#298

Well, my test was not a success. Didn't get too far before a silly mistake that I could have corrected failed me right out! This time I had the parking brake on during the air brake leak test, which is no good, and any mistakes in your brake test fail you outright. Miserable! Foolish! Ah, the pain of an actual fail is so much more searing than a practice fail. Well, I can try again on Tuesday, and I have promised the tester a perfect test at that time. And by gum, I shall deliver!

Dang, man, though. Fuck. Would have preferred to pass. That would have been preferable, to me. But, as my tester said basically immediately--everything happens for a reason. I believed this as a child, then I doubted it, then unequivocally held that nothing happens for any reason, and eventually I came to believe once more that every particle in the universe is exactly where it needs to be for all time. I did not proceed with my test and pass it today, and the consequences of that will affect my life and the life of those around me such that years from now, I will look back and say "None of this would have happened if I'd passed my test right away. Thank God. I say Yes to this life with an obstinate joy. Do you hear me, demon? A stubborn, relentless joy, a firm and clear and uncompromising Yes!"

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Ha! Feel better already. Also, we got plenty more moving done. Still a lot to do, but life changes so fast all the time, and people are always doing everything they can to make it faster and faster--annoyances it may contain, but this slow-burn move has its beauties and advantages, as well. 

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Ezra just came up to me and showed me that someone is selling my books at a higher price than the one I set. Through eBay! Couldn't really care less about the money angle or whatever. Any angle. Guess I hope they do a better job than me? I mean, it is barely possible to do worse. Also the seller is very obviously a bot.

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Looking back at this post--and my life--I get the sense about myself as a terrible letdown to my family, especially in times/cultures with exacting expectations regarding the product of family units. I have fun imagining myself falling pretty neatly into the a Japanese stereotype of dudes like me. A disgrace, but not like, the worst conceivable disgrace. A faintly amusing, mostly harmless, embarrassing failure--"Gakkari shita chōnan. So fortunate for the parents that there followed other sons, better sons, sons who did not squander their promise."

Drifter mindset, drifting life. Head in the clouds, buried in books, lost in space. I may have mentioned before that at an overnight camp, I was given the nickname "The Wandering Fetus". And, well, yes. To offset this, I've done my best to work hard and at the very least not be a freeloader or a burden, and tried hard to do right and be a support to those around me, when I wasn't drunk off my nutsack or letting the devil take it all.

So it goes! Peace out and give head, good people. Or don't! Your choices are your own.

--JL