To infinity and beyond

"You ... are ... a ... toy!"

No idea what they're doing here. Looks suspicious.

We live in great times

Mmmm ... frosty cold beer right from the can-bottle!

Aluminum bottles. And they're longnecks to boot!

Love that hair!

Sick

Hate being sick.

When I get sick, it starts in my throat. Scratchy cardboard from my tonsils to my voice box. Cat-scratching cardboard.

Keee-skirtch

Moves, it's own volition, to my lungs. Hacking and gooey around my heart, constricting, a boa of green phlegm. Can't breathe. Drowning.

Huh-uuuuh. Huh-uuuuuh.

Crawling, killing me, up into my skull. Inside my nose, behind it, inside the cavity between the world and my brain. A gremlin's paw clutching to free itself. Shaking loose my sinuses, my nose discharging, two garden hoses spraying down yellow and clear gunk with no warning. Spewing it out, my body fighting the gremlin's paw.

& (a diagram of the inside of my nose battling the gremlin's paw)

Day seven — sleep.

Wake up — alert.

Until the next time.

Eluctable & Elucting

Gimme a dollar.

I don't have a dollar.

Gimme one anyway.

I don't got one. Now shut it.

I wanna a dollar.

Stop it.

Gimme a —

Tell me something. I'm reading this Ulysses here.

So? That make you some Greek scholar?

Joyce, you freakin' dingbat. ... Joyce, moron. Irish.

You an Irish scholar?

Look, he says right here —

Irish setter?

"The ineluctable modality of the visible."

Setting sun?

Do you get it? Do you need this explained to you?

Sun never sets on the British empire?

You need me to crack open your skull and force feed this down your fuckin' windpipe?

Son never sits on the British umpire?

Look: "ineluctable" comes from the Latin, about struggling.

Son rather sits than struggle with the umpire?

Damn you, listen, ineluctable is about struggling, never —

Rather shit than struggle?

— never escaping, always giving up —

Dan Rather sits in the struggle?

— never giving up, I mean, damn you, unable to escape, struggling but never free.

Dan Rather blips on the screen?

This is all beyond your ken, ain't it?

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

"Modality" is, damn you, shut it, modality is ... something about mode.

Mode in Japan?

Wisecracks, I oughta crack your skull, watch your brains bleed down your chin.

Modal harpoon?

And "visible" is of course, being seen. Seen, not heard, you catch that?

Harpooned.

Good. So, in summary ...

har ... pooned ...

Yeah, 'pooned. Now, look, what do you think Joyce meant by modality being ineluctable because Daedelus is visible? Or only when he's visible?

.

Where the fuck did you go? I turn my back for one instance and you —

.

At least ...

.

... now ...

.

... some ..

?

... ineluctable, I s'pose ...

!

... silence.

Inspection

This morning I spotted a turd on my front porch.

Shouldn't be there. No pets. Neighbors, no pets either.

Damn kids.

Unsure what to do, I do'd what most would do'd, and tapped the suspected doo with the toe of my shoe.

A dead leaf. Brown, creviced, curled, which gave it some height. The color of dog shit. Crunched underfoot to jagged bits and a string of a spine.

Summer in California.

Found Item Dept.

Hello Kitty Vibrat ... er, "Shoulder Massager"

You have to see it to believe it.