Having my way with Ulysses

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.

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.

Any time he likes, tell him.

12:53 pm

I raced the wind to get to Myles after having to kiss Keyes’ ass over the ad renewal and he blew me off.  He was on the street talking with J. J. O’Molloy, they came up together you know, started off together back in the day.  I don’t know, maybe I interrupted something.  O’Molloy had a long face.  Seemed a bit defeated.  More than usual that is.  Sad.  Tried to get to Myles fast before he’d be too far gone but I pretty much missed that window.  Ever brief.  And he was on the way to the bar behind a few of them, arm in arm, off for a drink.  Lenehan in front but I suspect Stephen Dedalus was the prime mover.  Wearing better boots today; last time he had holes in his heels.  And I saw him on the way to funeral, wonder what he does down there?  Weighing a bit on me.  Wanted to breeze it by Myles and I was so out of breath he didn’t get much more than Keyes would give the ad, but only for two months and if we put in a puff peace.  I can get the image at the library, House of Keys.  Keyes, get it?  Two crossed keys.  I must have interrupted something.  Myles turned his eye on me as best he could considering and said I should tell Keyes to kiss his ass.  Ths loose flesh of his neck shook like a cock’s wattles.  Kiss my hairy white ass.  He can kiss my ass he said, got that.  Kiss my ass, ok, Póg mo thóin.  Got it?   And for me kish mein touchess and more formally shakli b’tahat.  With heart.  Tell him any way you like.  Then no break red faced riffing gaand chaat mara besa me culo tel’has teezee kyss meg i raeva isskay ymay assay qabula izinga honi ko’u ‘elemu fila mou to kolo.   Ama kwana mwach ka boro too koonam cui mi gaza.  Soen my boudt.  Cusano fy asen.  And that’s straight from the horses mouth.  Tell him.

Akasic records of all that ever anywhere wherever was.

The methodical task of writing distracts me from the present state of men. The certitude that everything has been written negates us or turns us into phantoms. Akasic Records Office
Ad hoc Committee Meeting Minutes
The meeting was called to order at 12:50 pm
Secretary: Lord Chitragupta
 
Present:  O’Madden Burke, Myles Crawford, Stephen Dedalus, Matt Lenehan, Professor MacHugh, J.J. O’Molloy
 

The minutes of the previous meeting stand approved as corrected.

Professor MacHugh moved to consider the motion that the troop of bare feet heard rushing along the hallway and pattering up the staircase be dubbed oratory.  The motion carried.  Aye: Burke, Crawford, Dedalus, Lenehan, MacHugh, O’Molloy.

Stephen Dedalus moved to adjourn.

O’Madden Burke raised a point of information: Is it not perchance a French compliment?

O’Madden Burke moved to amend the motion to indicate an immediate change of venue and that said change include the adoption of a wine jug in Ye ancient hostelry metaphorically speaking.

Matt Lenehan moved to amend the motion to indicate the meeting venue be changed to Mooney’s.

Matt Lenehan raised a point of information: Will we sternly refuse to partake of strong waters?

Matt Lenehan moved to amend the motion to indicate that the committee will not drink any more.

Matt Lenehan moved to amend the motion to indicate that the committee will not drink any less.

Miles Crawford moved to amend the motion to indicate that Stephen Dedalus is a chip off the old block.

Miles Crawford raised a point of information:  Where are his blasted keys?

Professor MacHugh moved to close debate and vote immediately on the pending question.  Motion carried.  Aye: Burke, Dedalus, Lenehan, MacHugh.  Nay: Crawford, O’Molloy.

Unfinished Business:  The publication of crushed typesheets, location: Crawford’s pocket, regarding Deasy letter, topic: foot and mouth disease.  The pending meeting of a committee formed by  O’Molloy to include Crawford concerning a point of information (financial).

