5 Figas

Happy holidays to all.

Last night I was owned by The Golden Monkey. I forgive.

My official month results for December far exceeded my expectation.

Planning on traveling next month to the left coast.

This Week

I have been slacking as far as poker volume is concerned, but for good reason. For the past few weeks, I have been focusing on balancing my regular activities, in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Since pursuing poker as my sole source of serious income, structure in my day-to-day life has been lacking. My sleep schedule, eating schedule, exercise, poker sessions, recreational time, social life, etc. are constantly changing, and it leaves me feeling unorganized and unhealthy. This may sound crazy, but, without a basic sense of structure or organization, it makes things very difficult to anything to the very best of my ability.

With a full time job, I was forced into some sense of organization and exercise (and more so than most). As a result, I was focusing too much of my time on those two aspects, making me unhappy. Leaving my job gave me an overwhelming feeling of freedom, and, with that, came excitement in a scrambled and unkempt sort of way.

The same goes with unhealthy relationship(s). That's that.

That being said, I am experiencing happiness, excitement, love, and self satisfaction at a level that I did not know existed.

Cheers.

Middle East

Greetings from the Middle East.

My good friend Darrick Lucas is down from his estate in the White Mountains and we've been playing a good amount of poker. I had my worst day of poker in a long time, but I feel like I was due for a sick swing. After I lost about 100 big bets ($1k) I decided to call it a day, and fired up "You Don't Mess With the Zohan." I was pleasantly surprised.

This time last year, I would let my emotions take control of me, and would play through a downswing and make things worse. When I let my emotions cloud my mental clarity and dull my edge on the game, bad things happen. It seems so basic, but it took so long for me to understand this.

Last night, I made plans with Caitlin to go see The Ting Ting's at this bar over by Fenway. We left my warm and cozy house to battle through rain, pay for parking, walk in the rain, and decide to turn around last second. She only had a paper license, and we weren't cool with standing in the rain to get in. After 40+ minutes of looking for the car in a maze of a parking garage, we went back to my place, where Darrick and June were chillaxifying. Good times. After listening to a Montell Jordan song or two, we drove over to Razzy's for karaoke night.

I love everything about Razzy's. The bartenders are really sweet, and the enviornment is really relaxing. I remember June saying that it reminds her of a cabin. Pretty accurate, vague description of Razzy's. Darrick sang a song that I was familiar with, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. John sang a song and got pissy about being limited to only one song. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

As a side note, I was complemented on my hoodie that I was wearing while trying to grab a drink. At this point I was impaired and went on about how my mother bought it for me and how sweet she is. Made a fool of myself, etc.

A bunch of wacked out shit happened afterward that I'm still trying to piece together. Incredibly fun night.

Getting a tattoo when time permits. The word balance and perseverance spelled in Gaelic horizontally down my arm. I love it, and can't wait to get it done finally.

Godspeed.

Galleria

I haven't had such an erratic sleep schedule since my days of working in poker clubs. No complaints, other than the fact that my room is blindingly bright during the day time. It became so unbearable that I hijacked June's bed after she went to work.

Decided to put in a small session of poker before running errands. I obviously ran white hot and am dominating teh intranets this month.

I originally departed via the 80 bus to the Galleria. I got zero Christmas shopping done, but now have ideas. I am buying gifts for a ton of people. After countless hours of mall browsing, I walked from East Cambridge to Harvard Square, making a few stops along the way at coffee shops, stores, etc. This is the playlist I listed to:

"The Naming of Things" by Andrew Bird
"MX Missiles" by Andrew Bird
"I'm A Cuckoo" by Belle and Sebastian
"Flume" by Bon Iver
"Victor Jara's Hands" by Calexico
"Strange Overtones" by David Byrne and Brian Eno
"The Go In The Go-For-It" by Grandaddy
"Rising Down" by The Roots
"Roc Boys" by Jay-Z
"Carry the Zero" by Built to Spill
"Dog Park" by Minus the Bear

Went by Bartley's when June got out.
Got beer and Anna's.

Grindaments.com/shipshipmcgipp

I've been playing a ton of HU LHE 3/6 up to 10/20. Pretty sick results so far this month:

Orpheum

Ended up going to see Franz Ferdinand last night at the Orpheum with Caitlin and her friends PJ and Danielle. I'm not really familiar with their music, but I ended up drinking a tad too much, and had a good time. The band that opened for them sucked. All around good time, though. A+ night.

I gave an effort to buy Vampire Weekend tickets via craigslist, but ended up falling asleep. By the time I responded to the email, he had already sold them (for less than face value).

I played a retarded amount of poker today. Had a 2,200 hand breakeven stretch. All hail rakeback.

I'm treking over to my buddy John's with June. Life is hard without a fully functionable vehicle.

Cliffnotes

I played a lot of poker today and coached someone briefly in Heads Up Limit Hold'em. It went well and progress is being made.

I was quasi looking forward to tonight until I had to leave a party due to social complications. June, Chief, and I ended up heading over to a party in Allston which was really lame. From there we went to Chief's dorm at MIT and hung out briefly.

Tomorrow, I'm going to head over and play poker at MIT with Chief, and hopefully head to a show.

Princeton Street

I worked on a route in East Boston today. It was right on the water, smack dab in the middle of the yuppie area of miniature dogs dressed in Santa hats, people jogging, BMW's and flashy, loud Christmas decorations.

As I left Chelsea, driving over the Meridian St. bridge, I realized that I forgot my iPod. Very glad I did. After dissecting every aspect of my life that I could think of, writing it down on the back of a Bed Bath and Beyond flyer of a vacant house, I have never felt so intensely satisfied in reading something. I did so because I wasn't able to distract myself by listening to my iPod all day.

I've confused disappointment with vexation.
I've confused happiness with comfort.

Never have I been more ready for a change of pace.
Merry Post Britmas.

Upside Down

Quitting job.
Trying to get back in BHCC for next semester.
Starting Anger Management classes on January 22nd at Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
Taking a two week vacation somewhere.
Joining a gym.
Going to increase my amount of hands by double next month.

I've realized that the USPS is not for me.
Poker can take me through the year, if I maintain a stress free environment while playing.

Eager to see how it goes.

Today

I woke up with a really strong headache and a stuffed sinus. Mildly hungover from the night before, I decided to get some errands done. When I first woke up, I played a tiny bit of poker until realizing that I wasn't in an ideal state to do so. I packed up all of my clothes and planned to head to the laundromat with my laptop to kill the time. I ended up driving all the way to Swampscott to the trauma center. I was there for what felt like forever, and felt nauseous the entire time. From there, I went to this bar on the way home by myself called The Porthole. From there I went to the mall to find a cell phone and get some Christmas shopping done. I eventually got the laundry done and most of my clothes shrunk a lot.

That's life in the big city.