I'm beginning to think I've been reading too much lately- it seems like after a while, it begins to mess with your head. Lately the reading list has been pretty trippy- first up was Haruki Murakami's After Dark, which is a strange story about a night in Tokyo, but very good- highly impressionistic, if you're into that kind of book. (and I am, so bully for me). Next up was The Hot Jazz Trio, by another perennial favorite, William Kotzwinkle. It's actually three stories, and I became thoroughly engrossed in the first one, Django Reinhardt Played The Blues. It actually does center more or less around the famous guitarist, who, along with a singer, magician's assistant, an opium fiend poet and the magician himself, have a nasty tendency to exit this plane of existence and pop up on another one. They are attempting to rescue the magician's assistant, who has been abducted by the magician's large wooden cabinet, which he uses to make his assistant disappear. Of course, she's supposed to reappear, which in this case does not happen. The cabinet, it turns out, has, after countless nights of having the assistant hide in the box, fallen in love with her. So he (the box is more or less male) whisks her away to an alternate world and manages to soften her heart a little bit, although perhaps it could never work out. I haven't finished the story yet, so we'll have to see.
In other news, I took the preliminary or practice ASVAB test for the Army- results were pretty good, though I think I could have done better with a little preparation. Which is good, because I have a week to study for the real test. Actually, it's more along the lines of an aptitude test, trying to determine what a recruit would be best suited for. My lady friend often likes to point out that I'm smart. I appreciate this, although wonder if she realizes she is probably my intellectual equal. There is a good deal more to intelligence than being smart, and I find she has insight and understanding she perhaps doesn't give herself enough credit for. But nonetheless, I know I'm smart, but have no interest in bragging about it. Rather, I would much prefer to put it to practical use, which so far I have managed to do on occasion. Intelligence without direction seems to be the plague on my house, as it were.
But that's my intent as of late- to find what I'm good at, and do that. I can drive a truck, which is hopefully to be my MOS- Military Occupational Specialty- when I finish basic training, assuming I do enlist. (The Army does love their acronyms). After basic training is AIT- Advanced Individual Training, meaning they train you for your MOS. (See what I mean about the acronyms?) At any rate, I'm looking forward to the test- my recruiting sergeant seems less like a recruiter and more like a vocational counselor. I know there is really nothing guaranteed, as any job offer is conditional upon the needs of service, or what the Army needs you to do, but I am nonetheless optimistic- the test is designed to tell me where my aptitudes lie, and to hopefully make a good fit between recruit and position. I've been behind the wheel before, in trucking school, and found that I love driving these monsters, even the clunky old seven-speed with the shot clutch. I was a good student, missing my license last time on a technicality. The test went well, I completed the maneuvers quite well, and took the truck out on the road. The truck we were using on the test was not the regular one used for testing- rather, that truck had to go into the shop for repairs. It had a broken tachometer, which no one really uses anyway, but the state exam says it needs to be working. At any rate, the new truck, it turns out, had a burned-out clutch from overuse. So, as we all know, a burned-out clutch renders a vehicle driveable, but with a tendency to grind the gears. True, there is a way to shift without the clutch, but keep in mind, this truck is older than dirt, and secondly, I hadn't handled it in a good month- the other truck I could probably have pulled it off with, as the shifting had by this point become second nature to me. So, I failed the test on the driving portion of it- for grinding gears. Define irony- if the tachometer that I don't use anyway hadn't let go on the other truck, I would have passed, because the clutch on that truck was fine. But we must keep our heads up- every mistake is an opportunity to learn.
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