage was beginning to fail. I’m afraid it might just be impossible to have an honest relationship with this person.

#TODOI should probably backfill more about Susan; but I probably won’t for a while because this is about UFOs.

---

By the new year, the last few months had been a whirlwind of bizarre, unexpected insights into something that was different about me; the exact nature of which still seemed to elude me. I was relieved by the idea that I at least wasn’t the only person going through this; but, it had been a few months since I talked to Doris, and the situation had grown to the point that I really needed to figure out what I was supposed to do. No, I don’t mean sageing my house or burning palo santo. I mean, what is it I’m actually supposed to do here?

My therapist had encouraged me to seek out groups that were into this, uh… sort of thing. I compiled a small list in the fall, but never went to any of them; there was a lot happening in my head, really fast.

I kept remembering more about the woman from the sermon; who actually appeared to be me. I remembered that a lot of the congregation was moved, and wanted to help her. As more came to me I thought, wasn’t there a bunch of money raised for this woman or something?

Shit, what am I even supposed to…

I kept seeing Stephanie on the weekends. She wasn’t able to provide much useful advice, but was into this stuff and had an ex who was ostensibly a medium. She was one of the people at Philly back in 2019 when Persephone had that weird talk with us. She also had an uncle who was a Freemason; though he never talked to Stephanie about what he did.

The talk with Tommy made me feel better; but I needed to see other people.

I needed to talk to Heather.

Smooth move, Ex-lax.

Pepe Silvia, this name keeps coming up over and over again. Every day Pepe’s mail is getting sent back to me. Pepe Silvia! Pepe Silvia! I look in the mail, and this whole box is Pepe Silvia!

---

I had a doctor’s appointment in mid-February; I believe it was the first one since Triangle Comprehensive Care was bought by Avery Primary Care during COVID times. I had put off going in person when I could get away with telehealth, and hadn’t had any problems that required going in.

I’d done labs beforehand, and hadn’t really paid attention to them other than to see that my hormones were normal. The first thing Dr. Reid wanted to talk to me about was

Your vitamins, Rachael. How much B12 do you take?

I was taken aback, because I’d never brought up the fact that I take vitamin B12. So I’m thinking “Oh shit, what’d I do?”

I started taking vitamin B12 several years ago before I transitioned. I’d felt off for months in numerous vague, non-specific ways, and I found that taking a multivitamin seemed to make me feel better. I wanted to try narrowing down exactly what was making me feel better, and arrived at vitamin B12.¹ I was a little surprised to find it actually seemed to help; but as time went on, I second guessed myself and assumed I was probably just chasing ghosts.

Several months after I stopped taking it, the same feelings came back. I reflected on what changed, and decided to try B12 again; only to find the symptoms gone again a few months later.

I repeated this process a few times, before ultimately concluding that maybe I should just take vitamin B12. It’s a water-soluble vitamin that’s harmless in excess.

Anyway, Dr. Reid said my vitamin B12 level was too high. I didn’t think that was possible, but I’m not a doctor; granted, it was an order of magnitude above the reference level. I figured this was because I took a sublingual B12 right before I left home for my blood draw.

After learning my doctor was checking it, I decided to stop taking it once and for all. If I really did have a problem I supposed we’d find it.

Simultaneous with finding that my vitamin B12 was too high, she also pointed out that my vitamin D was low. I saw this as an attempt to show me how much better I’d feel if I actually took the right shit; or something.

Seems fine. She prescribed me vitamin D to pick up at the pharmacy. It was a something-thousand IU pill that you only took once a week. It may’ve made me feel a little better. She didn’t prescribe more once I took the course.

---

More kept coming to me. I felt like I was on some sort of path. I felt like I had some purpose or destiny to realize; and had the feeling of experiencing visions or revelations, for lack of a better word. I thought I was meant to start an experimental community, become the president of a new breakaway state, and get assassinated at exactly 12:26pm on Friday, May 8^th 2026 before continuing on through countless subsequent lifetimes.

I was acutely aware of the optics of doing anything that would look like “starting a UFO cult”. And yet, I couldn’t deny how overpowering all this stuff in my head was.

I decided to engage Tommy for the first time since my surprise visit last fall.

With the Heather connection still a bit up in the air and the ball now in Tommy’s court, it was only a matter of time before I reached out to Persephone.

Followed shortly after by

---

I thought the Freemasons were going to show up to my house and take me to an initiation ceremony. These messages showed up in my head that I was supposed to get in the car with Terry and Tommy, who wouldn’t be able to say anything. They’d ask me some questions, I guess to prove that the things in my head were genuine, and at the end I was supposed to curtsy.

A week or so later, a very loud message in my head told me to bow, not curtsy. I guess that first part was a joke?

Though I was optimistic this was a sign we were about to do “the thing”, this would actually be the last time I’d get anything out of Tommy for over two months.

Somewhere in the midst of this, I grew utterly convinced that Terry commissioned Josh’s artist-mother to paint a portrait of me practicing my curtsy in my room; something these people were ostensibly able to remotely view through occult means, despite the physical isolation.

I told Kristina around the middle of March. She was outwardly supportive; but, I could also tell she was a little skeptical, and would want to see the receipts sooner rather than later.

Things were starting to feel a little hit-and-miss. My therapist, Doris, and Persephone made me feel like I was on the right track. I was initially thrown off by Persephone saying she “didn’t know much about Freemasonry” in our Discord conversation; but this seemed to mimic the Freemason’s “Simon says” rules I’d been exposed to over the years, yet failed to retain accurately. After Josh appeared ignorant in this last conversation, I briefly held strong in the belief that this would all clear up over the next few weeks.

My capacity to get any work done had only gotten worse since last year’s pre-UFO problems. Somewhere in here, I briefly started taking my ADHD medication again, after having not taken it for around nine months.

She thought she read minds, she was not right (Q2)

Somewhere around the winter or early spring, the Red Hot Chili Peppers connection took a turn. Where I previously thought it was just some sort of an in-joke that Anthony Kiedis was one of the different people or something, I grew convinced there was some personal connection. I thought I remembered visiting Tony, who I was now on a first name basis with, in April of 1990 as an unborn spirit or something. I thought there was going to be some kind of a special SNL where I’d be in the audience. I was to catch a flight, meet the chauffeur, and then meet “Tony”; all based on intuition and these messages that were showing up in my head. Or… something.

I started getting all this weird stuff in my head about how I actually had a future with Anthony Kiedis; someone I’ve never exactly fantasized about or been attracted to.

I still believed I was generally on the right track, but I desperately needed a sort of help that seemed to keep eluding me. I hoped Stephanie would know more, but she didn’t. Then, I couldn’t get Heather’s attention through our mutual friend. Persephone made me feel better, but had little practical advice. And, that’s what I needed. Practical, concrete advice. What is it I’m actually supposed to be doing?

