The girls twerk...
For a baller not a 9 to 5,
Barely makin' it with disgust behind your eyes
***
Seattle, USA
Waking up. I keep expecting it to disappear. Everything. I'll wake up and be back to nothing. I don't believe it happened. I don't believe it's real. I'll wake up ragged, for this new job. I'll wake up wishing I was still asleep. I'll wake up and didn't happen. My life never got this good.
I took this girl out to Paranormal Activity. If you didn't see it essentially it was a movie about a couple living in a house that's haunted. The boyfriend decides to videotape everything that happens to them. Needless to say there's plenty of bumps in the night that don't turn out to be harmless. It was pretty standard Blair Witch fare. I'd never see it again, but seeing it with a girl blazed in an old Seattle movie theater...it was cool. I enjoyed myself.
We were lounging later on Ben's bed, just sparking up blunts and listening to Drake, chilling. All the sudden we hear two distinct bumps. It's just like in the movie. Two distinct bumps. She freaks out, of course. I roll my eyes and tell her to relax. It keeps up. Then it becomes rabid. There's choked screams. Startled and sudden beats against a door, close. "Open the fucking door!" a deep man's voice says, sounding close to tears.
All of this when I'm high as fuck and just saw a movie where evil spirits fucked up more than one guy's day, and I'm not enjoying this. I know if I freak out and sit around though I'll never get up, so I just snap get up to check out the noise when I hear it, while this girl is panicking behind me. I love these spots where I get to be "the man", and I'm fronting like I'm not scared at all, when really I'm just wondering how I'll get to the bathroom long enough to dump the shit out of my trousers.
I go to the front door and look outside the peep hole to see if anyone is knocking on our door. Instead I see a drunk guy laying in a pile in front of the next unit's door, slamming it over and over again with a curled, muddied, bloodied, fist. He's draped in Husky gear. His eyes are watery. He has that paunch we white guys are so good at getting two years into college life. I've noticed the American white kids who have them look more like the Germans I saw in Europe than any other race.
I laugh, relieved. Today there was a Husky game. I'm not surprised at all. I expect the mess to come in from the streets, on the U District. Why wouldn't this guy's friends run off and lock him out of his own house?
I drift back to the room. These walls feel wonderful when I slam into them.
I stumble into the dark room, feeling oh so very at home in Seattle. Of course we have that bubblegum and silver haze cocktail rolled, of course it's an Asian girl I'm chilling with, and a Husky fan is ramming into walls outside. The window's open just a crack, but it's enough to make the room cooler. The climate I grew up in my whole life, which is foreign to most of the world. Room temperature seven degrees cooler. Smoke, slowly sifting out to wade with the world outside, old churches, family owned restaurants from every part of the world, indie movie theaters in the back of 50's houses, Gasworks park, farmer's markets, the abandoned grocery store from the 70's they use for raves, the UW campus. The smoke spreads, lightens, disappearing into one of the few areas of the states that seems to still hold some cultural identity beyond what Mcdonald's the local kids hang out at. I love my part of the states and nights like this.
***
Furthermore, I love not drinking that much anymore, and I don't think I ever really want to drink that much ever again. It's not for me in large doses, or constantly. Once in a while.
***
I won the $30.00 rebuy on Tilt. I honestly did not play that well in a number of spots on Sunday, and probably didn't deserve a win. I never feel like I deserved it unless I played to the best of my abilities, but that's not really realistic. I'm turning that into "never make mistakes" when really any poker players makes mistakes every day. Anyhow, I definitely felt I ran better than I played with this win, so I'm taking it as a gift to prepare for hard times.
I blew a PCA seat. I blew a bunch of other chip leads. I played straight up awful in some spots. I was running off of two hours of sleep, since I wasn't a shut-in for once the night before and I saw my father in the morning. I had breakfast with him at this local Greek place we always eat at. It felt good to talk to him and catch up for a bit, and see him happy to go back to his wife in Brazil. He'd lost close to thirty pounds and seemed to be in much better shape than the last time I saw him. I got to see my sister too. Ben let me borrow his keys the night before for his pad though, and I forgot to unlock the front door, so I had to leave early to let Ben in. I felt like a dick about that, and kind of wanted to catch up with my family more.
Instead I grinded for fifteen hours, and to be honest I didn't make a ton between all of my horses and myself, even with a legitimate first fucking place in one of my regular tournaments. But hey, that's why you play smaller tournaments when you do want to donkament it up, it just offsets the variance. That's why you back a little smaller than what you can afford so it doesn't stress you out and you don't get on your guys unfairly. It's all good. Bankroll's been steadily growing since I got unbacked after San Remo. All of my guys are talented and not in any real makeup.
Hell, my new guy just keeps popping off shit. This guy the first week I backed him just final tabled everything, it was crazy. I love that when you pick up a talented guy and he gets his shot and just owns. Now if fucking Raventhon could ever win a flip at a final table both of my pickups will be really yielding results.
It's just fun playing final tables. I think that's been a real difference lately. Ben gets me hyped up to play because its newer to him and more exciting. I really go hard on every hand deep now and I think that's been a real element in my success lately. That and this bulbous horseshoe up my ass, but I'm ignoring that for now.
It's just fun again. I'm having a lot of fun again, and as I watch my life and the lives of the people I care about improve as I win more it just lights a fire under my ass.
Those good times we've had all over the fucking world would not be possible without the grind. I love my job and my recreation, I really got it made.
We bail for Costa Rica on Friday. I'm probably not going to be playing much this week, just going to be hanging out and saying bye to my friends and family. In Costa Rica the grind's going to start again, kicking off with all my guys in Shugyo playing the LAPT there. I'm hoping one of us makes a big showing, and I definitely feel I handle Latino players better than most, but it's still a lottery. After that its Spanish and work. And hopefully surfing. I can't wait.
Congrats on Tranquilchaos by the way, who final tabled the Sunday Million. Guy didn't win it for some reason but its always cool when one of your friends final tables a major, and especially when its a family guy who probably deserves the money more than most of us. Good game man.
Currently Listening To:
Cage - Depart From Me
Rich Boy - Kool Aid, Kush, and Convertibles
Cave In - Antenna
Royce Da' 5'9" - The Bar Exam 2
A Tribe Called Quest - Anthology
Brother Ali - The Truth Is Here
Prodigy - Return Of The Mac
Anberlin - Cities
Project Pat - Mista Don't Play
Solarstone - Rain Stars Eternal
