Thou Shalt Not Be Delusional

Clearly the missing 11th Commandment.

Corollaries:

1. Thou shalt not consider thyself a poker genius in an unwarranted fashion.
2. Thou shalt not throw good emotional energy after bad pining after young hotties.

Why are the obvious things so hard to do?

Tall

I am a tall woman. Not super-tall, but almost 5 foot 10.

It's not a lot of fun being a tall woman. I genuinely believe that the contours of my life would have been noticeably different if I were 3 inches shorter. The combination of my personality and my physical presence add up to a more intimidating bundle than warranted, I think.

And, let's face it, the shorter gentlemen generally won't give a tall gal the time of day. Having said that, only one of the men I've had a long-term relationship with was actually taller than I. The majority were my height or slightly shorter.

I think I've also commented in the past about my theory that, on average, shorter men are better-looking (objectively) than tall men. The idea is that natural selection of mates tends to favor the tall male, but good looks can overcome that bias. I'm apparently so persuaded of this theory, unconsciously, than when I see a really good-looking man seated on the other side of a room, I assume he's shorter than average. (This, by the way, despite the fact that my brother is a very handsome fellow, and 6' 4".)

All of which is to say that when I first spotted the dazzling Mr. UC, I just immediately assumed he wasn't very tall. His evident youth probably contributed to that impression. (Young people are all short, aren't they? LOL) He's also pretty seriously muscled up, which I see more on the shorter guys (gymnasts, wrestlers, and the like).

But he's not short. He's TALL.

When we hugged the other night I was wearing my clogs and I was surprised to discover that he was still taller than me, though not by much. What a curious sensation.

So so confused.

Okay, explain this to me.

So, like a sensible human being, I've totally written off Mr. WPY. Done. Off the table, out of mind, etc. I am in a positively self-congratulatory mood about this accomplishment (despite the previously mentioned slide into outside-the-pan fire). This is one thing, I think, that I can feel good about.

Right.

Well, so why does Mr. WPY have to call me last night?
And why does it evolve that we will actually have dinner out together next Thursday (to talk poker strategy, of course)?
Why, when all is said in done, is he acting like someone who takes an interest in me?

Because he's nice. No other reason.

Right? Right?

Discipline

This is what discipline in small stakes poker looks like:



I was determined to start fresh and do it right. I deposited $50 on Pokerstars and am grinding $1.20 sit-n-goes. I reached my first major milestone this afternoon, having managed to double my bankroll in 224 games. Currently, my ROI is running at about 25%. When I double my roll again, to $200, I'll move up a level.

Mind, blown.

"I'm bipolar."

I'm sitting across the felt from the beautiful boy. We've been playing heads-up for fun. He's told me about his job and about his climbing class. I've told him about his tell (when he has a good hand, his eyes twinkle with a genuine smile).

"I tried to commit suicide multiple times," says Mr. UC. "I'm under a psychiatrist's care."

He's told me that learning new things comes easily to him, but that he knows that to really dig deep you have to study, and he doesn't always do that. I know exactly what he means. We are talking about poker, but also about everything else (which is one of the things that poker is good for, actually).

"I tried Prozac before, but it messed me up. My doctor is looking into other options now." I had asked about medication. I commented that it was good he liked to exercise. "I used to be addicted to exercise, I was a power lifter, but to the point of injuring myself. That's why I do the yoga. I also used to drink too much, I was addicted; I don't drink at all now. I don't play poker for money, it's dangerous for me."

I asked him if he had a support system.

"No."

Without thinking about it, I said, "You do now." I reached into my purse and pulled out a business card, wrote my cell phone number on it, and gave it to him.

"I come from a family of means. But they're no good at the emotional stuff." I told him that I didn't come from a family of means, but that mine weren't all that hot with the emotional stuff either.

A little later the main game was over, and it was time to call it a night. He gave me a hug and left.

Oh. My. God.

Suddenly I am transported six or so years back in time. I was smitten with J, the lovely young man who had periodically tried to destroy himself, and with whom I continue to have a bond of friendship, even all this time later. My mother had died not long before, I had been through a series of very stressful events in my professional and personal life, and I was in love with a totally inappropriate person who didn't love me back. I had hit bottom, and I sought therapy and medication. I worked hard at it and it helped.

I made progress; I was doing better.

