Happy Bloomsday. And Father’s Day, too, I suppose.

One thing I got from James Joyce’s Ulysses was that every day is a long, miraculous trek, no matter how mundane. It’s a wonder that it passes at all. Nothing exceptional really happens in Ulysses, it reads like a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, but it feels exceptional. Even the use of language feels exceptional. And why shouldn’t it? Communication is just as much of a miraculous trek. The amount of effort that goes into speaking a single utterance and transmitting all the information that goes along with that utterance can be dissected for a lifetime. My guess is this plays into Joyce’s strange use of language, and his decision to model a day after the mythical Ulysses’ 10 year journey. Life is as strange as we allow it to be.

At least, that seemed to be the point to me. If there was a point at all. I’d be curious to hear what others’ who’ve read it think.