[ Fundación Rara Avis on flickr ]

There’s probably something annoying and redundant about some guy in 2009 talkin’ on a literature blog about how Ulysses changed his life, but here we are: after reading Ulysses, every trite minutiae of my days seemed veiled in an empathetic sheen, like, even though [my] life still sucked, at least it sucked while quivering in its own beauty — that we are empowered to edit our perception on things, and that our petty micro is philosophically macro. Joyce taught me (D.F. Wallace does this too) that the heart and mind can be friends, and just now and then, such good friends they are.

When I started reading these Ulysses excerpts I was getting pretty frustrated (bored). When Jimmy Chen wrote a bit about why he quoted those passages, though, they became so much more relevant. That's a lot of what I want in life--tell me why this is relevant; what will this do for us? what have I overlooked?

"...we are empowered to edit our perception on things...our petty micro is philosophically macro."

God, I dig that.

please return undamaged but not unchanged

i'm thinking about jumping ship.

wordpress or maybe even just tumblr from here on out.
i'm tired of everything! i resent everything!
ahahahaha, that is not true at all.

pastimes, summer drives, dams and dogs, enchanting hands, and long letters.
i resent none of these things.

i wish i would have thought about medium a lot more while i was in school.
there is still a lot of time. there are a few less possibilities, but there are many more, many other, possibilities.

oblique bellies

'Fill every beat with something'

oblique strategies twitter
(one of the few redeeming things about twitter)

**

Bellies are funny. Penguins can slide around on them. I think that's great.

Fabienne: I was looking at myself in the mirror.
Butch: Uh-huh?
Fabienne: I wish I had a pot.
Butch: You were lookin' in the mirror and you wish you had some pot?
Fabienne: A pot. A pot belly. Pot bellies are sexy.
Butch: Well you should be happy, 'cause you do.
Fabienne: Shut up, Fatso! I don't have a pot! I have a bit of a tummy, like Madonna when she did "Lucky Star," it's not the same thing.
Butch: I didn't realize there was a difference between a tummy and a pot belly.
Fabienne: The difference is huge.
Butch: You want me to have a pot?
Fabienne: No. Pot bellies make a man look either oafish, or like a gorilla. But on a woman, a pot belly is very sexy. The rest of you is normal. Normal face, normal legs, normal hips, normal ass, but with a big, perfectly round pot belly. If I had one, I'd wear a tee-shirt two sizes too small to accentuate it.
Butch: You think guys would find that attractive?
Fabienne: I don't give a damn what men find attractive. It's unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.

**

One of the best things about having friends is that they boost you up. Agreeing to boost each other up, that's a big deal.