Here I am, now, years later, after a similar series of stresses. And it's all happening all over again. Irony of ironies, I had actually called my old therapist last week to try and set up an appointment; she called me this morning to give me a referral, as she is about to retire. Looks like I'll have to start over with somebody new. But I definitely have to get myself back in the therapy saddle, because this shit is off the hook.

Here's the thing: at the moment I gave him my card, I actually committed myself to what I said. I am incapable of not following through, if it should come to that. The healer in me won't let me abdicate. I will have to find a way to help him, if he asks me for help. I can and will be a friend, if he wants me to be one. And somehow, I'll have to do that despite the fact that every time I look at him I want to touch him. A lot.

I feel like I've just signed up for my very own special Sisyphean hell.

So far, so good

For once, the cash game has been good to me. First earned enough for the Showboat tourney buy-in. Then, after busting out of that, I won it back again, plus enough more for tomorrow's Ladies event. I'm stoked: except for travel & lodging (so far), I'm now freerolling.

Sweet!

Wish me luck; I'd like to go really deep this time.

The Truth Hurts (and is funny)

Anyone who has participated in a certain category of online forum, will appreciate the humor of this. It is Not Safe for Work, however.

Utterly Wrong, Again

I am an idiot.

Those of you who have been following along will have realized this long ago. Frankly, I know this. I do. Really. But sometimes I temporarily forget and I require the virtual equivalent of being smacked in the head with a 2 x 4 to be reminded of it. Which I was this past week.

Mr. WPY has a girlfriend. He does. She bakes brownies. Which he brings to the game to share. Mr. WPY is a nice guy, and that's all there is to it. That is all there has ever been to it. The talks, the email, the text messages: just niceness. End of story.

I should probably have that tattooed on my forehead, backwards, so that I'll see it in the mirror every day.

It might stop me, for example, from blithely moving from the frying pan into the fire, as I seem to have done in the last few days as a result of absorbing the aforementioned 2 x 4 smack to the head.

Allow me to introduce a new character in my ever growing line-up of Pascale's Inappropriate Objects of Attention: Mr. UC.

Mr. Unbelievably Cute is another poker player, new on the scene. I can't even stand to think about how old he might be, because I would have to gouge my eyes out if I knew. (Paging Mrs. Jocasta Oedipus.) Now, bear with me here. When I say "cute," I mean really, really cute.

How can I properly put this in perspective for you? Let's see...

AF is very handsome.
Mr. WPY is good looking.
Mr. UC is AF multiplied by Mr. WPY plus about a hundred million. Give or take a few.

Mr. UC is the kind of beautiful male who must be the object of advances from gay men just as often as he attracts straight women. (He has made it clear he dates women, not men.) He is extremely personable and charming, with a seductive personality that is probably a good match with his career in (I gather) sales. It is hard to imagine how he could be more attractive, as he is also very fit and ~ as a practitioner of Hot Yoga ~ apparently also exceedingly flexible (sigh).

He's a huge flirt, and seems to have taken an interest in me, for reasons that escape me entirely. But seriously, I could eat this boy with a spoon.

Which brings us full circle to where we started: I am an idiot. (Bring on the 2 x 4.)

Great Features, Stupid Limitation

Like a good little Apple fangirl, I promptly updated my iPhone to 1.1.3, and happily and quickly customized my home screen(s), added webclip icons (including making a custom one for THIS blog, check it out you iPhoners!), and thrilled to the *reasonably* accurate location finder in Maps.

Software updates: yay!

But. As we speak I'm downloading a rental of The Simpsons Movie. I'll load it up on my iPhone so that I'll have something to watch on my bus ride to AC this weekend if I get bored of listening to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me while the scenery rolls by. The catch is that once I start watching it, I have to finish watching it within 24 hours. So, for example, I can't watch half the movie on my way out of town and the other half on the way back.

THAT IS JUST STUPID. Let me repeat: the 24 hour window to watch a rental that is available for 30 days is STUPID. In case I failed to be quite clear: this restriction is DUMB, IDIOTIC, and downright BRAINDEAD.

I cannot see how this limitation solves any concern that either Apple or the movie studios might have about piracy. It's just pointless. And aggravating.

Nihil nisi bonum

I just spent about twenty minutes on the phone talking with the obituary writer for the Boston Globe. I surprised myself by being able to hold forth expansively and positively about my father and his life as an artist and a husband.

