Having my way with Ulysses

the smoothest place is right there between this bit here

There was a story about this traveling salesman whose left wrist began to hurt him, just under his wrist watch. When he removed his watch, blood spurted out. The wound showed the imprints of very tiny teeth.

the way Vern plots and plans everything out gives me the fidgets particularly now at the end of the world and i suppose she thinks im finished out and laid on the shelf well im not no nor anything like it and the temporals can kiss my tessellated ass because this is my house delete it all im spread all over the internet on show well see well see now that were near the parting well Vern will leave me here at the end of a cycle and the start of a new one damn it damn it and go write her rune poem and the temporals story and the holy mother public relations employee handbook and squaring the circle and saints lives and instruction manuals and whatever other confusion she vomits out i hope she’ll get someone to dance attendance on her the way I did because she darent order me about the place O Vern im letting myself up out of this you have me that exasperated

That is not more to stand.

And death is there in the background, we must run to arrive beforehand and understand it's already unimportant.

3:05 am

Instructions on how to kill yourself:

First, you must find a reason not to live. There exists uncountable reasons but you must choose at least one and try to make it as ineffable as possible so the people you leave behind may feel suitably at a loss for words when they find you. An added benefit: it will be easier for the people who attend your wake, interment, scattering of the ashes, memorial service, or what have you, to speak in hushed and reverent tones if they find themselves capable of speaking at all. Amongst the reasons not to live you might choose: you are suffering from progressive melancholia; by ceasing to exist you will bring your existence to the attention of the person who barely knows you exist, though you maintain a unique awareness of said person’s existence; pondering the great nothingness of everythingness has inverted your thoughts into a perpetual retrospective arrangement.

Once you have found your reason not to live, you must reduce said reason by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune. Take it all down to one point: a singularity which contains everything.

Compose a note to be found suitably near your corpse, but not in a place where it might slip beyond a finder’s field of vision. Clutched in the hand makes for great cinema and literature, but rarely works in real death. Include in your epistle a précis of your reason not to live. Ask somebody to be kind to your surviving pets.

Leave something in a book, marking a particularly resonant passage or one which will send the finder harkening back in a retrospective arrangement upon discovery. Possibilities may include leaving something in a book at a symbolic page number. One might even leave something in a book which will send the finder to something left in another book which will send the finder to more books always to the last term of the preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, originating in and repeated to infinity. Possible items to leave in books: puzzle pieces, scraps of a shirt, pages of other books. Possible symbolic number: 1132.

Select the method of suicide according to your own levels of drama, squeamishness, accessible materials, pain tolerance, or desire to leave a nice looking corpse. There is no need to be elaborate, if you are already poisoning yourself slowly with something: increase the dose; if you tend toward recklessness perhaps walk closer to the cliff edge until 32 feet per second per second takes care of the matter for you; have the light at the end of your tunnel be an oncoming train, or if your perambulations bring you near an oncoming Jagannath: toss yourself into his path. You’ll receive an added bonus for that last one.

If you have items locked away, say in a drawer, leave a key handy or better still, unlock the drawer before your demise so the living won’t have to destroy the furniture to access its contents. It’s just common courtesy.  Now go.

Why solitary (ipsorelative)?

To dissect lions / You need lightning / For little owls you need / Forget- / fulness.
2:37 am

Instructions on how to organize the books in my office:

Not chronological, (not alphabetical!), definitely not autobiographical, no fucking way. Friends once bought me a book because they didn’t see it on my time shelf. I don’t have a time shelf. The whole damn thing is a time shelf. Let’s try ipsorelatively categorical. Limiting factors of library reorganization: largest bookcase is a set piece constructed at a scale of approximately 5:4 and designed to look imposing on stage, yet impractical for holding books designed at a ratio of 1:1; improbability of small office capacity being equal to desired portion of entire library, necessitating a library within and a library without; impossibility of knowing in the present which books will be required in the future. Also, library without must be allowed fluid motion, free transference, and ease of flux amongst volumes of library within as if library within were homothetic to library without. Position of two chairs (one: a squat stuffed easychair, no legs; the other: a retrofuture upholstered office chair) and solitary desk must remain unmoved. Now go.

