HOW SIMPLE ULYSSES SEEMS COMPARED TO FINNEGANS WAKE!  ------thoughts upon opening Finnegans Wake and reading the first page.

Okay, I know I'm sick of talking about Ulysses and Bloom, ineluctable modality of the visible and the smithies of my soul (Sorry Ben).  So, I thought I'd change the format of my journal (well at least the colors, get it, black, the book of the night.....yeah, I know, pretty lame but it makes me happy) and as an introduction to Finnegans Wake, I'd just like to say AHHHHH WHAT DOES IT MEAN?  And then I'd like to say well it doesn't really matter what it means because its about everything.  I was frustrated when I started because I'd read and read and wouldn't know where to start when I was looking for meaning or some sort of sense so I started to look for the Ulysses paragraph (which I didn't find but I know the page number is on Paul's website somewhere).  I thought I remembered it being on page one hundred and something (when it's actually 229) ut I started with one hundred and worked my way to two hundred and found something I recognized on each page and felt a little better.

THOUGHTS ON SNIPPETS OF ONE HUNDRED PAGES:   found ALP as a "little lady waiting" on page 102, the funferal again, I remember the Book of Kells from Brit Lit I - one of its pictures was on the cover of our book, "Who do you no tonigh, lazy and gentleman?"  126, Irish Geography - Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Gallaway - the numbers and letters in that section, questions remind me of Ithaca (Joyce's favorite chapter, remember?), There's a little capital K on page 145, what the heck?  (See Paul's Post about letters on the message board, it explains some things), hee hee hee Shakhisbeard, "Exexex!  COMMUNICATED!" to be put out of communiation, to be put out of communion, to not take communion, to be expelled from the church, page 181 ABORISEMENT, Is Jymes our beloved James?  Is he also obsessed with female undergarments and naked women?  Hm....We know Bloom was, and one hundred pages end with the Tower of Babel, fitting or no?

Room Inventory: Bunk bed with no ladder and red sheets, a happy mask with art on the walls, pictures of family and my lovely boyfriend, a large desk with a big black sleek desktop computer, Plain Jane (my guitar) and her stand, three fish (two bettas in little tanks and an angelfish in a bigger tank), a wire shelf, a clost with a full size mirror, chains of origami paper cranes, a brown twenties Bogart hat, a biohazard sign hanging from the door handle, do not disturb...a step ladder, a giant window with mini blinds, a desk chair with a beige cushion, printer, a shelf with a photo album on it, computer paper, ramen, girl scout cookies, a cactus, a plant stand, a little buddha, turkish slippers, a shamrock (in honor of James Joyce -kinda more like because my mom wanted to get rid of it) oy yeah, the dresser, two rugs (one orange, the other multi-colored both rag rolled), clothes on the floor, books everywhere, and general disorder all around, two baseball bobbleheads (Ichiro and Tori Hunter) a garbage can and a black back pack, a Nalgene, a book holder thingy, and weird gray-purple carpet.

Thinking about the ER That's eternal return (reternal), not the emergency room.  I think Nietzche had an interesting idea - investigating how we live the same life over and over again without learning anything - destined to repeat forever.  It seemsl like the mystical "life-flashing-before-your-eyes" before you die.l  You see all the good things but the bad things too.  It seems to me that if it were possible to forget all the bad things like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we wouldn't learn anything.  The lessons we'd have learned from experiencing bad things would fad and we'd be stuck repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again.  Bad memories are necessary if not even more beneficial than good ones.  I will write more on this later.....I have more ideas....

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