The obit writer was a lovely guy, with just the right pitch in eliciting information and expressing sympathy. I imagine that writing obituaries is a fascinating and rewarding job for a person with the sensibility for it. I think I'll hunt around for some of his other work.

When we were finishing up, he asked me if I wouldn't mind saying what I did for a living. I told him. He said, "That's interesting. You're an unusually eloquent speaker." At which point I thanked him and mumbled something about a fondness for words.

This telephone conversation was the most rewarding interaction concerning my father I can remember since... well, maybe EVER.

And you shall know us by our trail of tears...

Or, in the case of my sister and me, by our shopping binges and casino visits, respectively.

My sister's reaction to the experience of attending my Dad's cremation was to go berserk with retail shopping. Generally, she keeps to thrift stores and is very frugal. On Tuesday, she hit up half a dozen mall stores, spending like a fiend (to the point where her credit card company later contacted her to ensure she wasn't a fraud victim). I kept her company for a couple of hours, but I couldn't get psyched up for that particular brand of fun, and eventually left her to her own devices.

I, of course, went off to the Sandia Casino to play poker for four hours. Fortunately, I had a good session (not card dead or hideously outdrawn, for once). I more than doubled up my buy-in at 1-2 no limit.

Since returning home on Wednesday I've been exhausted and wrung out and spectacularly unproductive. I also managed to be unnecessarily snarky as my siblings debated the contents of the death notice. Apparently, I have issues. Who woulda thunk it?

I would also like to note that the user experience of cremation (for mourners, of course, not the deceased) is appallingly bad. This is the second time I've been through it, and I was once again outraged by how awful it was.

Your last experience of a loved one should not include someone dressed in shabby janitorial clothing. It should not involve machines that look like they more properly belong in a Nazi concentration camp or an execution chamber on death row.

While I'm sure there are some engineering and safety issues to be dealt with, there is simply NO EXCUSE for how poorly this extremely significant moment in vulnerable people's lives is handled.

It made me quite angry, and reminded me how put off I'd been by a similar experience at my Mom's cremation. I wonder if there are "high end" cremation facilities that manage to do this better. Because there is a lot of room for improvement.

Again

Proof positive that I'm a slow learner. Or perhaps not a learner at all.

We had a poker game on New Year's Day. There I was seated at a table with Mr. WPY. I'm looking at him and I observe that he has kind of a French Resistance thing going on ~ at least a couple of day's worth of stubble.

And I think: well of course, like many people he's had several days off work.

And then I think: that's not the face of a man who spent a romantic New Year's Eve with his girlfriend. That is the face of a man who has been batching it.

Maybe she was out of town with her family. Or something.

Despite what seemed an unusual vibe when he showed me one of his card tricks (it was good, too) last week, I was not going to go there. Despite being nostalgic for the conversation, I was resolved not to go there, to refrain from trying to reconnect beyond the poker table.

So try to imagine how I felt, early on Friday evening, still reeling from the news a few hours earlier of my father's death, when my cell phone rang and it was Mr. WPY wanting to know whether I would be at the game. He hadn't seen any response from me on the evite, he said (it was there).

I did play one game Friday night (ridiculous, I was in no shape for it, and I was the fish). As I was about to leave he stood in my way and opened his arms. He murmured sympathy in my ear.

And, just like that, two months of carefully constructed mental barriers crashed and burned.

God how I miss him.

To Albuquerque

I've decided I need to be present for my Dad's cremation; it's not right to have my sister deal with it alone. I'm flying to Albuquerque this evening, and will return on Wednesday.

Gone

My father died at 9:30 am this morning in Albuquerque, NM. My sister says she was told his passing was swift and painless, as he sat at the breakfast table.

I am stunned by how upset I am by this. I expected to feel nothing but relief. Remember, I prayed for his death. Instead, my heart is aching, I am weeping, and I am very, very sad.

Look at that picture. That man was younger then than I am now. He really enjoyed infants and toddlers; I was still wonderful in his eyes at that age. I wish I could have had a conversation with that guy. We have a lot in common, it turns out.

There will be no holding hands and singing kumbaya, ever, in this life. What a shame.

Happy New Year!

May 2008 bring you light and abundant life!