Frustrated that Tommy kept blowing off my attempts to meet with him, I eventually just went for it in a message he never responded to.

Although it didn’t strike me as problematic at the time, it was probably somewhere around here when Vickie and I started losing each other. The problem with me is, I have a really hard time with disclosure. I need to really think about telling someone before I tell someone. There are reasons for this.

So I say to myself I gotta find this guy, I gotta go up to his office, I gotta put his mail IN the guy’s goddamn hands otherwise he’s never gonna get it he’s gonna keep coming back down here

At some point, the rate of information flooding into my brain began exceeding the rate at which I could comfortably relate the information to people in my support network, like Stephanie and my therapist. Vickie was still talking about the “big shift”, when I was already twenty steps ahead of that. I was painfully aware of how much the new stuff in my head about Anthony Kiedis looked like classic delusions of reference; and I didn’t want to scare off Stephanie, or make my therapist jump to conclusions.

---

I kept waiting, weekend after weekend, for the Freemasons to show up and take me away. Somehow I kept moving the goalpost. It feels utterly ridiculous now.

During a Sunday chat with Susan, I brought up the Warren, Ohio connection with my mom, just to test my memory and make sure I hadn’t lost it. I mean, that is pretty crazy, right?

Tommy was born in Warren too, right?

That’s right! Tommy was born in Warren, Ohio; and so was Dave Grohl!

Oh, yeah! I forgot about Dave Grohl! That’s probably just a coincidence.

Wait, what’s his band called again? The fucking Foo Fighters?

God. Dammit.

In a desperate attempt to reach out to another “UFO kid”, I sent a letter to Heather’s last known address; as well as the Grand Lodge of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons of North Carolina. I forget what all I put in there, but I know it didn’t make much sense. I’ll spoil the surprise now by telling you I never got back any sort of response from either.

I was convinced I’d somehow roused the suspicion of my mail-person, and left them a weird goddamn note. I got a weird response back about how someone else was running the route and to enjoy my trip; a reference to my weird visions about being in the audience for SNL.

Near the end of the month, I had in my mind what felt like the equivalent of Morpheus telling me to jump off the ledge of the building.

Send a letter to your closest friends and family. Deadline, this Friday (or something).

I fucking did it. I sent weird handwritten letters to Josh and my mother, with similar content but a customized cover letter. On, like, the last Friday in April or something; barely meeting this imposing, ostensibly very serious deadline. With all that weird shit, including my anticipated assassination at 12:26pm on whatever day.

So, what happened?

---

The SMS thread with my mother during the same timespan was considerably more spartan.

By this point, I had a feeling that I can only imagine is akin to that of a bomb tech after they pull the plunger and nothing happens. I felt I needed to defuse this situation, very carefully.

I attempted to ask, while making it sound like the most boring, banal thing ever, if anyone had talked to her recently about Freemasons or reincarnation or anything. I honestly can’t remember if I mentioned UFOs or not.

Unsurprisingly, Susan didn’t seem to know anything about what was going on. Already assuming that would be the case, I attempted to find a way to get in touch with Jody; as I had since ascertained she was from Vega, as well as being one of the people who surrounded me after Tommy’s weird sermon.

In retrospect, it seemed like we were both dismantling a bomb. Susan said she’d talk to Jody, but she never did. My letter to her had apparently gotten lost in the mail.

The weirdest part might be how Susan just kept going through the motions in our already hollow relationship.

It turned out that, in my addled state, I used the wrong zip code.

It was at this point that Josh gave me a chance to catch up and take my mind off things for a while.

I showed up wearing my shirt I’d gotten from the Flying Saucer when I joined the “UFO club” years ago; still hoping to coax something out of him. He had this hurt-ass look on his face when he first saw me. I still thought he might know more than he was letting on at the time, mostly because of his grave expression; but I really don’t think that’s the case anymore.

I tried to explain what had happened and how I ended up at this point in my life; but I struggled to make coherent sense without linking against a vast amount of information that I’m painfully private about. I couldn’t explain the Tommy stuff without going back all the way to middle school, I couldn’t really explain how I knew Heather and Maureen without explaining I was a kinkster, I couldn’t explain how I thought I was the woman from this sermon without talking about the aforementioned trauma bullshit… it was like the fucking Sweater Song. I tried my best, but I could tell Josh was really struggling with the gaps in information I was hesitant to fill in.

We enjoyed the concert, though.

At one point toward the end, I kind of just started crying. He clearly didn’t know anything about UFOs; but he made me feel better than anyone had up to that point.

---

It was on the eve of Friday the 13^th, when I started envisioning something that had happened to me in a past life. It was… Friday the 13^th.

Just to reiterate, I don’t believe any of this anymore. It felt very real at the time.

It was revealed to me that, in ancient times long ago, UFO people like me and Heather lived openly among the people. As we began to spook out the Romans, that led to, well… Friday the 13^th; a pogrom against us UFO folks, carried out by the then-fledgling Catholic Church, which may as well have been the religious branch of the Roman imperial government.

I remembered living in a village in modern-day France, as I watched them build this prison up on a hill where they were eventually to house us different people upon its completion. As the Romans’ objective was to discourage us from incarnating on Earth in the future, they were to torture us over the course of a year or two before killing us off and rounding up the next group of UFO people.

Because of the nature of visions and past life memories, we were all aware of our fate by adolescence. I lived into my late 20s or early 30s before being taken; a (cisgender) man who never married but had, unlike myself, a normal and average sex life. I lived in a small dwelling on a steep hill, that I think was connected to other dwellings in townhouse-like fashion. It was comparable in size to my dorm room at Avent Ferry, maybe a bit smaller. I spoke Latin and was able to write, keeping a journal on a desk. I was surprised by the sophistication given the time period, though formal education appeared to be the norm for “UFO kids”, or whatever.

I had actually been someone else in a lifetime before this; the Roman senator who arguably caused the deboggle. I ostensibly ran for the Roman senate and won handily on a platform of being a common-sense progressive from the Pleiades.² The establishment found this disruptive and threatening to their power, leading to the aforementioned pogrom.

Anyway; I thought I was the Roman senator who caused Friday the 13^th, who subsequently got Friday the 13th’ed. Extending the story arc further, I was concurrently envisioning that I had a multi-lifetime career in politics; once serving as a well-liked president of my entire homeworld. I would “remember” more about this over the following months.

Most of what I remembered on the eve of Friday the 13^th was about the thing itself. They came for us on, well… you know the day. This woman rounded up about half a dozen of us, and we rode up the hill to the prison on this wagon. I remember us being in weirdly high spirits. One of the people on the wagon was apparently the preincarnation of Heather.

