As if I could forget Bloomsday! Although, in the midst of GI panic (oh, that could be taken soooo many ways…), I did overlook it during Dublin time…it’s only appropriate that I remember our Joycian hero as I go over my slides on alcoholic liver disease, to which I really need to return. Still one of my favorites:
— Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it’s the opposite of that that is really life.
— What? Says Alf.
— Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred.
James Joyce, Ulysses
Best. Protagonist. Ever.
God. It’s hard to imagine that there was a time not so long ago when my “work” was reading. I need to remind myself of all the reasons that wasn’t personally fulfilling: I want to be a doctor. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a doctor…
By that I mean: I would be privileged for the opportunity to one day serve others as their physician. And, for the record, I think Leopold Bloom would have been an excellent one, so maybe I’ll be a better physician for having hacked my way through Ulysses.
Four days.
What about Buck Mulligan?