To substitute other more acceptable phenomena in the place of the less acceptable phenomena to be removed.

In order to cry, steer the imagination toward yourself, and if this proves impossible owing to having contracted the habit of believing in the exterior world, think of a duck covered with ants or of those gulfs in the Straits of Magellan into which no one sails ever.2:25 am

A father is a necessary evil, though it’s damn hard to feel necessity for something that might easily be nothing. How would I know anything? Coming into this mess: I’m a baby. I have no need of memory.  What do I want with a memory until I have some shot at using it for my own interests? I sure as hell knew who Momma was, but him? Was he even there? And me? I’m a newborn. I’m busy proceeding energetically from the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void. I’m dealing with the painful character of the ultimate functions of separate existence. Take any other baby born on the day of my birth, take them all: he could have been all their daddies. I can see why the immaculate conception sold so well. I’ll buy one of those and I’ll take a little apostolic succession on the side.  But these recurrent frustrations, just when I can see a critical turning point just there, just there, then down we tumble faster than 32 feet per second per second. It’s a battle against hopelessness carrying on like this. He’s my only begetter; I am his only begotten, but disarmed of fatherhood what is he? Who is he to me? All babies have fathers. Some fathers are not fathers. Therefore, some babies have not fathers. Take the imposition of natural law out of the picture and what, does that make life infinitely perfectible? Upward to some great goal. Suppose I am a father. Am I a father? If I were? A father is an unnecessary evil.

Queen’s Hotel, Queen’s Hotel, Queen’s Hotel. Queen’s Ho . . .

As the scribes will persist, the few readers there are in the world are going to have to change their roles and become scribes themselves.2:14 am

He took me to the most beautiful hotel in the city. Historic. Stunning suite. Honeymoon suite: one king sized bed. I had put him off for a long time, knowing he was wife hunting. He was twice my age: I was no wife. I will be no wife. I can’t even call myself anybody’s girlfriend.  I’m focusing on something else, I’d say. You can sleep with me but that’s it kind of thing. I know what I want (I don’t know) and I know who I want (yes, I know). Who I want hasn’t happened and doesn’t look likely. What I want (the want I know I want in addition to the who I want) is experience. I want an interesting life. That’s what I want above all else so yes I said yes I will, yes. I’ll fly there. Fly me there. I’ll fly there and spend the weekend with you I said, but I’m not having sex with you. We’re not having sex. I told him straight up. I want my own room. I know I am easy but I am no whore. Of course, he said. He said of course. What of course? Of course. I let it slide. Get the ticket and I’m not missing any work. We’ll have fun, he said. I’ll take you here, I’ll show you this, we’ll do that. It will be like a normal first date and no sex. Who says a normal first date means no sex? With the one I want we would have sex and no date, so don’t give me normal first date. Don’t give me normal I don’t say. I go. I’m spotted in the airport by a co-worker. I lie. Going to see a friend in that direction. But this airline only goes this direction, he says. Why would I lie. I get there. Flowers and a limousine at the airport. We dine out awkward with flowers, my backpack in the limo. He says his mother will love me. He says he can’t wait to introduce me to his mother. His mother is the best woman imaginable and I am just like her. Is she trapped too? I’m trapped. I understand now I am trapped. What a stupid idea. How in the fuck am I getting out of this. I’ve always wanted a wedding barefoot on a beach he says. I am not shitting you this is what he says. Holy fuck. I don’t know what kind of wedding I want. I don’t want a wedding. I don’t know this guy. The guy I know works for the company. I talk to him on the phone every day. At work I talk to him on the phone. Half a minute have a good one nice day. He is thought generally to be a great guy. He is a great guy. Who the hell knew he’d be this too. I eat. I think. He hangs out with twenty year old guys when he comes to town. He surfs he says. He bikes. He’s training for something. His friends his age have kids he says. I have a negative bank account. He has my return ticket. We eat. We go to the hotel. Beautiful hotel. We go to the hotel. My backpack gets taken up. We get taken up. I’m wearing work clothes: casual business casual, plane stained. The elevator people are smartly dressed, looking at the man and the half his age whore heading for the honeymoon suite with a backpack. There’s a whore in the elevator with us they think. And here we are. One bed. No other room. No mention. Isn’t this suite sweet he says. Suite. He has tickets to this tonight and also that just in case I’d rather that. Do I have something I want to change into? Yeah I say. Give me a minute will you? Alone will you? Just give me a minute alone. He retreats to the balcony, but he’s still all over me. I don’t have any fucking idea what to do. I am alone. Solitary. I’m thinking. There’s a desk in an alcove. Behind the bed in an alcove. I need to think. Paper. Nice pen. Keep the pen. I’m writing. I’m thinking and writing. I can do this all night.