We arrived at the prison. I remembered it having an L shaped corridor, and I was placed into I believe the first cell; all of which were on the left side of the hallway. We were housed in individual rooms, about 10’ square with a small view and a hole for waste to go, which would roll downhill.

The prison was run by this woman, who I called the “warden chick” in my head. She was not very sadistic, and maybe even a bit childlike. She did diligently remove an arm, a leg, an eyeball, and my dick and balls over the course of my stay. Despite this, she was never particularly mean to us in terms of her demeanor. It was actually a pretty surreal thing to remember; and not what I would expect my subconscious to come up with.

We were eventually killed off after around 12 to 18 months of this. I remember a higher-up official coming to our prison periodically to check on us; who was later dissatisfied with what he viewed as too kind of treatment. We were the guinea pigs; which seemed to be a good thing in this case. I heard reports that they started cutting people open at another prison.

I was killed by being stabbed in the chest. My friend, the preincarnation of Heather was beheaded. I remembered something peculiar about that moment; despite having grown up with her, I never asked where she was from. This came up during our final words, when the executioner proclaimed that he was about to “send us back to wherever we’re from”.

---

Back to the SMS thread with Susan.

Hold up; what? That’s my number! The exact time I’m supposed to die, or whatever.

Okay; she has to know, right? She’s at least in on something. Sure, she texts “I love you” every day, but it’s almost always at night. Not precisely at 12:26pm on Friday the 13^th, right as I’m dealing with this fucking shit.

Alright, you crazy old men. I can take a hint.

Liam’s birthday was today, so I went over there after work to hang out with him and Kristina. I remember trying to make conversation with Kristina and one of her friends that was there, but I was frazzled and not good for much of anything. I was somewhere else in my mind.

Continuing on with Susan.

Somewhere around now, likely during our Sunday chat, Susan said she thought I should “get my meds checked”. To which I replied something like

Okay… I can tell I’ve taken a wrong turn. I’ll… talk to my doctor.

I explained that I had stopped taking my ADHD medication, which I foolishly told her I had started a year back. She… didn’t like this.

YOU’RE NOT JUST SUPPOSED TO STOP TAKING STUFF, YOU NEED TO TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR!

And I’m thinking goddamn, woman. They’re fucking stimulants. I stopped taking them because I was worried about what was happening to me. Now she’s all freaked out and wants to get doctors involved, and I just want to know how to be a UFO person like Heather and them. How does Heather know how to be a Heather? Why won’t anyone teach me how to be a Rachael? GODDAMN IT, TALK TO ME PEOPLE!

It was now that Susan just decided to drive up to Durham without notice to take me to “get my meds checked”. My initial response was “Hell no!” We need to slow down. I haven’t lost insight into how crazy this is. It’s real. This is happening. I’ve got my therapist, and Persephone, and Doris the Shaman, and I know Heather and Tommy and them can’t talk to me yet but… we’ll sort this out soon, right?

Goddamn it.

I was firm in my stance that she was no longer allowed in my house, and thus she rented a hotel room nearby. I met her at the Chubby’s and we talked for a bit. I was understandably nervous about Susan clawing her way into my healthcare needs.

After thinking about what was going on, I reached the conclusion that Susan wasn’t in town for a med check. She was in town for a “med check”. Since she sent the text at exactly 12:26pm on Friday the 13^th, she has to know something; but she can’t talk yet, just like the rest of them. I guess I just have to play along. I actually started getting the impression that I should go if someone showed up to my house wanting to take me to get my meds checked.

Susan subsequently “arranged” for us to meet with Tommy. I say that with quotes; because, while Susan essentially forced this meeting to take place, she made it my responsibility to arrange a venue and chauffeur her to and from the hotel.

I arrived at Cocoa Cinnamon, utterly overwhelmed with both excitement and frustration. I could tell Susan was freaked out; despite her own very big emotions, she really doesn’t like it when I get emotional, and frantically tries to pacify me. I just wanted to get to the bottom of what this crazy old man Tommy was trying to tell me all those years ago.

As for me, I didn’t know what was going on. I was slow to be reassured Susan wasn’t somehow in on it on some level, especially after that weird text on Friday the 13^th at 12:26pm. If she didn’t know what was going on, I assumed Terry or Tommy must’ve at least put her up to it.

I couldn’t contain myself by the time Tommy showed up. I remember greeting him, saying something like

I don’t know if my convictions will have me sent to the masonic lodge or the psych ward; but I think I’m from the Pleiades, and I think you are too you crazy old man!

He dodged my question. And kept dodging it. He wouldn’t say “No, I’m not from the Pleiades”. He wouldn’t say “Sorry, I don’t understand the question”. He’d just say shit like “Let’s get drinks first”, or just start talking about something totally different from my very blunt and direct questions about Freemasons, UFOs, being from other planets…

It was the weirdest fucking thing ever. Just say you aren’t from the Pleiades and I’ll leave you alone. Hell, just tell me I’m not making any sense and I’ll go away. But goddamn it dude, why do you have to be such a goddamn sketchball?

What. The. Fuck.

I left feeling like I must be right about something; because if I was wrong he would’ve just told me. I’m clearly being strung along. For what purpose I haven’t got a clue; but, I’m starting to get the feeling it has to do with that little thing I caused in a past life called Friday the 13^th.

---

On what might’ve been the very next day, I was listening to music in my room. I was a little faded, when I slid off my headphones after a music break and heard a loud banging at the door.

(knock knock knock)
DURHAM POLICE DEPARTMENT
(knock knock knock)

So I panic, and think about what to do with the Volcano and the half ounce on my dresser. I couldn’t hear the police at all with my headphones on. For all I knew, they’d been there for the last twenty minutes announcing they had a search warrant.

After quickly trying to channel the Pot Brothers at Law, I decided I should step outside and talk to them; but, I was planning to be real careful and lock the door behind me. Nobody gets in without a warrant.

We’re here to take you to get your meds checked…

God. Dammit.

Okay, sure. I’ll go without any trouble. I was wearing my pajamas, and they offered to let me go back in and change. I probably needed my ID, too.

After carefully unlocking the door to do the aforementioned things, this son of a bitch wedges his foot in. Now I have warrantless cops in my house despite my best efforts.

Goddammit, I fucking hate cops. Pieces of shit.

They offered to follow me upstairs to where I’d been smoking pot so that I could change and get ready. No.

I put on a pair of jeans that were laying out downstairs as the cops kept the door wide open. Pieces of shit. I know it’s their little bad boy protocol, but I fucking hate cops. I wish they’d just leave people like me alone. They’ve done nothing but fuck with me while I try to survive in this crazy world and mind my own goddamn business my whole life. They exist for the comfort of normal people, and they don’t give a fuck about people like me. Goddamn it, I fucking hate cops.

