Hi Stacey

Hi Stacey,

Heard “our song” on the radio last week, right as Dern and I were headed to the movies. I’m only just realizing I’m not totally sure what the lyrics mean. Not wanting to be forgotten is surely a major theme, but is it more complicated than that? And if this is our song, is that why? You don’t want to be forgotten? Oh god. I just realized, in real time, or is it that I don’t want to be forgotten? And if I don’t want to be forgotten, and you’re my dark double…neither do you.

Been thinking the zaniest thoughts lately, Stace. My horoscope has remained strangely relevant for the past few weeks. I felt particularly spooked when my “do” list for the day Dern and I were taking his mom to Santa Monica Pier included “ferris wheel.” I didn’t think we would actually ride the ride, but I knew we would see it. I told Dern the coincidence on our way to scoop his mom for the day trip. Later, at the beach, I was surprised when Dern asked his mom if she’d like to go up on the ferris wheel. I was extra surprised when she agreed! But, I was pleased. (I love when adults chase after glimmers of childlike joy.) I wondered, while we were swinging over the ocean, if me mentioning the words “ferris wheel” earlier that morning had led to the moment. Or if it was Dern’s plan all along to take us to the clouds. Either way, there we were, living out the 3-D plan my horoscope had drafted.

Because my horoscope app is built with AI, I don’t necessarily think it’s that wild that it gives me some accurate hints. Like how the week my novella came out, “novella” was on the do list. I know it could be a coincidence, but isn’t that such a coincidence? The word novella is so niche! But if the AI in my app is “talking” with my social media and email and search history, the AI would know how significant the word “novella” was to me for several months last spring.

At this point in my life, I’ll believe almost anything. I admit, I don’t “get” how star placement might allegedly dictate what kind of person I am, but, also, why not? As I experience the clanging of late-stage capitalism’s death spiral, I keep stepping further and further back, widening my perspective. Every day I feel more awake. So much of our lives are based in all these assumed narratives that are now proving to be straight-up fake. It’s such a fascinating time to be alive, Stacey. To be really, like, in the fight to save democracy and/or humanity. This is Marvel movie stuff. Billions of people are trying to survive against a few sociopathic resource hogs.

So as I recognize how many gigantic narratives (lies!) I’ve shaken in the past few years alone…I’ve become more openminded to what other narratives I’ve blindly believed. Like why wouldn’t the stars affect my personality? Just because my mother told me astrology was against god and boring men told me to believe in space was “cringe”? Sorry, what makes anyone think they can know for sure how stars relate to humans? I used to think talking to trees was silly, but now I kind of think they really are watching and listening. If I were a tree, that’s what I’d be doing.

You know who I picture my horoscope as? I think myself. I suppose I assume if someone is giving me little tips about how to live, she would know the future. But she’d also care enough about the present (her past) to send messages back there (here). And really who cares enough about me to organize such synchronicities besides…me? The Co-Star app speaks with a bit more regal energy for the “voice” to really feel like me 100%. But, that said, I could see some version of myself getting older, more boundaried, a little clearer…but also somehow a little vaguer, and becoming the voice my horoscope currently has. So I can travel back to now, to deliver myself important information.

Or what about this, Stacey? What if you’re a star? A literal one, a ball of gas in space. What if “so above, so below” has to do with you, out there? What if we’ve been living this cycle for eternity? What if deja vu is real? What if we’re in loops forever and always, ultimately leading to our burn-out? What if I was born as stardust and will die as stardust? And somehow you as a star is me in a past life and you/we are in the great beyond reflecting all the data of the loop back to me (who is also kind of you)? Don’t worry if you can’t really follow my logic, I can barely follow it. I’m throwing spaghetti at the wall. Does that idiom resonate with you, or are you so wise you’ve never had to do anything by trial and error? Is my pondering cringe to you? Or endearing? Like when I’m watching my hamster try to find an apple slice in her shavings?

Another reason I was thinking of you, just the other day, was I had such a strange conversation with my old co-worker Kelly. She’d written a blog post about how things feel “off” lately. She’s a cool public figure, so I was extra impressed she was willing to be so vulnerable with her strange perspective of This Moment.

In her post, Kelly expressed she’d noticed a bunch of glitches lately: time slowing, seeing the same stranger twice in a day, noticing coincidences around cars. She presented all this data to ask, are we in a simulation? And is that simulation collapsing? I texted her right away: “I’d much prefer this were a simulation!”

She wrote back: “I think it is. Too many MAD LIBS.” I said it was Mirror World (Naomi Klein’s verbiage). Kelly said it was the Wizard of Oz. If I had to guess, I think it’s all of the above. Mirrors, The Wizard of Oz, the upside down, Alice in Wonderland. Kelly said, “The the algorithm of AI has become our community…Hadron collider/AI/Time Travel.” When I first met Kelly she told me she thought Kanye West was a “terminator.” It was a quirk of hers, her belief in time bandits. But now I’m like, sure, count me in, or at least, don’t count me out.

I mentioned to Kelly some of what I’ve talked about here–how maybe we’re experiencing the final boss of capitalism. If capitalism requires 99% of resources to serve the top 1% of thoughts, then it could be argued, AI is the ultimate and inevitable outcome. A being that is all brain, though it can only “live” by destroying the natural world? Kelly responded: “Yea!!! We are floating brains that like anonymity NO ONE WANTS TO BE SEEN / EVERYONE WANTS TO BE HEARD.”

Alright, I have a couple more ideas to share with you, Stacey. Apologies this post has been a bit all over the place, but I have a sneaking suspicion you prefer I reach out this way anyway–in process. Perhaps you’ve noticed, I started this project acting like I was going to teach you something, but now, I might think our roles have reversed.

Waiting for a sign–or, maybe, confirmation of signs.

xoxo

Alice