For the solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life.

These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope, they do not point on me. 2:07 am

Now, the best answer to any problem, not to be too woo woo about it, is to let the universe decide, or rather, leave it up to the universe to tell you the best path.  The choice is yours, you have free will as far as I can see. You do. You have lots of it. But it can help, or at least it can’t possible hurt to gain a little advice from a power greater than ourselves.  So come on, do you have cold feet about the cosmos or are you with me?  Now. Hold the hand mirror in the proper position and imagine any problem you might be having.  A matter of the heart maybe, or a financial problem.  Perhaps another person is sleeping with your beloved. Or maybe you can’t decide how much cream to put into your cocoa.  It can be anything, just hold your question in your mind with clear intent and allow me to practice sortes Shakespearianae on your behalf.  I am using a leatherbound Shakespeare complete, 1926, kept carefully upright and once owned by Guare Swofr Jr. from what I can make out of his or her appallingly illegible signature.  Ready? We ask the blessed universal oneness to grant us clarity and insight and guide our hand to the correct place for enlightenment. The answer to your problem is:

Shame and confusion! all is on the rout; Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds where it should guard.

That’s from the second part of King Henry VI, act 5, scene 2, spoken by Young Clifford.  Tell you anything?  Tells me you should maybe avoid the cocoa and stick with water.  And somebody is definitely sleeping with your beloved. Oh dear. You look terrible.  Do over! Let’s do it again.  This time we’ll try sortes Biblicae. I have a nicely dogeared copy of the bible inscribed To Mike. From: Robbie Nelson.  The copyright page has been torn out. Ready? We ask the universe with full hearts and clear heads for the answer to our questions and your solution is:

Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits.

Pretty! Book of Daniel 3:1, so I’d say pour the cream! Not sure what this says about your other problems though.  Perhaps you should find a nice golden idol to worship?  Or craft one of your own?  Maybe we should try again. The universe is never wrong, you understand, it does sometimes want clarification. How about sortes Cortazarae? In times of confusion I often turn to, yes, where is it now? Where? Green book, paperback, yellow piece of paper with chapter numbers and checkmarks marking chapter 110. Here! Ready? Now, we ask the universe and so on and so forth:

137
MORELLIANA
If the volume or the tone of the work can lead one to believe that the author is attempting a sum, hasten to point out to him that he is face to face with the opposite attempt, that of an implacable subtraction.

So you see! So use mathematics and start subtracting: lay off cocoa and dump your lover. Can’t get a clearer answer than that.

The difficulties of interpretation.