I left braless and sockless with a cardigan over my frumpy tank top. The cops asked me uncomfortable questions as they drove me to Duke Regional.

Your mom says you won’t let her in your house.

My mother is presumed to have borderline personality disorder, I have reason to believe she’s been snooping around my house without my permission while I’m away, and I’ve told her she isn’t welcome because of it.

What’s this about you having an altar? #TODOBackfill

My spiritual beliefs are none of your concern.

He apparently wanted to make sure I wasn’t… sacrificing animals, or something.

We waited at Duke for some amount of time before I was handed off to the hospital staff. The police were respectful overall, but goddamn it, I fucking hate cops.

And yet, with everything in the news I have little to complain about.

They asked for my side of the story, and I gave them my elevator speech. Mom presumed to have a personality disorder, I’m dealing with trauma and things, she’s not taking it well…

They got me into a gown and put me in a safe little room with the few belongings I had taken away from me, before they asked the big question.

So, what’s this about you thinking you’re an alien?

I took a deep breath, and tried to explain what was happening in the most collected, logical way I could muster.

So, I know this sounds really weird, but I’m just different in a way that Freemasons know about. I know I’m not physically an alien; it isn’t like that. You can call the Grand Lodge of North Carolina, give them my name, tell them I sent you and they’ll explain everything.

I might be over-extending myself with that last part; but I’ve just got to keep my confidence up at this point. I don’t know where else to send them. Doris the shaman?

I was there for close to eight hours. Initially, they seemed bent on figuring out what crazy drugs I was on before seemingly deciding I wasn’t worth their time. For example, they had me pee in a cup, but hadn’t collected the sample by the time I left. They took my blood, and gave me a potassium supplement because it was apparently low. I remember thinking, “I take 200mg of spironolactone a day, isn’t that like, contraindicated or something?” Judging by the gown I was wearing I was in no position to argue with anyone; and the nurse waited for me to swallow the pill like I was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest. I figured one potassium supplement wouldn’t kill me.

I laid on the hospital bed most of the time, not watching the Hallmark Channel. The woman I saw first, who seemed to be an MD, at least appeared to take my request to contact the Freemasons seriously. Several hours into my stay, another woman with the air of a psychologist came in; who seemed to not have communicated with the first doctor. I could see in her eyes that she didn’t believe a single word I said. After we talked, I didn’t think I was going home that night.

Toward the end, they brought in a cordless phone for me to talk to my therapist. I hadn’t told her about the letters yet; the gap between what was going on with me and what I had shared with my therapist was at least that wide.

Eventually, they just let me go without explanation. I was given meaningless discharge paperwork about following up on my condition. I left my cell phone upstairs when the cops came into my house, so my only way back was to use the phone in the lobby to call a taxi. Fortunately I had the cash in my purse.

If there was ever a date to put on the death certificate for my mother and I’s relationship, it was this one. I was just… not going to talk to this person anymore; at least not until I got some kind of an explanation as to what happened.

So many mixed signals. My head’s spinning. Tommy’s acting suspiciously weird, and dodges my now very direct questions about whether he’s “from the Pleiades”. Susan sends me an obvious “wink and nudge” text at 12:26pm on Friday the 13^th, then has me locked in the psych ward days later. What is happening?!

I reached back out to Persephone, hoping she’d make me feel better. That did not happen.

---

So I go up to Pepe’s office and what do I find out, Mac? WHAT DO I FIND OUT?! There is no Pepe Silvia. The man does not exist, okay?

Somebody, I think the psych doctor after we first talked, took the liberty of filing FMLA paperwork for me without asking; which she didn’t care to un-file. I was greeted with multiple Slack messages about this the next day.

I figured I’d just tell them it was a mix-up and to cancel the paperwork. HR wanted to get me on Zoom anyway for some reason, and it turned out that because an FMLA request had been filed I wasn’t even supposed to be at work until I had a doctor sign some form.

God. Dammit. I fucking hate a lot of people right now.

Serendipitously, I already had a routine doctor’s appointment scheduled the very next day. So, I figured I’d just take this goofy form to Dr. Reid tomorrow, and hopefully she won’t ask a lot of questions about it.

As soon as she heard I’d been in the hospital, she said “hold on, let me look it up”. Ugh…

She kept typing away, failing to find it after a couple of minutes. She asked me to explain what happened. Okay. I kept it as vague as possible. I was accidentally involuntarily committed to the psych ward because my mom’s an asshole, and I just need you to sign this thing so I can go back to work.

Oh, if the cops were involved it’s in a different database. Let me look it up there…

Ugh.

“Found it.”

God. Dammit.

She spent an awkward minute reading whatever was on the screen, before simply asking me to explain what happened in my own words. I eventually had to explain that my mom told the cops “I thought I was an alien”, and that it really was just related to this spiritual awakening thing, and ugh… She said something about how she doesn’t judge her patient’s spiritual inclinations, and eventually signed my thing.

So, how are you doing with your medication?

Uh, well… I haven’t been taking the Concerta; but my HRT seems fine.

That’s fine. So… I want to try taking your spironolactone down to 100mg a day.

Okay, that’s cool. I don’t have bad side effects from it, but the low sodium problems can get annoying.

I know down-regulation is a thing, and you often don’t need as high a dose after a couple of years. It’s pretty common for us to tweak my estrogen dose up and down, but we’d never tried halving my spiro. I was curious to see how I’d do.

---

Unsurprisingly, Vickie wanted to talk to me. I was understandably freaked out that I had taken a very wrong turn. I didn’t know what else to make of my situation.

During that session, we both came to the conclusion that I should sign a release for Vickie to talk to Tommy. I couldn’t get anything out of the guy; but clearly, something’s going on, because he won’t just fucking tell me he isn’t from the Pleiades.

That’s what I kept telling myself. Just say “I’m not from the Pleiades”, you crazy old man. He wouldn’t fucking do it. But, he wouldn’t say he was either. Ugh!

Somehow, I had no trouble getting a straight answer out of him this time.

---

Susan kept texting me. I stopped doing any video calls with her or really interacting with her; though out of sheer concern that she’d continue using the police to harass me with “wellness checks”, I did start sending her a very basic “I’m alive” text once a week so she wouldn’t have a fucking excuse.

The first part of the thread is incredibly vague. She appeared to be apologizing for something she felt immeasurably guilty for; yet, to this day I’m still not sure what that was, exactly.

As much as I hate to say it, if I was talking obvious nonsense, a visit to the psych ward may’ve been in order. For all I know, her actions were perfectly justifiable given what she knew.

