My odyssey through Ulysses

Like many pursuits I undertake, my blog has followed a familiar pattern. First a big idea, followed by enthusiasm, throw in a few days hard work and then like a sprinter in a marathon, I run out of steam. I know I'm not alone. Surely, many other people find it difficult to stick to the program--any program. I would be justified if I said "I'm simply too busy to write every day", but truth be told I have much time. No, my problem is that I procrastinate, get sucked into the television, get stuck in the web--the world wide web. I've also procrastinated in my reading ambitions. If my memory is correct I first began reading and studying Ulysses in late 2006. I'm now on chapter four! For those of you who are not familiar with Ulysses, it is a novel by the Irish novelist James Joyce published in 1922. The novel recounts the story of a group of Dubliners on a single day--Bloomsday--June 16th, 1904. The characters are unaware, however, that they are all reliving scenes from Homer's The Odyssey, hence the title of the book Ulysses, which is the Greek name for Odysseus, ruler of Ithaca and hero of Homer's Odyssey.

This novel is renowned for difficulty of reading. I admit that were it not for a lecture series I rented from the library taught by James Hefferman, a Dartmouth professor, and heavily relying on the internet for research, I would not understand any of this book. It is not uncommon for me to spend an hour reading a single page. Joyce references figures from 18th and 19th century Irish and British history, renaissance scholars, Shakespeare, obscure saints seemingly from the beginning of history, and on and on. On top of this excessive erudition are the "stream of consciousness" passages in which we are allowed to read a characters every thought verbatim. When I read Ulysses, I do not feel so much like I'm reading, rather I feel like I am deciphering a code. You don't read Ulysses like a Hemmingway or Fitzgerald, rather you study it like the Bible--passage by passage. You unlock its secrets.

My plan is to write about my adventure of reading Ulysses. I got this idea from a writer friend of mine named Julie. It seems to be all the rage now, for example blogging about following a French cookbook is now a movie. It was a good idea there, why not here? In the end it is all about a journey.

Yosemite, Peru, and Livin' in a Hotel Room

So I'm happy to report I am no longer living at OC's house.  Yes that's right, I am now a giddy border at Extended Stay Suites of America.  Who says you have to be famous to live in a hotel room?  So you may wonder, why is Joseph a giddy border?  What is so special about Extended Stay Suites of America?  I have answers to these questions.  First off,  you may not have to be famous to live in a hotel, but with a little imagination you just might feel famous.  I mean, I have maid service!  To recap the past few months, I've lived with a Southern Conservative, a Mormon, and a Swiss Intern with a fondness for weak American beer (Budweiser Select....ugh), a druggie, a loud sexsscipader, and now I'm sharing an extended stay hotel with hundreds of people who come and go.  Travel nursing may become lonely, but if it becomes boring one only has to glimpse a mirror to find the responsible party.  If nothing else travel nursing offers one variety--the spice of life so it's been said.  

