Yes, these glamourpusses are my siblings

So tired

Another fun-filled day. Back-breaking sifting through artwork. Familial sturm und drang.

I did have lunch with lifelong friend J., which was a bright spot in my day.

Tomorrow is the memorial service and reception. I hope to get through it in one piece. For an admitted control-freak such as myself, it is difficult to sit back and let other people run things ~ especially if I would have handled them much differently (and better! Of course! :P).

I am trying to detach, detach, detach. Yeah. Wish me luck with that.

(Two days of no poker whatsoever. It's fine, but ~ you know ~ I wouldn't mind a game.)

Thank God for Alcohol

Anybody who knows me knows that I'm not much of a drinker. But frankly the two extremely strong Gibsons I had with dinner tonight in the bosom of my family were ~ how shall I say? ~ sanity preservers. It's been a rough day.

I don't know what it is about my childhood environment that prompts such a strong reaction, but combined with another delve into the parental legacy - well let's say I was pretty much an emotional basket-case by mid-afternoon.

Goddam I can't wait for this to be over.

The Mini-Hearse

I have long maintained that a flaw of Chrysler's otherwise quite successful design for the PT Cruiser is that it looks remarkably like a hearse from the rear.

I'm now in Boston for my Dad's memorial service.

My rental car?
The PT Cruiser.

In black.

Donkeys 'R' Us

PokerStars $3 6-max turbo SNGs. Enough said.

I have never experienced so many bad beats in a row in my life. People making terrible calls and getting sickeningly lucky.

They are morons, and I'm unbelievably aggravated.

It is quite possible that a largely poker-free week will be good for me.

Oh, and predictably...

The moment I'm happily distracted away from my infatuation with Mr. WPY, he emerges from the woodwork and starts peppering me with chatty emails.

I'll see him tomorrow (actually today) evening, at our regular Tuesday game. Whilst conversing with him, I will strive to retain the sense-memory of sunwarmed rock at my back and kisses with lots of tongue, administered by someone else altogether, at the forefront of my mind.

I hope the contrast will prove salutary.

A Dab of Culture

I went with TH to Hamlet and enjoyed it very much. I was reminded once again of the onion-layered depth of genius that was William Shakespeare. He gave our language so many words and phrases that are embedded beyond memory; it's wonderful to hear them again, freshly, in their original context.

He gave us the introspective anti-hero. He gave us characters and plots and verbal music so rich and sophisticated that the possibilities for meaningful variant interpretation and presentation are essentially endless.

Every time I see a live play or concert I'm struck by how incredibly "fed" I feel by the experience. I should do it much more often.

And now for the bad news...

The prospective employer did not get the government contract. No job for me. It sucks, but there's nothing to be done about it.

I'm flying to Boston on Wednesday to deal with family stuff for about a week, including my father's Memorial Service. I am not looking forward to it.

Gritting teeth, hoping for the best.

I am Cougar, Hear Me Roar

Life is an interesting proposition. I don't think any bookmaker would have given you accurate odds on the outcome of my Memorial Day weekend. That said, I do like a surprise.

Another marathon night at Casa Benito. I was a shameless flirt (why? because I could be). The eventual upshot of which was two of us making out like teenagers on a rocky promontory overlooking the Potomac at 10 AM in glorious sunlight. "Fun" doesn't even BEGIN to cover it.

Vegas Boy. Go figure.

I think you would all very much enjoy the cat-ate-canary grin on my face. And considering the week I have coming up, I'll take all the goodies I can get right now, thank you very much.

And again

I am insane.

The sooner I am gainfully employed the better, because otherwise I will start doing this for a living. And nobody wants that (except maybe me).

I have once again qualified for a Main Event satellite, this coming Saturday. What in God's name will I do if I actually win a seat?

Oops, I did it again

Up all night, playing poker with da DC boyz ~ after cashing in my usual Tuesday night A-league game. I haven't laughed so hard and so long in ages. Truly an intensely entertaining evening. And it does my self-esteem no harm whatsoever to play great poker and actually be admired for it. (Second marriage proposal over a poker table. Heh.)

I have now befriended a young man ~ hereafter to be known as Vegas Boy ~ who is seriously planning to move to Las Vegas and play poker for a living. It should be interesting following his progress (and hey, I may have a free place to crash next time I visit).

How I'm ever going to catch up on my sleep is a whole 'nother problem. Oh well!

HIJACKED!