The other side of this is, if I’m talking nonsense why won’t someone just fucking tell me? Everyone’s being really sketchy and dodging my questions, like they can’t talk yet, or like I’m not doing the Freemason “Simon says” handshake protocols the right way.

It’s like I’m hitting some kind of a block in all firewall rule with them, and they’re never going to send me a NACK, or an ICMP error, or anything that’ll tell me there’s a problem. It’s like these Freemason people are some kind of black hole; and much like a black hole, I can surmise the existence of something massive yet invisible by observing the chaotic orbits of all of my friends and family as I get closer to whatever it is.

---

During this period of limbo, I showed up to the one-on-one with my boss, with Paul’s Zoom avatar changed to a very “realistic” plastic figure of a shark person. He kept this picture for the stand-up later that day with Josh and I,³ before changing it back. He’s never done this before or since.

I took this to be yet another wink and a nudge about something. I didn’t know if it meant Paul knew what was going on and wanted me to know; or if he was subtly asking me for more information. Shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder, man.

---

Suspense built as I waited a couple of weeks for the meeting between Vickie and Tommy to transpire. I had prepared myself to learn Tommy wasn’t really from the Pleiades. I was expecting to have to go back to the drawing board to sort all of this out.

Somehow, what happened in this session still managed to shock and utterly baffle me.

So, I talked to Tommy…

Oh, good!

Tommy isn’t from Warren, Ohio. He was born in Cary.

He isn’t from the Pleiades. He isn’t a Freemason, and he doesn’t know anything about Freemasonry.

He does want to be part of your life if you do. You need to think about what kind of relationship you’d want to have going forward.

Then, there was the final blow.

She client-patient broke up with me.

She suggested I seek substance abuse counselling, as well as dialectical behavioral therapy; a methodology for helping people with personality disorders and severe trauma regulate their powerful emotions, which Vickie remarked multiple times throughout the last couple of years I needed the opposite of.⁴ She offered to text me a list of resources for that, which I never followed up on.

If Vickie had just said Tommy “wasn’t from the Pleiades”, I would’ve believed her. I would’ve gone back to the drawing board. Just like I planned.

I was not prepared to hear Tommy wasn’t from Warren, Ohio. That’s basic, autobiographical information about the guy. I’ve heard it throughout my life. I had confirmed it several times over the past year. Tommy may not be from the Pleiades, and he may not even be a Freemason; but he’s definitely from Warren, Ohio.

The idea of Tommy being from Cary was particularly unbelievable, because he’s a Methodist preacher. The United Methodist church has an extensive tradition of travelling preachers. This concept has settled down considerably since the circuit preachers of the 19^th century, but it’s still a defining feature of Methodism. The bishop or deacon or whatever he’s called, will just move preachers to a different church every few years, with little to no input from the preachers themselves on where they’re to go next. I had several different preachers growing up; none of which had any ties to Elizabethtown. The idea of a Methodist preacher actually getting to preach in their hometown is… unusual, to say the least.

The suggestion that I pursue dialectical behavioral therapy was equally sketchy. I’d joked lately that I didn’t want any cluster B personality traits, and would go to DBT without question if anybody ever told me I needed that. Under more reasonable circumstances, I would have.

As absolutely crazy as it seemed, I could only reach one logical conclusion from the day’s events.

My therapist… lied to me.

And I thought, “That’s illegal, right? A therapist can’t just… lie to you…”

So I decided aww, shit buddy I gotta did a little deeper, there’s no Pepe Silvia, you gotta be kidding me I got BOXES full of Pepe

This hastened my withdrawal from public life. Stephanie was still supportive, but I could already tell I was starting to lose her. With this latest development… I just couldn’t tell anyone I didn’t believe my therapist. Nobody’s ever going to believe me.

But… I know there’s something to this. Everyone’s just acting so sketchy. The things that have happened to me seem highly improbable. I can’t just… forget about all this and check myself into rehab…

Actually, I could have if Vickie said “Tommy is from Warren, but not a Freemason or a reincarnated space alien, and I’ll see you next week!” The circumstances were just too sketchy for me to brush off. Particularly with the DBT suggestion, it seemed like she was trying to give me intentionally bad advice; as if she had been coerced into no longer providing me counselling, and couldn’t communicate that directly.

I mean, if you had a patient in as delicate a situation as I was, it kinda seems like breaking off a client-patient relationship like that is the last thing you’d want to do. It’s almost like she was asking me to stop seeking mental health treatment.

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads (Q3)

I feel a little silly, telling you that July might’ve been the first month I actually had visions in my head about an actual spaceship; and, that I’d get to use one, apparently.

#TODOI’m not sure I’ve mentioned this yet; but the writing convention for this section is that I’ll try to talk about what was in my head then as opposed to now. I don’t actually believe any of this at the time of writing.

Reincarnated space aliens. UFO kids. Whatever you call us. We get access to advanced craft, for health and leisure.

People like me should be having regular alien “doctor’s appointments”. We start to lose mental cohesion after some number of years of not getting fixed up. Young children who are different get “abducted” for their appointments. Adults, summon the craft and walk in of their own free will. After they’ve been vetted, that is.

Why haven’t I been vetted yet? What’s wrong? Oh, right. Friday the 13^th. Fuck.

I guess the reincarnation of that dude isn’t getting off so easy.

The idea in my head at this point was that with practice, you could see the spaceship before it materialized into physical space. You’d go somewhere very private, wait until you can see it with your “third eye” or whatever, and give the signal when you’re ready for it to land. The TV-static ghost-like outline of a flying saucer would give way to an incredibly bright flash of white light; which would last several seconds, until the ship was done shifting into three-dimensional space.

Generally speaking, there were two types of visits one might schedule: overnight doctor’s appointments, and spacetime travel. An overnight user of the spaceport would essentially occupy the entire landing area from midnight to dawn, as the ship needs to shift in and out of physical space repeatedly and in the same place as part of their work. Travelers would only need a few minutes; as their future self would be able to land just after they took off, or even before. As much as I struggled to suspend my disbelief, it apparently was somehow possible to time travel “science fiction” or “causality reversal-style”, and to have a conversation with a past or future version of you. As such, an overnight user needed to let any travelers who scheduled the space take off and land first before they went in for their night’s sleep.

It was really unusual and disorienting, having all these oddly specific things flooding into my brain; mundane details mixed with spectacular, otherworldly things.

I started remembering things about my homeworld. I had been the president there once, and people really liked me. Most all of my incarnations made it back eventually. I had a second home there that felt like a townhouse for giants; my natural species was about a foot taller than the average human.