Yosemite--I can say I've been there now.  Not only was I there, I had the priviledge of  admiring the Valley from a perch atop Half-Dome.  I hiked the 17 mile round-trip route in the company of a fine group.  I will refer to the members of this group in code name.  There's Boo, Death Marcher, and The Kids.  Boo is an adorable gal, thirty--think Meg Ryan, French Kiss.  Death Marcher is a gnarly river rat, "I'm in my 40's and can out hike a 20 year old", nurse who avidly invests in REI gear.  The Kids are a questionably legal couple (He's 18, she's 15), who possess speed but lack endurance.  Just a quick point here to everyone over 25--would you not agree that as you start getting a little older your stamina increases?  My theory is that mental toughness accompanies age and thus adds to endurance.  The Kids did not make it to the top of Half Dome, but all of us oldies enjoyed the views and befriended a fat Marmot who was alarmingly casual around us Homo Sapiens.  Boo was enticing Mr. Fat Marmot with an apple for a photo op.  The pics turned out great but we are now on the park rangers' Most Wanted list.  Sorry to rat you out Boo :(   Death Marcher earned his code name for his aversion to rest stops and for telling me to dump water out of my Nalgene bladder at the beginning of the hike.  Rations for the trip included a pack of beef jerky, peanut M & M's, and two Good Nature Bars.  Obviously that is not enough calories for a 17 mile hike, 4,000 feet up and then down.  I died.  At one point I sat down in the middle of the trail and refused to go any farther without a break.  Death Marcher relented and we rested for all of about three minutes.  Hiking up 4,000 feet is a workout.  Hiking down 4,000 feet is an exercise in physical punishment.  Were it not for my nifty brand new carbon fiber trekking poles I am sure that I would have severely sprained my ankle.  Three times I felt the ankle start to roll, but was able to support my self with my upper body arresting the fall using the poles.  If you know about Half-Dome, then you know what is really special about this hike are the steel cables used to climb up the slick granite rock face to the summit.  Climbing a few hundred feet up a rock--untethered, unsecured-- is challenging in its own right. Add fatigue and a little hypoglycemia to the mix and the task becomes dangerous.  I'm sad to report that the day following out ascent of Half-Dome a gentleman  slipped while climbing the cables and fell a few hundred feet to his death.  I don't want to exaggerate the climb--most of the people climbing were very average, ordinary people (wearing tennis shoes....yikes!), but it is for lack of a better word, a bit scary.  As I began the switch back that lead up to the cable climb I passed a park ranger coming down who "strongly advised me" to not go any further because a thunderstorm was approaching.  My internal dialogue went something like "who are you? the f***ing weatherman? (i'm irritable when I'm miserable), but my mouth remained shut as I quickened my pace.  I now understand the phenomenon of summit fever.  I was going to climb those dag'on cables and a few hundred thousand volts of electricity wasn't going to stand in my way (just kidding, if I saw any lightning or heard any thunder I would have turned around and booked).  Kudos to Boo, who climbed the cables in spite of her gut knotting fear of high climbing.  Back at the lodge cafeteria it took me quite a while to overcome my splitting head ache, nausea, and the sensation that I was a radiator overheating on the side of an Arizona highway.  Our merry gang reunited over some pizzas, recapped the day's adventure, and then departed for the four hour drive back to Sacramento.  I crawled into my bed at 2 AM, woke up at 5:30 and was in report on the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit by 6:45 for a twelve hour shift.

Last on my blogging agenda, I bought plane tickets to Peru.  I'm going for a month.  I'm in the process of booking a 4 day trek of the Inca Trail.  This was a spur of the moment, unplanned trip and at this time I'm feeling a bit nervous.  I'm not sure how this will affect work or even If I'll have a job.  As it stands now, I'm at Kaiser Permanente for four more weeks and then it is up in the air.  I will keep writing about this trip as I do my research and make plans.

One last thing--just heard a Jose Gonzalez song on Pandora.  I'm impressed!  Will explore his music. 

The Evil Roommate

The past week has been busy and I'm very happy to report that I did make it to Yosemite, I'm moving out of the house I've been living in later on this week, and my travel assignment at Kaiser Permanente is tentatively ending.  Foremost on my mind though is my evil roommate.  As a rule, I try not to let other people's negativity infringe on what it is I'm trying to accomplish in my life.  I'm trying to live a healthy life pursuing activities that nurture mind, body, and soul.  I'm trying to immerse myself in culture, to meet people from different walks of life, to have lots of fun.  So in general, I would not devote precious sentences decrying another person.  But I'm going to break my rule.  Roomie--you are officially being put on blast.  First off when I first called the gentleman in question back in April inquiring about renting a room, I was very clear about what I was looking for in a living arrangement.  To backtrack, prior to being in California I shared a house with three guys in Bountiful, Utah.  The guys in Utah were a lively group.  Watching episodes of The Office, sharing meals at the dining room table, Utah Jazz games, snowboarding trips--It was easily the most fun I've had living with others.  We kept the common areas clean and did a more thorough clean when needed (usually the day before the owners came to visit.)  In contrast, the current "land lord", we'll call him OC, expects his tenants to clean the entire house, to be perfectly quite when he "naps"  after he takes his "meds", to pay the rent and utilities in cash only.  He lives in his room and only comes out to pop frozen food in the microwave or to bitch about whatever it is that upsets his anal-retentive ass.  He is the quintessential douche--pierced and tattooed up like lots of other yuppie Intel DB's.  Now that I have unloaded my angst, I'll admit I'm glad I had an opportunity to live here.  My other roomie who moved out last week was loads of fun to hang out with even if she had lots of loud sex with her boyfriend (was very amusing to listen to) . Furthermore, there is a value in living with difficult people.  Difficult people push us in ways that friends, families, and lovers cannot.   They push us because they force us to examine ourselves.  OC does not realize that he is a difficult person, that he lacks respect, politeness, and social grace.  In his mind it is everyone else who is so difficult to live with.  It's like in The Sixth Sense except instead of dead people not knowing they're dead, an insufferable ass does not realize that he is just that.  When I think about OC a strong sense of aversion accompanies.  OC is wrong, and awful, and blah, blah, blah, so that must mean that Joseph is right, and awesome, and easy to live with, and in all respects wonderful.  On the contrary, what I see in OC that reviles me I must somehow see in myself.  For if I were not attached to this situation, I would not see fit to take the time to write a blog, or for that matter to feel angry, reviled, or indignity.  Difficult people are some of life's greatest teachers.  So for that, thank you OC.  I will not miss you when I move out, but hopefully I will take some hard earned wisdom with me.    

