Having my way with Ulysses

I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I?

• Lestrygonians

1:36 pm

The moon and the sun are the same size.  Apparent size, but what else is there for us on the ground?  They are both 110 times their diameters away from us.  Why the same?  Now that’s really a coincidence.  Maybe it has something to do with parallax?

Measure your diameter.  Then multiply by 110.  Now, stand that far away from Molly.  Go ahead, you’ll be in good company.  That’s where I am, apparently.  Welcome to my world.  She said she could never like it again after Rudy died.  Something changed.  She held up her finger.  Hold up your finger and measure your finger tip.  Multiply by 110 — that’s about your arm’s length, a coincidence?  Stretch out your arm with your finger erect and blot out the sun.  Go ahead, give it the finger!  Feel that power.  Sexual.  Yes.  Yes.  Ah.  Well.

It was a full moon that night walking with Molly, he on the other side of her.  The daughter of the moon and she’s beaming.  He’s blazing.  Their fingers touch palms.  Ask with finger in palm, a little tickle.  Touch me.  Answer back.  Yes.  Eclipse me baby.  Stop.  Stop.  If it was it was.  Is, is.  Done.  Stop.  Something else.

Would I go back to times before fingers and touches and apparent distances?  Can’t bring back time.  Can’t bring back anything.  Like holding water in your hand.  I am the water.  Time is not a thing, it is an experience and even a feature of me.  And I was happier then.  I was.  Was that I?  Am I now I?  If it is true that I am someone, and that I was also someone, are we (this I, that I) the same I?  If we were all suddenly somebody else.  I was happier then.  Absolutely.  There is no absolute.  And I.  I am not I.  I am a multiple divided creature.   I am we.  We are legion.  Enough.  The machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of men.

Never the same

• Lestrygonians

On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow.1:10 pm

Saw a good idea today, a rowboat with a sandwich board ad on it, anchored in the ship canal.  Kino’s selling pants for $49.99.  Not bad.  Can spend that much just getting a pair altered.  A good idea is a good idea.  Better than hiring human directionals to carry the signs around like Hely pays for. Pays Boylan?  Must be McGlade’s work. Those bring in nothing. Still, people will look at anything, even nothing.  Stand and stare; other people will too.  Or be like Maginni dancing around.  He is his own ad.  Can put ads for std doctors in urinals.  Feel the burn?  Somebody standing there can relate and oh Christ.  What if he?  Oh God no.  No.  He wouldn’t, would he?  I don’t believe it.  No.  I can’t.  I can’t think about that.  What’s the time?  The diameter of the sun as seen from.  Oh God.  Focus.  As seen from earth is one half of a degree.  24 hours in the day divided by 360 degrees times 60 minutes to one hour times the radius of the sun or 1/4 of a degree.  It moves by its own radius every minute.  That’s the time.  As seen from wherever on earth.  No?  What about parallax views?  Never quite got parallax.  Greek word.  Should look it up.  Parallel parallax.  I feel like Molly with her met him pike hoses until I explained about the transmigration of souls and the stream of life.  Life is a stream.  Flowing and flowing.  Not like time.  Time doesn’t flow.  What is it flowing through if it is flowing?  Not flowing.  Fluxing.  Time a phenomenal flux.  Fluxing along in the flux of life.  Changes and changes.  Like water.  Who was it said that?  We can’t walk into the same ocean twice.  The ocean is different every time and we are different every time.  Yet we stay the same.  Stay the same by changing, dissipative structures.  Like the Argo, not a toothpick on that ship the same as when it began, yet always the Argo.  Look in the mirror, not the same hair, not the same skin, not the same cells as when we were born.  We flux like the Ocean.  Walk in to our death and come out of other waters in a new body.  Not resurrected.  Transmigrated.  Only the soul is the same.  Somebody asked Plato if the soul gets tired.  Does it wear out like old pants?  Can get new ones for $49.99.  See?  A good idea is a good idea.