There’s a lot I could say about everything I remembered and envisioned during this time; but the reality is, it doesn’t matter, because it’s all bullshit. I started writing about it, but it was incredibly tedious. Maybe it should go in an appendix or something eventually. #TODOPut it in a details tag or something

---

Josh tried engaging me, while continuing on with his very adult life things. He was busy planning his wedding with Caroline; who he was really eager for me to meet. I figure that might still happen someday.

---

I’d been convinced for months that something big was going to happen with this Red Hot Chili Peppers concert that was on my birthday. I took time off work around my birthday, and didn’t really know what to do with myself when inevitably nothing spectacular happened.

Having not really been able to perform my duties for some time now and seeing little recourse, I sent a message to HR basically saying I was dealing with problems that didn’t exist according to the United States government or mainstream science; and that I was basically stuck because the Freemasons won’t talk to me, presumably because I’m the reincarnation of the Roman senator who caused Friday the 13^th. When I got a, somewhat understandably snarky message from HR saying I was expected to return to work, I sent a reply stating that I quit effective immediately.

So; I quit my job because I was to the point that I couldn’t really work, or even live a normal life anymore. I’d been paranoid for a while about people being able to see in the window in the front door, and decided to put a curtain over it.

About two days after I sent the email, and about a half hour after I finished putting up the curtain, there was a hard knock on the door.

(knock knock knock)
DURHAM POLICE DEPARTMENT
(knock knock knock)

God. Dammit.

I was not about to open the door this time. I actually decided to take a shower. After a few minutes, they started repeating my name over and over; like they were looking for a stray kitten.

Rachael?

Rachael?

They eventually left, and I started getting calls from the police department. They were simply responding to a wellness check, and were satisfied with the explanations I gave over the phone; though the woman talked to me like I was a nine-year-old.

So we heard you quit your jawwwwwb…

Look, I’m just going through some life changes right now…

I tried to feel out if it was my mother or people from work who did it. I couldn’t really get anything out of the woman on the other end of the line.

Today, my assumption is that Paul or someone from work called it in. At the time, I was convinced it was Susan. The timing seemed far too suspicious. Like, I spent more time than I expected getting the rod up there, I adjusted it a couple of times to my liking, and then I went upstairs to have a smoke. And… then the cops showed up. Coincidence? Probably; at least this time.

This fed into another fear or “realization” I developed, based on these weird messages in my head: Susan thinks I’m retarded.

Yep. It was true! It explains so much! You know how she’s always infantilizing me? She still does her little baby talk thing a little too much? She kinda treats me like a fucking nine-year-old sometimes?

Oh. She thinks I’m retarded. Right.

We were asked to paint a landscape in kindergarten, and mine was not particularly good. Later in life, I learned the reason I’m bad at art is probably that I have aphantasia. Susan, on the other hand, kept displaying the painting longer than she should have, using it as evidence of my “special needs” when convenient. Her goal seemed to be to keep me off the short bus, while also keeping her retard adult child on a leash as (s)he played engineer in the city like a big grownup…

I remember when I was in first or second grade, she was convinced I needed extra help with math. It’s always been my weakest subject, but I don’t remember getting particularly bad grades in math at that age. It’s just my worst subject is all. She drilled me after school with flash cards and worksheets and shit, and I hated it. I don’t feel like it helped me much in the long term; but who knows.

I think it’s bullshit now; but I thought I remembered there being a test she was afraid to have me take, because she was convinced I would fail and be put in “special classes”. A message in my head told me that there were two kids at Bladen Lakes whose parents wouldn’t take them to get the WISC; mine and Shawn Breck’s. Lacking standardized test scores to know where to place us otherwise, they administered the AIG test to the two of us in-school.

I placed into AIG at “level 2” in second grade, as I recall.

I remember as us AIG kids grew older and were nearing the sixth grade, most of us were retaking the AIG test; as you needed level 3 or 4 to get into Clarkton. I remember telling my mom a couple times that I think I needed to retake the AIG test for Clarkton like the other kids; and she assured me I didn’t need to.

Then, I remember orientation at Clarkton. I was going around on the tour, but… there was some unexpected “clerical error”. My name wasn’t on the AIG list. My mother went to the office, and suddenly my name was there.

In my state of paranoia, I couldn’t help but assume the worst about what Susan did back then. Did I not even get into Clarkton on my own merits? Fuck. Susan.

I could hear her justifying her actions in her mind. “I just wanted to give you everything”… “You didn’t have a chance at life otherwise”… “I did what any mother would’ve done”…

Anyway; the curtain. I was convinced the reason the cops came so quickly after I put it up, was that Susan was actually collecting video evidence to use in court so that she could re-gain custody of me. Or get the Britney Spears conservatorship on me or some shit. Assisting her was a dirty lawyer she managed to procure pro bono after crying about how her “special needs child was out of control!”; the lawyer thought she might be able to win, and line her pockets with my engineer money even if Susan was broke.

Fuck. Susan.

I was utterly convinced even more weird bullshit was about to happen to me. I took a dress to get dry-cleaned, and bought some new boots at DSW in preparation for my surely-impending day in court that this dirty lawyer was going to spring on me at the last moment.

Tommy reached out to me as I moved the goalpost around; but a meeting never transpired.

Monkey wrench (Q4)

In early fall, a message came to me that was somehow even more disturbing than everything that’d happened before. I haven’t really mentioned it up to this point; but the messages in my head had long since taken the form of some vague, Morpheus-like person guiding me through whatever process-of-a-lifetime I was going through.

There are charges pending against you.

Charges? For what?

Murder.

Murder? That’s a joke, right?

The problem involved time travel to the past; something that was somehow possible with the level of access I (or my future self) had. The murderer is/was actually my future self; an individual known to the state of California to be armed, dangerous, and pissed off. What happened?

Well you see… My future self went on to have a relationship with fellow UFO kid Anthony Kiedis; who’d be more like a “UFO daddy” if we maintained the present age gap. Except, we didn’t. At least not all the time.

I traveled back in time to the early 90s to be Anthony Kiedis’ secret wife; we would actually be about the same age at the beginning of our relationship. I started to feel a little silly for thinking otherwise.

The deal with time travel was, you could get away with about ten years of age slippage before people really start to notice and ask questions. So, I had ten years to spend in the 90s before I was destined to become the president and get assassinated; at which point, I’d have subsequent lifetimes which I’d be able to remember through the correct process. I was starting to feel a bit immortal.

The state of California knew the truth about UFOs, and had a program for folks visiting like me where we could get ID and even have a job; essentially an extension of the witness protection program. We needed to pick a name for myself in this timeline, and in a spur of the moment went with the clerk’s suggestion of Dani. It wasn’t until later that we realized I was “Dani the tranny” and “Retard Rachael”.

Burnt out and frustrated that I could never quite make it as an engineer, I vowed to relegate computers and electronics to hobby status, while devoting my professional career to photography. I enjoyed the last years of film, setting up a dark room in a spare corner of our house.

