True Serendipity Brightens My Mood.

I had a span of a few very rough days in the last week, and my head's been filled with a lot of unnecessary stress. It's probably not appropriate to post the details on the blog, but it's an instructive story about 'friendship' and dual relationships. Anyway, one of the ways I get through stuff like this is to tell myself that things come around and there's likely to be good moments coming soon. I don't know if I'd say I necessary believe in something as nebulous as 'karma', but it's certainly hard to deny the existence of luck. From a statistical perspective, I suppose you could just consider the law of averages. If you analyze the quality of your days, some of them are by necessity better than others.

So I felt like I had a good day (or at least part of one) coming. Lo and behold, I've had a great start today. When I was scanning the internet to find things to do this weekend, I expanded my search to a few areas of Craigslist that I don't normally frequent. I looked at the upcoming garage and estate sales in the area, and found a listing that seemed intriguing. The description seemed to suggest a more discriminating taste, and I marked it down as a must-see. M. woke me up early today and we decided to hit this address first. I made my way through the streets of the indicated neighborhood, and found myself ascending into a small subsection where I had never been before.

The house was modest, and I had moderate hopes that I'd find something I could use. There were a lot of family members hanging about, and they were very welcoming. I saw lots of jazz CDs and picture frames. There were plenty of pairs of shoes and leather jackets. But there wasn't anything I had to have. I wandered into the basement to have a look, and browsed through some book shelves. There were lots of volumes on theater and some on photography. I was impressed at the sophistication of the collection, and had an intuition of promise. My feeling was fulfilled dramatically when I found an early Charles Bukowski title that I didn't recognize. I knew I'd buy it immediately.

It was called It Catches My Heart in its Hands. I have a number of Bukowski's works in their Black Sparrow editions, but I had never seen this particular book around. I went upstairs to pay for it, and the lady who took my money couldn't figure out whether to consider it a paperback ($1) or an oversize ($2). She opened up the front cover and said, "How nice... it's even signed." My heart came up to my throat for a second as I feared that she would not want to sell it. She suggested $3, and I told her to take the entire five bucks that I held out to her. She was delighted- "How sweet of you!". I smiled and walked out of the house and started to shake a bit. It wasn't until I got to my car that I took a real close look at what I had.

My new treasure was handcrafted, signed, and part of an edition of 777. The signature (in silver ink) reads "Charles Bukowski 8-2-63". It was produced by Jon and "Gypsy Lou" Webb (Loujon Press), who published an avant-garde literary magazine out of New Orleans called The Outsider. Apparently Bukowski made their acquaintance while he lived briefly in Tucson, AZ. After Jon Webb made a particularly successful trip to Las Vegas, he used his winnings to produce this exquisite collection of poetry. It really is remarkable, and I had a feeling that it was quite valuable. When I got home I Googled it and had that feeling confirmed beyond my expectations. Now all of a sudden I'm in a good mood and feeing very fortunate.