Almost Human

And I have never seen a stableboy whose master waits for him, or one who stays awake reluctantly, so ply a horse with currycomb, as they assailed themselves with clawing nails -- their itching had such force and fury, and there was no other help. And so their nails kept scraping off the scabs, just as a knife scrapes off the scales of carp or of another fish with scales more large. 12:03 pm

It’s the ads and side features that sell a newspaper, not the stale news people have already read online.  Syndicated stuff, classifieds, opinions in my opinion.  Pressure builds for civilian drone flights at home.  Rising gas prices just another chance to milk the masses.  Respiratory Care Practitioner Pulmonary Function Technologist – Per Diem – Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.  Vacant Land 25 Dexter Ave N Seattle, WA 98109  East side of Queen Anne, breathtaking views of Lake Union.  Pop music/Nightlife: Seattle Wind Symphony Concert.  Picture: World’s Biggest Balloon.  Dear Mr. Editor, what is a good cure for flatulence?  Spoke to Nannetti today, Hynes got there first with his unfeigned regret we announce the dissolution of a most respected throwaway nobody will miss.  Except once they are done the rats working away, tearing away, gnawing away, munching away.  Yum.  Thank you.  I should have said something about old hats, or that it looks good as new now.  No.  I reminded Hynes it is payday.  Payroll about to go to lunch.  Didn’t take the third hint.  Lent him $14 three weeks ago, three times what he needed at the time.  Maybe he understood what I.  The Keyes ad I showed Nannan.  And silence, scratching armpit.  Ribs.  Two crossed keys in a circle and asked for a paragraph calling attention and yes he said yes but with three months renewal.  Will ask Keyes.  Door creaking.  Cree, calling, crying, craving attention.  Doing its level best to breathe out words.  Everything speaks in its own way.

Puzzling two long keys at his back

11:40 am

John Henry Menton was at the funeral.  Still hates me over that fight at Mat Dillon’s.  Never forgets a rival.  Aion there too with his keys crossed behind his back.  I mean Zurvan.  No wait, that’s Pluto.  Hades.  That is, Janus I mean.  Somebody’s job it is to lock the living from the dead and the successive from the eternal.  And look good holding keys.   Can’t have one of us slipping through, as much as we might want to force our way in.

Peter:  You forgot that I have the keys, Leopold, or Bloom, or Nowthen, or Sly, or whatever else it is you call yourself.

Sly:  Simon.  Honey.  Or do you just go by Rock?  Maybe it’s The Rock.  Child, you are late to this party.  Check your pockets sugarstick.  Now would you look at that.  Where’s those keys baby?  Two words.

Steeeeeeeeeeeephen

And note that they who will for exile say can for dog while them that won't leave ingle end says now for know.9:21 am

When you see the arrow coming it has a softer strike, and I can see one clearly aimed right between my eyes.  I can enfuture myself and hear him say it: give me the key it is mine, I paid the rent.  And what can I do?  I can’t afford this place on my salary.  I can’t afford any place on my salary.  I remember clearly that bitch who does payroll telling me, when her mistake lost me my funding, I should go live in a shelter.  Good thing I got a TA, or I’d be living under a staircase somewhere.  Well, with what I make that might as well be my next home.  No.  Instead I do what I do now; I go up and down other people’s staircases.  When I think of the scheming and the senselessness I put up with my mouth fills with a salty bitter taste.  I smell toast.  No.  I’ll keep my honor and keep to myself.  Exile.  Time is screaming toward me and I had better be prepared for the blow.

The Butterly Effect

Down, sir! How dare you, sir!9:03 am

So we each have a key to the apartment but there is only one do-not-duplicate key for the building, and from the very initial moment of our shared existence we have struggled over it, clandestinely.  At the moment I have it.  Haines wanted to know what’s the rent?  $700.  There are several studios like ours along the Market, but Buck told Haines ours is the omphalos, which would be about the right size of our place if the Market were a body but in that case our little hole in the wall would be located a bit farther south and around the back.  They say all dynamic systems are sensitively dependent on initial conditions, and the current one I am flapping around in is starting to bug me.  I’m feeling denied.