We decided to start time travelling our future human incarnations to come hang out with us in Malibu. In the spirit of my new career in film, we produced in our home a Wayne’s World-like series called “Time Travel Time”; for which I was also the host. I had visions of having to drive a couple of hours out into the desert to land the ships. It felt so real at the time.

My next incarnation was a woman named Megan Murphy. She had a better childhood situation with no legal or administrative hold-ups, and was able to learn what she was at the age of 12.

Megan was pretty different from me, and was destined to become a musician and an artist at a young age. What a ride.

So, me and my adolescent future self are hanging out with my new boyfriend or quasi-husband Anthony Kiedis in LA. This is fine.

Somehow we became close friends with Dave Grohl. Anyway; one thing led to another, and my future self began having underage relations with Anthony Kiedis and Dave Grohl.

When this came to me, my first thought was “That can’t be right. Dave Grohl lives in Alexandria, VA or some shit.”

I checked Wikipedia, and it turns out he did live in LA for a few years in the mid-to-late 90s; right as all this was ostensibly happening. And he’s still from Warren, Ohio.

Shit, dude.

So, my future self is having safe sane and consensual, albeit underage relations with 90s rock stars, that occasionally involves elements of BDSM. This is fine. Right?

Or rather, was having relations. This is ancient history to everyone involved except for me. They know who I’ll grow up to become. I’ve been surrounded ever since I was eight.

So eventually, some nosy neighbors grew worried because they wanted to know what this adolescent girl was doing hanging out with rock stars. Folks were concerned for her safety.

This is when the cops got involved and raided our house. After they found sex toys with Megan juice on them, they basically said “somebody’s going to jail”. I took the fall for Dave and Tony; hoping to explain in court that she was really just my future self. Are they going to convict me of raping myself?

Despite having allies who understood, we had a really hard time getting the court and law enforcement to take us seriously. After we tried to demystify what being a UFO kid really meant, many of them only grew more distrustful; crafting their own theories about how we were really running an intergalactic child sex trafficking ring, and might be able to brainwash and alter memories.

We brought Megan’s future adult self with us to testify; but, her testimony was ruled inadmissible because she was the alleged victim.

Leading up to this, “Dani” had been filming a sort of underground documentary about this whole process; for which she was already prepared, being older than I am now. We wanted to show how we talked to Megan’s future self first and consulted different Megans from different timelines, before following through on something that was unconventional, but ultimately harmless or even beneficial to Megan.

After fighting a long legal battle up a really steep hill, the tide finally started to turn in our favor. We had some luck arguing that Megan and I were the same person; and thus, anything sexual between the two of us is tantamount to masturbation.

Of course, I wasn’t really fucking my future self at all. I was only taking the fall for Dave and Tony; while keeping in mind that I would someday become Megan and enjoy myself; having the opposite of the sexually-repressive experience I had in my youth this lifetime.

After being acquitted of the charge of statutory rape, things only briefly looked better, until somehow the law caught wind of the, uh… “BDSM” element. This sparked a whole new round of debates. Sure, you can fuck yourself; but where do you draw the line?

The judge was particularly disturbed that Megan got tied up for fun; and wasn’t having any of it. It was ruled that in the state of California, it is legal to fuck yourself, but it is not legal to tie yourself up.

I was convicted on assault charges, and sentenced to 18 months of house arrest.⁵

While all this was going on, there was this dirty cop who liked to fuck with the pedophiles. He abducted me a handful of times along with Dave Grohl, to do shit like shaving part of my head or raping me with a clothes hanger.

Law enforcement was highly suspicious of my various lifestyle and career choices. I was into photography and had my own dark room, and had found a workaday job as a photographer when I wasn’t touring with Anthony Kiedis. I was hired to do all sorts of work; though I was often taking portraits of children. We had a PRI circuit which I ran the area’s first dial-up ISP off of, and I had some Sun servers and an SGI workstation I used for the ISP and for Rachael stuff; no, not child porn. They didn’t believe that, though. Oh yeah, and then there was all the shit we had for producing Time Travel Time. They were convinced it was all a cover for producing elaborate child pornography, despite their failed attempts to actually find anything of that nature. They really assumed the worst of me.

I was prohibited from continuing to produce Time Travel Time; though I continued to do so clandestinely, covering such topics as music and pop culture.

During my house arrest, a child was abducted by a woman vaguely matching my description; and they were certain I did it. I had one of the first ankle bracelets, but they thought I was using alien technology to defeat the mechanism and leave the house. There were demands that I decrypt the storage containing my documentary; something they had begrudgingly given up on after pushing for it at the beginning of my incarceration. The dirty cop abducted me and hit me in the head with a cinder block in an attempt to get me to reveal the password; however, I was knocked unconscious for a few hours, and when I woke up he was merely relieved he wasn’t on the hook for murder.

Anyway; I made it through roughly a year and a half of house arrest. Other than being a registered sex offender in 90s California, it would seem I’ve done my time.

The registry simply listed my crime as having “tied up a child”; something angry women would often come to my house and yell at me for. I made VHS tapes to explain what happened with Megan, and why it wasn’t as bad as the courts made it sound.

I generally made myself scarce around Malibu after this happened, though I still maintained a residence there. We’d often go on long trips out of state or in the wilderness, illegally summoning Megan’s spaceship once we were out of view.

As a registered sex offender, there were certain shits you had to put up with. And no, I never looked up to see if any of these things were true in 90s California, but they probably weren’t.

The cops could come and search our house any time without notice, basically as if they had a standing warrant to do so. If we didn’t open the door, they’d just beat it down most of the time; we returned at least once or twice to there simply being no front door on the house because the cops decided to show up and make sure we weren’t raping anyone.

After some amount of this injustice, I finally just snapped. And I became…

Dani California: Modern-day outlaw

I sent letters to all levels of government, declaring my personal sovereignty. I’m a multi-lifetime intergalactic world leader, goddammit! I’ll have no more of this violent, insulting nonsense from you animals and your banana republic of a planet!

Nobody took the letters seriously; which I expected. I armed myself with an assault rifle and sidearm, which visitors would invariably see the barrel of sooner rather than later. When the cops kept coming to our house because of their sex offender policy, they’d be greeted with my rifle in an increasingly tense series of encounters. These encounters with law enforcement were usually met with retribution from Dani’s army of past and future selves; eventually resulting in Dani burning down the Malibu police station with Molotov cocktails. No, I wasn’t able to fact-check this. By this point, if I couldn’t find anything online about the Malibu police station burning down in the 90s, I’d have just assumed there was a cover-up.

