Freestyle

I fell in love with a ship. A vessel with at least twenty holes. Yeah, but she still floats! I have an ill gash on my nose and an ill sickness effecting my immune system and ability to breathe at an optimal rate. I'm taking a lazy approach toward playing poker, at the moment. I'm making tentative plans to move to the left coast, unless I find something that keeps me here, which is increasingly likely with each day. I'll miss my family too much, yadda yadda. I don't know what the overall chances of me leaving are. I like Providence a lot, especially the Olneyville area, but I don't think I want to live there. I'm writing a lot (pen to paper) and loosely basing a short story on my experiences in the poker community, as well as important relationships in my life. None of this makes sense, and I'm not deleting any of it. I was supposed to leave 10 minutes ago. I bought aviator glasses and am forcing myself to like them. Team FUN pulled through with a commendable 4th place finish at a trivia night in the theatre district, bringing home a cooler with a gallon of water and a user version of the movie "Little Nicky." This is a gigantic, ugly looking block of text. I lost my debit card and don't have time to cancel it or look for it, but I have time to write a ridiculous blog post. Why the fuck do I even have a blog? 20-25 people read this on a regular basis and no one comments. I don't even want comments. You don't even know that I know you read it. Technology is siiiick, know that. "Know That To Know This" by Themselves is a sick track on their new album The Free Houdini and features Aesop Rock. I'm stopping at the store, buying a carton of orange juice, and embarking on my journey.

Providence

I have been to and from Providence twice in the past 4 days. I enjoyed myself a lot both times. Sewn Leather and DJ Dog Dick performed at a (very well hidden and beautiful) artist loft in the Olneyville area of Providence. After driving through a parking lot of old carnival rides and poorly maintained carnival equipment, we walked into what looked like an abandoned mill building (i.e. Lowell, MA or Manchester, NH) to find Boystown 2. The temperature inside was close to exact in relation to the temperature outside. The set up was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, and it was cool to see that these types of places are able to exist. If anyone has the opportunity to see Sewn Leather perform, I very highly recommend checking it out. If I had to describe it: hardcore influenced synth punk.

My life is oozing with opportunity right now in all aspects and I have never felt so limitless. I'm eager to explore my options all at once, but have learned to deal with things in a more patient manner. For so long, I spent time on making hopeless situations more positive, rather than embracing things actually worth my time and energy. I'm currently at a healthy understanding of myself and at the cost of things that I once considered important.

Fifteen songs on repeat, in this order:
The Decemberist's Valerie Plame
Elvis Perkins in Dearland's Shampoo
Belle and Sebastian's Sleep Around the Clock
Grandaddy's Now It's On
Themselves' Them's My People
Robert Francis' One by One
Say Anything's Woe
Stephen Malkmus' Baltimore
Cause for Alarm's In Search Of
Lou Reed's Satellite of Love
El-P's Smithereens
Blitzen Trapper's Furr
The Shins' We Will Become Silhouettes
Midlake's Roscoe
Jay-Z's Blue Magic

Thoughts on Humans, Love, Humans Loving, and Humans Thinking About Loving

It is truly disheartening to realize that the foundation of everything you believe in is paper thin. Does the guilt lie in wanting more stability or realizing that the former sense of stability that you once obliviously had never truly existed? It took me an embarrassing amount of time to understand these very simple concepts:

- One can only think so far. Or, as a direct quote, "You can only think as far as you can." If you're capable of a certain thought in a given social situation, it does not necessarily mean that it can be accurately portrayed to any given person. Understanding perspectives of people other than yourself, while checking your ego at the door, is what separates very smart people from geniuses. For example, identifying that people view you differently than you view yourself, based on the sample of information known about you. It seems like a very simple concept, but this can be understood on many different levels, in my opinion. This leads me to my next thought...

- True happiness and true love is all relative to what you know. It is well within the realm of possibility to have never experienced love in a lifetime, but believe you did. The opposite is also true. Don't expect an Arabian prince to sweep you off your feet with his magic carpet and travel through the warm, starry night. Love is not anything like "Alladin." Please fucking realize that.

I would like to use this section to congratulate you on making it this far into my post. I'm going to finish this later.

Being Healthy is Difficult

At the beginning of the month, I had decided to take an indefinite break from poker. I feel like there are a lot of reasons why I came to this decision. Ultimately, I realized that whether I was running well or poorly effected my mood to a significant degree. For example, if I were to play a 2 hour session in the morning and lose $1,500, I would be in a bitter and unhappy mood. The opposite is true as well.

I understand that most people have jobs that are mentally bothering while "off the clock." From a poker player's point of view, there is a saying that you should try to "take the emotion out of the game and not be results oriented." My argument is that it's only natural to feel a certain way in any given situation and to mentally block it out is impossible.

If I do decide to quit completely (which is unlikely), I would look at these past 4 months as a success, having won 30k in that time. Ideally, coming back to a clean slate and moving down in stakes a month from now will help immensely.

Never in my life have I had more free time on my hands. I have a few ideas as to what I can do with it. First and foremost, I'd like to get in shape and get some use out of my YMCA membership. The thought of having a personal trainer crossed my mind, but I'm way too stubborn to have some gym rat yelling at me to "GO HARDER" (something I witnessed today), although it would definately hurry along the process of losing weight. Putting together a healthy diet is difficult for me, but stringing together an efficient list of gym tasks is impossible. I have been active in the Health and Fitness sub forum on twoplustwo but it only helps so much. I could mimic someone's routine, but it obviously won't fit my needs perfectly.

Ideas are constantly flowing through my head for a short story of the life of a typical poker player, elaborating on social experiences and glorifying actual events that I took part in. As I began to put the pen to paper, I discovered "Broke: A Poker Novel." Brandon Adams, a Harvard professor and pro poker player whom I have played with a couple times, wrote a fictional story on the life of a poker player. It hurt my confidence at first, but my ideas are far different than the ones that he portrays in his book.

Studying a more robotic form of poker, where a correct decision is usually clear and not dependant on information gained in previous matches. At Heads Up Limit Holdem, the player pool is very small and it is necessary to make certain plays specific to a certain player's tendencies. When playing Sit-n-gos, it is a lot easier to put in a ton more volume and play on auto pilot. I plan to do this, but wouldn't be suprised if I ditch the idea.

Wish me luck.