Having my way with Ulysses

Thanking her stars she was passed over

• Hades

In the ignorance that implies impression that knits knowledge that finds the nameform that whets the wits that convey contacts that sweeten sensation that drives desire that adheres to attachment that dogs death that bitches birth that entails the ensuance of existentiality.11:00 am

We should all thank our stars, death is a horrible thing.  Dying, there are good ways to go.  But death?  No connection, no contact with those who are now.  In it, you see.  Make room, I’ll ride with you.  Here.  I’ll get that door.  Again.  Got it that time.  Now what was I saying?  What were we talking about?  Oh yeah, the woman watching us out her window, grateful to the stars for the mark on her door.  So death.  No bridging from what will be to what is.  Will be always turns to is, and I’ll tell you what the meaning of is is.  Look around you.  Feel it quickly.  Motion, stillness. Stillness, motion.  It’s a protean thing. Smell, breathe in.  Is that smell you?  Yes, and catch that?  Listen.  You heard a click.  Finger on plastic.  Tap.  Click.  All that is part of is.  And that’s all there is for the likes of you and me.  And that woman there watching us out.  Glad to see us go we give them such trouble coming.  And once we leave the is?  We’re dead, we won’t even know who will undress us and how.  Wash us.  What do they wash?  Cut a new omphalos and pour the fluids in and out.  Too much?  Fine.  Cut our fingernails and hair?  Okay I’ll stop.  Sheesh.  Keeps growing after we die, I wonder how much?  Waiting.  Sitting on something.  That soap in my pocket.  Will wait.  Move it later.  Blinds down.  Keep the house dark, hushed.  Whispering.  There’s a young guy in black.  Have seen that hat before.  Hey Dedalus, there’s somebody you know.  It’s your kid.  By himself.  Nosy.  Full of his son.  Crissie is how old?  Richie Goulding that Sunday morning.  Had two hats on his head dancing around in the street.  Shitfaced drunk.  Bad back.  No insurance, lots of pain meds.  If Rudy had lived.  He’d have me in his eyes, hold our hands.  Somebody to pass things on to.  Teach him something from me.  Was an accident, really.  Happened by chance.  Molly at the window watching two dogs going at it.  She was dying for it.  How life begins.  Got big.  I could have helped him.  Sent him to college.  Milly, same thing as Molly watered down.  Fifteen now.  D Papli, Thrs a yg Im crushin on.  Grown up now too.  There we go.  Nice they rented limos, crushed in here though.  What is that on the seat, crumbs?  Unless I’m mistaken, that’s not food crumbs.   Well, that’s natural.

How goes the time?

• The Lotus-Eaters

penteplenty of pity with lubilashings of lust for Olona Lena Magdalena 10:16 am

Quarter after.  What is quarter of?  I’ve never understood that one.  Quarter of, is it before or after?  Whatever.  Why quibble over a preposition, there is no before or after.  Time enough yet.  Always time.  Where is this?  Ah yes, the last time.  That’s where.  Wait.  Have to go for Molly’s lotion.  When did I get it last?  No prescription.  Alchemist can look it up.

[The shop door rings as Bloom enters.  A toothache he had been experiencing is suddenly cured]

Mary Magdalene: Can I help you?

Bloom:  Yes, a shrunken skull, the philosopher’s stone, a lemony soap, and a refill of a prescription lotion for Molly Bloom.

Mary Magdalene:  Is she in our system?

Bloom:  [with a drugged mental excitement] Yes.

Mary Magdalene:  And you could use a cure for that dandruff.

Bloom:  Not for me.  Do you mean me?

Mary Magdalene: [Mixing ingredients in an alabaster jar]  No of course not.  Let’s see, need to rinse scalp with a little laurel and green tea steeped in distilled water.  Any allergies?

Bloom: Bee stings, so please not an electuary.  Can’t be too careful.

[Mary Magdalene hands Bloom the jar then whacks him across the face]

Bloom:  [With obvious pleasure] Why?

Mary Magdalene:  In case of reaction.  Want to be careful.  Anything else?  Having trouble sleeping?  Maybe some chloroform?  Laudanum?  How about a nice love philtre?

Bloom:  Does it constipate?

Mary Magdalene:  Clogs the pores.  Or the phlegm rather.

Bloom:  Can you mix it into Molly’s lotion?

Mary Magdalene:  Ah yes.  A remedy where you least expect it.  That’s the acid test.

Bloom: [Coyly] I’ll come for it later.  You know, you ought to physic yourself a bit.

Mary Magdalene: [flirtatiously]  And gradually change my character?  You have a bit of pluck!  Now as for Molly’s lotion, tell her she wants to be careful.  Too much and she will experience a lifetime in a night.

Bloom: [Exiting, inhaling slowly the keen reek of drugs]  Yes.  I said yes.  I will.  Yes.

God’s little joke

• The Lotus-Eaters

And I schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? 10:15 am

Feels like it should be later than now.  I asked Molly what INRI means.  She said Iron Nails Ran In.  And IHS means I Have sinned: or no: I Have Suffered.  Wouldn’t mind suffering a little more.  I’ll command Martha to meet me at St James.  Run into whom?  Exactly.  Hear the mass.  Christ or Pilate?  Christ, but don’t keep us all night over it.  I’ll say do not deny me.  Bring a veil and a black bag.  Want a little wine?  Prepare for confession.  Everybody wants to.  Come on, tell me a little then I will tell you all.  And now some penance.  Punish me please.  Lovely shame.  Hello! Fly open.  This whole time?

Who’s getting it up?

• The Lotus-Eaters

Queen was in her bedroom eating bread and.10:07 am

Molly on her bed with her cards, laying them out in two rows, the queen of spades and knight of diamonds set aside.  Cat in the middle of it.  Queen of spades, the widow.  A young widow.  Poor Dignam.  Or the divorced woman.  Which option?  Or the bad woman with ill will.  Or the dark woman familiar with sorrow.  And with the knight of diamonds.  A knave.  A brave unemployed man.  A young stranger.  A scholar.  A jealous person.  A useful man.  Who?  Planning her concert.  Her phone face down on the bed.  Texting.  Singing some sweet old song.  McCoy says his wife singing too.  Believe when I see.  Don’t want to hear, no guts in it.  Screechy woman.  Freckled.  Cheeseparing nose.   You and me in the same boat he says, flattering me.  Irritating.  Your wife, my wife.  Wonder is he pimping after me?  Maybe a little softswapping?  I wouldn’t think Molly his type.  Maybe he means me?  Still in the closet I thought. 

Allude to it

• Calypso

Till breath do us part.

9:42 am

Molly met him a couple of weeks ago.  That Fantasia party.  Explain.  The ostriches dance in the morning, then hippos in the day, elephants in the evening, and aligators at night.  With some overlap.  Strange film.  Hyacinth Hippo dancing the hours with Ben Ali Gator.  Girls like the bad boy.  Story a bit different in the original.  La Gioconda loves Enzo so much she gives him to Laura who loved him first.  Prior claim.  Still, La Giaconda has our sympathy in the bloody end.  Molly is convinced he has money from the smell of it on his breath.  She squinted into the mirror in shadow, showing the lines in her eyes.  Maybe it won’t pan out.  With him or with me.  Get out of the way.

Timing

• Calypso

So, how idlers' wind turning pages on pages, as innocens with anaclete play popeye antipop, the leaves of the living in the boke of the deeds, annals of themselves timing the cycles of events grand and national, bring fassilwise to pass how.9:39 am

I don’t enjoy getting dressed with Molly.  I timed her this morning:  9:15 did Roberts pay you yet.  Five minutes.  9:20 what was Greta Conroy wearing.  Three minutes.  9:23 what was I thinking when I bought this comb.  One minute.  9:24 cabbage makes me gassy.  Fifteen minutes.  Made me nick myself shaving.

A Stitch in Time

• Calypso

I see a pattern, but my imagination cannot picture the maker of that pattern. I see a clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker. The human mind is unable to conceive of the four dimensions, so how can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as one?9:36 am

Thinking about writing a story, maybe with Molly.  Read one about a laughing witch.  Matchem’s something by Beaufoy.  Could write something and put it on Amazon, see if it sells.  Invent a story for some proverb, but which one?  Infinite supply.  What was that Molly used to say getting dressed?  Used to write that stuff down.  Well, I’ll think of one, touch fingers.  Better start now, procrastination is the thief of time.  A rolling stone gathers no moss.  Time and tide wait for no one and while we are postponing, life speeds by.  What many be done at any time will be done at no time, as they say, and wasting time is robbing oneself.  Oh I thought of one.  What was that.  It’s gone.  Like holding water in my hands.  Wish I could get that thought back.  Oh well, an ounce of gold will not buy an inch of time.  Every moment is golden, you know, and those who neglect time, time will neglect.  Better make the most of the time I have left because you don’t need a watch to know when it is time to die.

Yielding but resisting

• Calypso

Life might be so. It did not move him or touch him but it was something quick and neat.9:33 am

Cat wants out.  Miaow!  She didn’t like hearing that.  Molly calling the cat, she wanted upstairs not out.  I’m feeling a heaviness, a loosening.  Want to finish thought, will bring laptop with me.

Ok.  Look out window at nextdoor windows.  Nobody.  No big hurry.  Keep it in.  Restrain myself.  Ah well, last resistance yielding.  Allowing bowels to ease themselves quietly.  That slight constipation from yesterday gone.  Hope this isn’t too big to bring on hemorrhoids again.  No.  Just right.  So.  Powdered cascara bark, nice Northwest plant.  Doesn’t take much.

A soft qualm

• Calypso

Why are you shocked if a goddess sleeps with a man and makes no secret of it9:27 am

She met some kid.  Milly did.  Prevent.  Can’t prevent.  She’ll have her firsts.  Kiss.  etc.  Better keep her occupied.  She wanted a dog, something to carry in a purse.  Maybe I’ll just take a trip up there.  Work out a press pass with McCoy, get it paid for.

Prevent some of it.  Molly reading, braiding her hair.  Texting.  Friend of the family.  That will happen too.

I feel a creeping regret, up the back of my spine, back of my neck.  Spreading.