It was now that Dani had become a killer. She’d had enough; she wouldn’t seek out cops, but would kill any of them who got in her way. She ended up killing a few cops in the nineties.

Dani was eventually classified as “unapprehendable” by the California authorities, which led to my case being turned over to the FBI. I was secretly considered part of their most-wanted list. And, I was just a wee little kid living in Elizabethtown, NC; when I’m not back in the 90s causing terror, that is.

Alright, so I start marching my way down to Carol in HR and I knock on her door and I say CAROL (knock knock knock) CAAAAROOOLLL I gotta talk to you about Pepe

I tried getting hold of Tommy again; but he never returned my text. I took that as a sign the Freemasons couldn’t help me anymore.

I’m telling you, this was, like, the scariest time period of my life. It was like that trope from the old west, where the clock strikes noon and the shutters on the saloon close and suddenly the town falls silent, and there’s no one around to help you.

---

The legal precedent that one couldn’t “tie themselves up” in California had ramifications in the greater BDSM community; resulting in a self-bondage workshop at a con getting raided by police. This led to the NCSF taking on my case in order to overturn the ruling. Because of this work, by the mid 2000s self bondage was legal in California, and my conviction for “tying up my future self” had been overturned; all before I graduated from middle school.

Of course, I was still on the hook for murder.

My case prompted a whole discussion about convicting people of crimes they haven’t yet committed. Many in government were uneasy about my future self’s proclamation of independence combined with my access to advanced technology, and they considered me a national security risk. The FBI was content with taking California’s word that I was some crazy tranny who was probably running a child sex trafficking ring they never could manage to bust.

---

After building up the courage, I tried walking into a masonic lodge and telling them I wanted to talk about “visions and past life memories” I’d been having. I left after being told they were “really just a fraternal organization” or something to that effect; and sheepishly responding “I don’t believe you”, in an attempt to invoke the thing I remember Heather and her friend teaching me all those years ago.

I think it was around late November when the message appeared in my head

They want to send you to Gitmo.

Over the following days and weeks, it was revealed that because of Dani’s proclamation of sovereignty in the 90s, the courts ruled I was technically not a US citizen. A lot of soldier boys are real spooked out about a crazy sovereign citizen tranny pedophile with a flying saucer on the loose, and they have to be sure.

Which brings us here: the head or tail of this temporal ouroboros, depending on how you look at it. I appeared to be locked into a sort of fate, where certain things were bound to occur. Part of it appeared to be karma for Friday the 13^th, and part of it appeared to be that I didn’t want to change my past timeline. It was as if my intentions had arrived at this steady state; where a bunch of really bad stuff was bound to happen to me, and yet I wouldn’t have it any other way in the end. The timeline would simply be different otherwise. It was as if the universe found the worst possible fate that I apparently still wouldn’t change with access to a time machine.

The debacle appeared to reveal something fascinating about the universe, if not also a bit terrifying; if you want to understand how to change the timeline, you have to understand intent. Once you give somebody free rein over a craft that can travel backwards through time, the problem is really obvious; whatever past our timeline is based on is ultimately derived from the mere intentions of everyone who possesses such a craft. On one hand, it’s just an exchange of property. On the other hand, it’s like a sort of “magical artifact” that grants the immediate wishes of the bearer. As long as one maintains the intent for something to happen in the past and ultimately follows through, it can be considered “good as done”.

You might be thinking, wouldn’t all intents modify the timeline? And the answer is, of course they do! Everyone has intentions, and they affect the forward and/or backward timeline as soon as you intend to follow through with them. We’re always in a sort of negative feedback loop, looking at our past and present and formulating new intents based on our present state.

This was apparently the true nature of spacetime; we experience it linearly, but affect it non-linearly and seemingly in real time through our intents. Far out!

I was bolstered by the strong feeling this was something some of these mysterious UFO folks I’ve encountered throughout my life tried to explain in a roundabout way, without really saying the thing. It particularly reminded me of the talk I had with Persephone in 2019, when she tried to explain the power of thoughts and intentions. I didn’t really get it at the time.

---

As the year went on, there was something unrelated to UFOs that had grabbed my attention in the meantime: this lower dose of spironolactone wasn’t cutting it. I’d been avoiding the doctor ever since I needed her to sign that thing. I missed an appointment and never rescheduled; but she was still refilling my meds, so I wasn’t immediately concerned. I had… bigger things going on with me.

It was a bit silly in retrospect. What was she going to do? Send me back to the looney bin?

I didn’t really need to make a mental note to bring it up with my doctor after several months on the new dose. It was gradual, but I could tell my body hair was getting thicker, and I had grease on the bridge of my nose again.

---

I drifted away from Stephanie late into the year. I remember her inviting me to a Thanksgiving thing with her family, and I was just not up for it.

After having quit my job, Josh was getting really anxious to know what was going on with me. He was starting to have trouble finding Pepe’s office himself.

At the same time, Josh’s mom was messaging me.

---

A little after Thanksgiving, another message popped into my head.

You still have sideburns.

This is something I’d actually been paranoid about since before COVID. I was never entirely convinced my stylist and electrologist collectively found the boundary between my sidehair and sideburns. I brought this up a couple of times; but neither of them seemed concerned or suggested anything.

Shit. I have sideburns; and Susan’s dirty little lawyer friend is eating it all up.

Something had felt wrong for a while. Like, I have this weird, different hair that won’t tuck behind my ears right. It feels kinda course and curly, and I don’t think it’s the same thing as women’s side hair.

Ick!

After carefully weighing my options, I decided I just needed to go on a mission to clean up my sideburns. I started to think I may’ve fucked up when at some point in my transition I kinda just stopped shaving my sideburns. And, that wasn’t really coordinated with Lawrence or Shannon.

The troops went in to tame the wilderness, and I definitely went up too high the first time. With that being said, I do think I had a bit of an overgrown sideburn problem, despite my otherwise addled and confused state of mind during this period. But again; this was an insecurity I had for a while before UFOs became part of my life.

I started taking biotin and wearing a hoodie while my side hair filled in, whenever I wasn’t awkwardly pulling it over my ears or something. I grew obsessed with the phenomenon of side-hair; and the fact that humans seem to have wildly different amounts of it, either by choice or by nature. Some people’s stops just above the ear. A lot of women do have fuzz down to around mid-ear; but it’s light fuzz, not course, gnarly beard hair.

I looked at trans reddit to see what other folks in my situation do, and it’s also pretty varied. One girl got laser all the way to the top of her ear, and I thought it looked pretty good. Some folks managed to grow out some lower hair and make it work; but I really don’t think I have the facial hair type to blend it in without looking gross.

I don’t like beard hair. It’s rough, course and irritating… and it gets everywhere. Not like girl hair. Girl hair is everything soft and… and smooth…