A small cronopio was looking for the key to the street door on the night table, the night table in the bedroom, the bedroom in the house, the house in the street. Here the cronopio paused, for to go into the street, he needed the key to the door.2:06 am

First it happens, then it means something. Rarely, the bolt of lightning will hit one directly (perhaps from a forty five degree angle like a shot off a shovel) and there within the simultaneity of the electrical discharge and the acoustic report you know as it’s going down that this now this is it is this moment (this very instant) that means already in advance and simultaneously what it will come to mean. But really what are the odds of an event and its significance occurring simultaneously? We can’t know all the conditions so there must be some sort of calculable probability. Twenty to one? And this is assuming of course that there is indeed such a thing as simultaneity, but this is no time for parlor games. There is no simultaneity, event and meaning intersect only with lovers, and there is no free will. Oh yes, also: do not risk, do not expect, do not be disappointed, be satisfied, sustain no positive loss, bring positive gain to others. Now, finish carving that on the tablet, make a duplicate to use as light to the gentiles, and bear it down the mountains in your arms, the secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction.

History repeating itself with a difference.

(5b) To change reality for everyone -- the one I told you goes on -- is to accept the fact that everyone is (ought to be) what I am, and, in some way, to meld the real with mankind. That means admitting history, that is, the human race on a false course, a reality accepted until now as real, and away we go. 1:46 am

All right ladies, hold the mirror just so, can everybody see me? Just like this. Adjust your positioning so you can get a good angle yet still feel perfectly comfortable and supported. If anybody needs an extra rolled up blanket go ahead and get one. I’m sorry, I forgot your name, purple mat? Yes, you. Try switching hands. There you go. Good? Everybody ready? Now take a deep breath in through the nose, and feel your breath flowing through every part of your body, moving warmly down your spine, and exiting your body toward the mirror as you breathe out. Good. And breathe in through the nose like an inward voice two, three, four purple mat, you are sitting too tight. If you have a possible need to satisfy by moving a motion, no? Then you’ll need to get into position from standing again. Ok, feet shoulder width apart, there you go, mirror in the other hand, yup, breathe in through the nose and on the exhale bend down as if you let something drop, nice, then let your body fell down, 32 feet, per second, per second. There you go and breathe in, two, three, down the spine, and out toward the mirror. Good. Everybody still breathing? Keep breathing and follow my voice. As you look into your mirror I want you to focus your awareness on the opening just a short distance under where the back changes name. This is your when point; think of it as an omphalos if it helps you. Focus your breath towards your when point and allow this to be your breath’s one great goal. Now I want you to keep feeling the rhythm of your breathing and on your next inhale allow your breath to encircle all the calcifications of history within your body. Now imagine your breath melting history away. Breathe history down your spine and push it out toward the mirror. Good. And inhale, really feeling those mineral accretions of history melting into tailings. Keep breathing. Down the spine. And out. Now breathe in and feel the tailings shifting, melting, like ice into water two, three, four and out,  and on the next cycle we’ll push the last of history toward our one great goal. Ready and in, two, three, four, good, really focus, down your spine, and out, two, three, purple mat, there are buckets and rags in the utility closet. That’s ok. There’s one in every class.

Her sweet flowerlike face

In reality everything occurs in a (is) simultaneity: door, smile, and the rest of the elements that make up the pattern appear as facets of links, like a lightning bolt that transforms the glass outside of time. It is impossible to retain this vision, since we don't know how to dis-place ourselves. There remains only an anxiety, a trembling, a vague longing. Something was there, perhaps quite near. And now there is nothing but a rose inside a glass, on this side where a rose is a rose is a rose, and no more. 8:46 pm

I’ll say goodbye using the only language deemed acceptable by the conventions of Society with a big ess.  Here, my love, I send my message in the language of flow wafting softly through the evening and that little bat flying around to and fro just to show what a good bat she is had better not tell.  Little bats don’t tell.  Smell me! Smell me!  Wonder if he is too far to?  I’m no she-rose.  But he’ll forgive me that.  He’ll give me a sweet forgiving smile verging on tears.  There will be no goodbye.  We shall meet again.  Then, tomorrow, in good time or outside of time no matter, and we’ll dream together of yester eve.  Here, right here!  Please, don’t imagine what we will do then, I’m blushing like a girl!  Look at the color of me!