Keep it loose

"Sometimes we forget who we've got--Who they are, and who they are not."  Thus sings Amos Lee in the song "Keep it loose, Keep it tight."  Certainly not an Earth shatteringly insightful line of prose, but then again if we want cerebral displays of written virtuosity we read obscure poetry (that most of us cannot understand--myself included).  The poetry of every day life is most available in music.  I don't know about you but when I remember events from my life I sometimes have a sound track to play along with my mental movie.  When I just broke up with someone I felt that Ben Harper had written every line of "Walk Away" with me in mind.  "You're Body is a Wonderland" was in my head the first time I kissed a girl once.  If I hear that song I think back to standing at that doorway and think to myself "damn Joseph, good one."  Someone who is very important to me and who I love very much has decided on a course of action that I don't agree with.  To put it more personally, I feel disheartened, sad, worried.  This person is making blatantly bad decisions that I fear will put their own health at risk.  I'm fearing the worst.  What can I do?  If there is one thing that I have learned in my life, its that I have no control over this person.  I don't have control over any person really.  Really.  I've found that if you do try to control the thoughts, emotions, or actions of another person they don't like it.  More so, they resent you for it and thus begins a very unhappy circle.  A vicious circle so its called.  But we've all been there before.  You care about someone and when you look at them you see potential.  I think this is one of the wonderful things about love.  Ask my Mom about me and she will tell you all about my potential for greatness--and my inability to do the dishes or keep my room clean.  When I think of the aforementioned person that I love,  I see what is the best in them.  I see a sea of potential, many possibilities to contribute great things to the world.  But the question is "Does this person see it in themselves?"  I think most people know exactly what I'm talking about here.  How many of you have loved someone with a low self-esteem?  How many of us have watched people we love harm themselves?   It creates a helpless, sinking feeling for me.  And that brings me back to Amos Lee's song.  We forget who we've got because we only see who we want.  We don't know who they are because we so much want them to be somebody who fulfills our needs.  Relationships (or as Dane Cook refers to them--Relationshits) come to mind here.  I can't tell you how much grief I've caused myself by an inability to reconcile who a person is in real life with my idealized mental imagery of them.   I've had problems with reality.  I think lots of people have problems with reality.  It can be a real MoFo sometimes.  Reality is omnipresent regardless of our acceptance of it.  It's life's singular constant  The reality of my situation is that a person I love is doing things that make me afraid.  I'm afraid because I don't want to lose this person in my life.  I realize that this person cannot live up to the potential I see in them.  This person can't see through my eyes.  So all I can do is continue to pursue my goals and dreams and to keep on loving this person.  It's tough, but this is what is required in life.