I don't know if you'll ever read this, if you're trying to get here via wager.pascalesoleil.com. Sometime between midnight and 7 AM this morning my domain name, which was up for renewal today, seems to have been hijacked.

I am hoping and praying that I'll be able to get it back. It has become very dear to me over the last few years. I am feeling horribly distressed that it is at risk.

For the record: pascalesoleil.com BELONGS TO ME. I will fight for it tooth and nail.

[Update: It looks like we're back! Thank god. Fingers crossed.]

And I was so thrilled...

I received a text message from Mr. WPY that there was a multimedia message awaiting me on a website. I go looking for it and see something that clearly is SUPPOSED to be a movie, but is just a still frame with his smiling face in it.

Now he tells me, via SMS, that there are supposed to be monkeys in it. I have no idea what this may mean.

I was all excited about the notion that there was a special message for me me me. Alas, a little investigation made it clear that he sent the same message to 7 other people as well.

Bah. I want to be SPECIAL.

My Life in Poker

Thursday I take second in my B League, scoring some decent dinero. I remain points leader for the quarter (by one).

Friday, I play in a cash game. All night. Again. Only overlap in the cast of characters is TH. I had much fun and I made a bunch o' money. (I add yet another inappropriately young man to my roster ~ I shall dub him Mr. XM. Heh. Score one for the first marriage proposal I've ever received over a poker table. I expect to be invited back often; the boys simply can't believe they got beaten up so badly by a girl. Good news for moi.)

Saturday, I play two tourneys with my A league, and place 3rd in the first game. Break even for the night (minus the cost of gas to Manassas).

And finally, finally I claw may way back to over $400 on Pokerstars, after suffering just an endless series of setbacks at the $5 +.50 tables.

The only bad news, really: I'm pining for Mr. WPY and couldn't keep myself from texting him yesterday. He answered virtually instantly, but there's no way he's pining for me the way I'm pining for him.

Unequal pinage: not a good thing.

Entitlement

Words to live by.

You are not entitled to play bad just because they are playing bad. You are not entitled to tilt on the grounds that anyone would tilt after the terrible luck you've had. You are not entitled to play a marginal hand as a reward for folding correctly before the flop many times in a row. You are not entitled to call all the way when you are beat, just because you have a big pair in the hole. And no matter how good you play, or how bad they play, you are not entitled to win. If you have time and money, you are entitled to a seat at the table. That is all.

~ Elements of Poker, by Tommy Angelo, p. 75

Women are Insane Too

Proving this point, I have invited TH to join me (and others TBD) for the outdoor performance of Hamlet at Carter Barron a week from Friday. He has accepted. The tickets are free to me, courtesy of my church'n'gym friend O, and there are several more available.

I'm now thinking I might try to make it a trifecta. How entertaining would it be if I managed to get Mr. Actuary and Mr. WPY along for this cultural experience as well? Oh the contrasts! The ironies! The worlds colliding!

The evil girl in me is already plotting to see if she can make this happen.

And, in conclusion:

Men are insane.

Mr. Actuary called me twice today (at around 5 pm and then at about 11 pm) to try to get me to come out to play. Fortunately, I'd decided to cross the river to Virginia, where I could play cards for free AND eat fabulous chiles poblanos (molé sauce, FTW!).

Okay, maybe he's not insane, he just thinks of me as "poker buddy par excellence." Or something.

Nah. I detect the agenbite of inwit.

Too bad for you, Mr. Actuary! You have unimpressed me.

In which I throw in the towel

Yeah, I'm an idiot. I watched Mr. Actuary pick up and proceed to make out with (at the table!) a tiny European creature last night. He left with her rather than play the late-night cash game. It must be love. :P

Last Thursday, Mr. WPY and I had a perfectly lovely time chatting over dinner and playing shuttleboard with our usual cheerful competitiveness. No romance there at all. He's off to Vegas this weekend for 4 days on a work-related junket. In our host's kitchen last night, with a couple of other people present, he allowed as how there was an extra bed in his room if anyone wanted a free hotel stay while he was there. I then actually performed an experiment where I wandered aimlessly into an empty, neighboring room to see if he would follow me. He did. (WTF?)

I guess I've made a new friend, TH, the host of last week's overnight extravaganza. He seems like a genuinely nice guy. His apartment was littered with moving boxes and left-over baby paraphernalia. I gather from Mr. Actuary that his wife/girlfriend & baby are departed. I didn't ask him about it, as I think this comes under the heading of "Likely Sore Subject." The only things I know for sure about him are that he has good taste in music (a Cecilia Bartoli fan, for example) and he is willing to have breakfast with me after an all-nighter. (He is, however, the only person I've ever seen fall asleep ~ for 5 seconds only ~ literally in the middle of a sentence, sitting up at a restaurant table. Most amusing!)

