The Black Irish, Consiigliore

"The blind stripling did not answer. His wallface frowned weakly.  He moved his head uncertainly."--James Joyce, Ulysses, p 165

Typical of cognitive brain density limitations, getting bluCigs down, the timing, charging, and usage, this is no easy feat, but I have the basics. It simulates real inhalation better when the battery and atomizer are fresh, but should not be held in the mouth like the simple Aero. I do not have the discretionary income to keep myself amply supplied with both, but freely confess I do not have the physiological strength to break dependence on nicotine's narcotic grip. When I cramp due to withdrawal, my mobility is further impaired, never mind my psyche, and stress. All that is an extension of my existence is my small personal library, my bylines and the detritus of my intellect striven against a poverty that flakes my emotions like brittle mica. That's it. Nothing else defines me. Dead felines die with me, and I have no idea what Google's policy is on memoriam accounts, as Google may freely do what it wishes with its services. I have never had my own place, or a husband, a family, a home, my own furnishings. Objects in the Jamesian sense, far and very few between. Is this what bothers you about my foray into difference, and its macabre insinuations?

I wonder. This studio is devoid. A tangle of wires and not enough outlets. Obsolescent electronic devices. Bins of dead letter bills entitlements, cheap cat toys, thick and outdated telephone directories used as antenna props. I should be reading for group, but the kindle is charging, and so I am here, in time honored Dickensonian fashion, I am going to work for mio padre, in a vain attempt to offset illustrious destitution while my seventy-eight year old progenitor still lives, pondering my antipathy to Joyce. It may have something to do with Jerry's driving energy for the destructive correspondences, and the Joycean gamesmanship, which I don't like even while appreciating, which is curious, since all modernists have some national pathos at play. That which James deploys turns my stomach, however. I haven't written much about the museum where I participate in these activities, as opposed to writing around it, due to my column, but it is not quite Upstairs Downstairs so much as brimming with dialectical tensions, and the black security guards who patrol in residence wear a look of perplexity:

"Are you Jewish?"
"No Italian."

And I am studying Irish literature, white welfare trash under the auspices of a sometimes intolerant black urban city state, watching those beholden to MLK's lack of content in character spin their wheels. Ho ho ho and a bottle of rum.