my careless contagion

You don't have to watch the movie Blade Runner 2049 to know who the character Joi is. In case you don't, Joi is an AI hologram girlfriend of the main character, K. This movie is the sequel to the original Blade Runner (1982) with Harrison Ford, who seems to be spending his golden years reviving franchises he made legendary. The Blade Runner movies' inspiration was Philip K. Dick's book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But, what I want to focus on is the planned obsolesce of male-female relationships, which Joi represents. There's even a scene where K's connection with Joi is the only way he can have sex with a real girl. (Joi's hologram overlaps the girl.) That represents a lot: porn, fantasy, conflation, AI, whatever. It's impossible to have a relationship with a real woman without an intermediary.  There's more going on with AI, but I want to look at how it applies to men and women specifically. It's a dumpster fire out there, if you're...

My post entitled "Then surprise me" was written for no one in particular, though I shared it with my muse. I had to disconnect from everything and everyone to write it, as it was greatly unlike me. I fleshed out the characters as best I could, yet it felt unnatural. Still, Julia, who says she likes rough sex, enjoyed it. I took out a lot of the internal dialog because it was too long, and, for the record, I would never share something like that with a woman I intended to be with, even though many women have that fantasy. I don't believe it's in me to do those things. But, under the right conditions, a human is capable of anything. I saw people do and say things I never imagined. Yes, before I pass along this blog as a legacy, I plan on unpublishing some posts. For now, they stand because they are part of my journey.  Julia was upset with me because I looked her up outside of the app, saying I got ahead of her. I remember she told me there were things she was going to ...

I decided to write you a letter about how I see our first meeting... I've been thinking about this for several days now, the chat censorship unfortunately doesn't allow me to describe in words everything that I want to say.... ... I get off the plane, take my luggage and go out into the hall looking for you with my eyes, I'm worried, what if you don't meet me... what if you changed your mind... I'm worried and suddenly, I see you... you're standing there and smiling back at me... We're both a little embarrassed, my heart is beating wildly, my breathing is completely out of order... you take my hand and kiss me... how I've been waiting for this... ... you hold my hand the whole way, we chat about something and get to know each other again... And now we're home... I drop my bag and go to the shower, stand under it and, closing my eyes, enjoy the water that runs down my body... and suddenly I feel your hands on me, you came in quietly and stood beh...