I wore a dress last night; this is apparently enough to enflame the interest of smarmy men I find totally unappealing. One particular lothario informed me that I looked like Jamie Lee Curtis, "only cuter." He proceeded to stare at my chest and make pay-attention-to-me remarks until I felted him without mercy. He kissed the hand I proffered for him to shake upon his demise. Ew.

Is there some unwritten law of the universe that says I must be pursued by creeps and overlooked by gems? Bah!

Degenerate Behavior

No trip to AC. The logistics proved too challenging for this week. (Which is fine.) It remains to see whether it will be rescheduled.

In the meantime, I actually stayed up all night playing a cash game with Mr. Actuary and some others, which was insanely fun. Clearly, once I re-enter the normal working world, this sort of behavior will not be an option. I am getting my ya-yas out, and I intend to enjoy it while I can.

Last night's A league game found me seated, once again, next to Mr. WPY at the final table. I am now quite clear that there is an approach-retreat pattern in effect. The cooler I am, the more he engages. (Boys are silly.) He has, however, agreed to play in Thursday's extracurricular tournament, and we'll probably eat dinner together beforehand.

I am resolved in both cases to apply the key lesson I have learned from poker: play your best game, have fun, and don't be results-oriented. I look forward to achieving the attitude of insouciant shamelessness that is the reward for living long enough.

Recent results

On Thursday, I won my B league tourney.

On Friday, I was third in the first game of the evening in my A league.

And I took down my second WSOP-series game tonight. But because of the stupid misconceived points structure, I missed qualifying for a share of the substantial prize pool by 2 points. It was a moral victory but, aside from the first place money for tonight's game, a financial failure. I'm rather pissed about it, and I'm disappointed that the guy who squeaked into 4th didn't even make a token gesture of sharing the prize money. If I were in his shoes, I certainly would have.

Then I went and made even more money in the cash game at the home of my prospective new team leader/boss.

This is all some consolation for the apparent doomswitch that I'm laboring to overcome online at Pokerstars.

Y'all know I can play me some poker.

The Dark Horse

Well now.

I do believe that of the contenders mentioned in a previous post, the one that has gotten the least press is the likely finisher. (Horse race metaphor brought to you courtesy of the Kentucky Derby.)

Quel surprise!

I just rummaged through previous posts to see if I'd mentioned the guy I've dubbed "Mr. Actuary" (a complete misnomer, but it'll do for now) before. Apparently not.

Which is odd. In fact, I'm quite baffled. It seems impossible that I haven't mentioned him even in passing one time.

I've known him as long as Mr. WPY; in fact, we met at the same venue. I've played numerous cash games at his apartment, and at other people's places with him. We once stayed up all night playing a heads-up game of his devising, and had a total blast. In fact, I had to run out onto Connecticut Avenue at 7 am that morning and literally get down on my knees on the macadam to beg the man with the tow truck not to take my ticketed car away. We finished the all-nighter off with a fabulous breakfast at a swanky hotel in town.

And for the record, he too is ridiculously young. Not quite as young as Mr. WPY, but noticeably less conventional and "grown-up" in demeanor. He's goofy, despite being a self-employed CPA ~ not an actuary ~ by profession. He's nice-enough looking, but not especially handsome. He plays a successful loose-aggressive style of poker. (I'm trying to think if I've ever observed him to have a losing session... nope, don't think so.)

Something has shifted between me and Mr. Actuary just in the last few days. It looks likely that the two of us will go to Atlantic City this coming week. If we do, we will be sharing a room for a couple of nights. The unexpectedly warm and lingering hand-clasps of this evening are a new and, dare I say, promising development.

All this is on the heels of Friday's game, at which I was once again faced with a Mr. WPY who was charming and personable and fun, and evincing exactly zero sign of anything beyond continued friendly acquaintanceship. The heck with it. Until such time as he steps up with tangible and concrete behaviors, I'm done. He's chock full of delightful qualities, but darn it, I need to see some initiative from him before I spend another minute pining. Life is too damned short.

Gentlemen, start your engines! (No more horses, it's on to automobiles. I'm not sure what the metaphorical implications are, but WHATEVER.)