I suppose it may be a karmic reflection of my undue love for books that book exchanges never work for me. For some, for example, bookcrossing.com is a miraculous way of living. For me, clever books left at random at really cool locales are never found. Of course, I owe a mailing of my chapbook to a kind and patient person even as we speak, so I will remedy that this weekend. I do not believe in karma in the way it is presented to me in books, but I like the vaguely karmic idea of "do something right before you criticize something wrong"
except, I suppose, to be truly karmic, it would be "if you criticize something wrong before doing something right, then the undone things you omit will become the wrongs you dread most" or maybe "the bee stings harder when the skin has the delight of evil in its folds". Well, maybe not. I do like the Burmese expression, "do not tread on a heap of thorns because you have faith in your karma".
My blitz chess rating still hovers around 1500, but never quite crosses up to 1600. My remixes on ccmixter seem to end up at 3.8 stars out of 5 consistently. There is a price to pay for mediocrity, and that price is 100 rating points, or even 1.2 stars.
But today I am getting exercise, so that I can face the coming week with calm, serenity, and compassion.