Having my way with Ulysses

Letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing

But they will teach us that Eternity is the Standing still of the Present Time, a Nunc-stans (as the Schools call it;) which neither they, nor any else understand, no more than they would a Hic-stans for an Infinite greatness of Place.

5:40 pm

This place is filled with bugs.  Look at that one there in the corner.  Oh wow, that’s a spider eating another spider.  No wait, not eating.  Well, that’s natural.  Told Joe I could wait for the money he owes me if he would talk to Myles about the Keyes ad.  He won’t do it.  Look at those spiders.  Right here with us, living lives.  Mating.  Sharing our houses strangers to us.  What civilization do they have, I wonder.  They crawl so close over everything we have, everything we’ve made.  Our art, our literature, our beds.  And we busy with our moderation and botheration and civilization and syphilisation to be much to them but goodfornothing gods lighting sideways on their lives smushing them so you wouldn’t see a trace of them after and leave them for our dogs to devour or wipe them off with something and into the trash with you, honey.  And here are these two in the corner just in time to be late to know that somebody will smash them before they are done and well, that’s natural.  Obliterated to nothingness.  Well, not nothingness.  Nothing is not nothing.  Think about zero, yeah?  What is it but a place holder.  It makes things clearer in writing down numbers so 1132 can be seen right away as different from 11032.  Zero is a quantity of nothing.  Until you try to divide something by zero.  Then nothing turns into something pretty quick.  It becomes a whole lot of something, infinite something.  Suddenly nothing is everything.  Those spiders are nothing.  Those spiders are the kings of infinite space.

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.

Begone! The world is before you.

Slow in the hazy light I have been asking, Almost as a comfort, if the past Belonging to this now unhappy Adam Was nothing but a magic fantasy Of that God I dreamed. Now it is imprecise in memory, that lucid paradise, But I know it exists and will persist Though not for me. The unforgiving earth is my affliction, and the incestuous wars of Cains and Abels and their progeny. Nevertheless, it means much to have loved To have been happy, to have laid my hand on The living Garden, even for one day.12:20 am

In a hurry to get that ad.  Just need to run out to get that Keyes ad.  What’s that Lenehan is doing under the desk there?  Geometry?  Don’t want to trample him.  Bull in china.  I’m in a hurry.  Going now.  Better get going because I want to catch Keyes.  Got to go.  Let’s blow.  Breeze on out.  Ease on down the road.  Descend that staircase.  No time like the present.  Here I go.  I’ll take my coat and my leave.  Just run round to Dillons.  Mazurka round to Dillons.  Steal a march round to Dillons.  Ok?  Is that ok?  I’ll be right back.  Back in no time.  Fast as the wind.

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.

Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck

Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind, In winged speed no motion shall I know12:00 pm

A big wind today, feel it through the doors.  They always put doors one opposite the other for the wind to.  Way in.  Way out.  Let the building breathe.  Choke otherwise.  No, air has to circulate, breeze around.  Door whispers.  Ee: cree.  Putting together an ad deal for Alexander Keyes and needed a bit of a cut and paste from Red Murray.  Think I know his nephew.  Have to ask another time. Stately Brayden came barreling statelily through before I could bump the words out of my head.  Simon Dedalus says he keeps all his brains in the nape of his neck.  Red thinks Neck looks like Jesus and he does, although hard to imagine Jesus at that size.  I think he looks a bit like the guy who sang co-ome thou lost one, co-ome thou dear one.  Jesuslooking with a beardframed face.  Nice to imagine.  Jesus talking in the dusk with Mary at his feet.  And Martha content, joyful, serving food.  The passive and the active, loving sisters.

The Active:   Loving, my ass!  News flash: I had to take the train from Bethany, then a bus, then a cab to the airport, change planes at JFK that stinking bunghole, then Seatac, train, bus just to tell you personally:  Mary the cheapest whore in the world will suck your balls for ten bucks in any alley or back seat you like.  In any alley or back seat you like for ten bucks Mary the cheapest whore in the world will suck your balls.