Discovering San Francisco

As my time in Northern California is approaching its end ,I felt it was time to get busy visiting the places I had told myself I would explore before coming here.  I'll admit it, aside from some earlier hiking trips I did when I fist got up here, I have fallen into a bit of a rut--a rut in the couch.  It's just so easy to waste a day away watching hours of Battlestar Galactica on DVD, but I made up my mind this past week that it was time to get off my arse and actually do some exploring.  My list of places to visit included Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, The Redwood Forest, Monterrey, and San Francisco.  Usually it would not even be a choice--I would go with Yosemite.  I'm an outdoor guy.  Going to the mall--blah, going to REI--dangerous!  I quit going to REI "just to look around."  I would actually like to own a house some day to put all of that beautiful equipment in.  If you're like me you may think it absurd to spend $200 on Diesel jeans but think it perfectly rational to spend $300 on a Patagonia Gore-Tex shell or $150 on a pair of Vasque boots.  I understand John Muir and Henry Thoreau's obsession.  I finished Into the Wild the night before I first hiked into the Grand Canyon by myself.  I get it.  This time around, however, I opted for the big city experience.  You see, as much as I love hiking mountain trails and camping under the stars, it doesn't satisfy all aspects of my inner yearnings.  I crave diversity as well as natural beauty and for that San Francisco exceeded my expectations.  It is both a beautiful city and ethnically and culturally diverse.  Once I stepped off the bus at the Embarcadero the all out sensory assault filled me up with traveler's joy.  First thing I noticed was how people dressed.  I have not been to Europe yet , but the way a young, hip San Franciscan dresses is close to how I envision a European dresses.  Designer jeans, designer hair, lots of preppy sport coats, and either leather shoes or colored Converse All-Stars.  Noticing people's shoes made me acutely self-conscious of my own shoes.  I was wearing a tee shirt, cotton plaid shorts, and running sneakers with white socks.  As opposed to the European-esque San Frannies, my look was decidedly touristy.  I will say that at least I was not wearing a fanny-pack!  If my tourist garb was not a dead give away, the Frommer's guide book and laminate map of the city that I kept whipping out to study surely sold me.  I decided to let it go though because my rational mind assured me that no one was looking at me analyzing my dress.  The people of this city were all moving about with a purpose; people who all seemed busy to get where they needed to go.  The city street is kind of like an airport terminal--everyone walking fast, looking straight ahead, serious.  I could tell right away that I was going to like this place....

The Old Journal

My big accomplishment of the day was making it out to a coffee shop in Roseville. I drove for at least twenty minutes to Peete's Coffee & Tea (to escape the black hole of distraction and procrastination called my house), sat near a window and drank a mediocre brew while reading an old journal I kept as part of a school assignment.  I traveled to Turkey in 2005 as part of my college's inaugural study abroad program.  Traveling abroad is uncommon at community colleges so I recognized quite a golden opportunity to finally travel overseas.  A requirement of the course was to keep a journal of every day we were in Turkey  logging our day to day activities and making cultural and personal observations.  My journal was a simple composition notebook with the good old fashioned black and white cover.  It felt nice revisiting the memories of being a little younger and traveling in an exotic country with fine mates to make the whole thing loads of fun.  I was reminded of people who's faces have been filed away in some dusty, dark sulcus in my head.  Ah ha!  This is why they wanted us to journal.  Our memories are selective--we forget so easily and what gets remembered gets washed thoroughly by our sub conscience censor so as to be congruent with our sensibilities and needs.  When we read our journals though, we have an opportunity to see through the eyes of our former selves, jolting to life amnesic memories and if we're lucky, seeing how much differently we think and feel in the present.  As I read the pages of sloppy cursive, I was struck by the preoccupations of the content.  Ninety percent of all I wrote was pertaining to the new relationship I had just entered in to prior to the trip.  With all due respect to the feelings of the young man writing that journal, a lot of what he had to say struck me as naive and silly.  To think--there he was, walking the streets of the ancient world where Christian and Muslim cultures collided.  The Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, Egyptians, Seljuks.....their arts, their influence, could be seen everywhere.  All of this culture and history, and the adventure of the whole trip--being transplanted from his ordinary, routine, life in Delaware to Istanbul!  My writings were predominately about the obsessive, lusty, puppy-dog love I felt for a gal back home (who I'm happy to say is a good friend now.)  I managed to write a little bit about Turkish culture, and about the colorful group of people with whom I traveled.  All in all though--it wasn't enough.  As I read that journal now it strikes me how much more interesting it is reading about what I did in Turkey than about how I felt in a relationship.  The moral that I'm taking away from today is to make a point to write about the places I am visiting and the people I am meeting.  Become an expert observer and write, write, write!  And while observing my own feelings and commentating on relationships is useful and important, I know that it is important to detail profound experiences of education, culture, and travel, because feelings regarding this arena will most likely not change so much as those surrounding relationships.