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o frabjous day, callooh callay

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2014.12.08

Today started out with a prescription for antibiotics, but ended with a giant bag of free wooden train stuff. As I was trudging home from a car dealership I came upon a fellow hauling the bag to the curb. Spotting the wooden rails, I asked, incredulously, if he were dumping them there (just before garbage day). He told me I was free to take them if I wanted them. Did I want what seemed to be several hundred dollars of unbranded (woohoo!) wooden tracks - including several large bridge pieces? I carried the bag about 1-1.5km on my head. Heavy. The Boy is still playing with the set (under the Christmas tree) as I write this.

Three good things that happened today:

  1. I met The Amazing Atwood at a store at lunch time; we'd jointly walked about three kilometers to meet by chance.
  2. The car dealer knocked another $600 off his asking price today, bringing the cash discount on a new car to $4,100. These Kia people are really driven to sell new cars.
  3. I replaced my inhaler that expired in 2011. Farewell daily cycling companion.

Three reasons to be thankful:

  1. Knowing you have a bronchial infection is half the battle!
  2. Well, that plus some meds.
  3. The toys were clean (if a few pieces broken) and free of mold, bugs, and ****.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner