random thoughts and thoroughbred selections

Thursday, March 25, 2004

36 Hours�

I�m having one of those �fairly confident I turned the coffee pot off before I left the house� kind of mornings.

I know that it�s due to a general feeling of discombobulation. I�ve had kind of a strange last day and a half, and thankfully I am fairly certain I�m on the other side of it at this point.

Tuesday Night

I don�t know what kind of telepathic sixth sense my ex-wife has, but she and I will go months (in this case, about five, which has been about par for the course lately) without contact, and then I�ll get bcc�d by accident (legitimately) when she sends some sort of mass email to her contact list. The thing is, she only seems to find those times where I�m in that brooding, introspective sort of mood to commit these accidents.

If you noticed my post on Monday about �Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind,� you�ll probably have gleaned that the movie kinda screwed me up a little bit. So I get home on Tuesday from work and there�s an email from her to her address book that notifies everyone that her work email will be down a few days, and that her personal email address should be used. Of course, that gave me her domain name, and on that domain were all sorts of family pictures and such, which just deepened my brooding, introspective mood.

So I did what I usually do, and that�s email her back asking politely to be taken out of her contact list. I really don�t have any need to talk to her, as it always has degenerated quickly into argumentative bullshit.

Well, she emails me back� you know what? How about I just post the thread?

Disclaimer: When writing these emails, I was half crocked and in that brooding mood�

----- Original Message -----
From: BG
To: The Ex
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 11:05 PM
Subject: Re: Email down for a bit

hey, pop me out of your address book if you would.

thx,
BG

----- Original Message -----
From: The Ex
To: BG
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: Email down for a bit

Ok, first and foremost, I don't take you out because I
just can't. Well, I could but it would just be too rough. So, I
don't. Also, it's because (and I realized this today) that I mentally write Emails to you in a day dream kind of format all of the time. I don't actually write them, because I shouldn't and you don't want them anyway. Don't know what else to say except for that.

X

----- Original Message -----
From: BG
To: The Ex
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 11:16 PM
Subject: Re: Email down for a bit

What about?

----- Original Message -----
From: The Ex
To: BG
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: Email down for a bit

Everything.

----- Original Message -----
From: BG
To: The Ex
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 12:05 AM
Subject: Re: Email down for a bit

It took you an hour to write that?

----- Original Message -----
From: The Ex
To: BG
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 7:13 PM
Subject: Re: Email down for a bit

Evidently, yes. But it was what was needed to be said.

----- Original Message -----
From: BG
To: The Ex
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: Email down for a bit

Look, I don't know how you do it, and I'm sure it's just some freaky
eerie sixth sense prescience on your part, but somehow you always seem to find a weirdly perfect time to accidentally (and I don't believe it's purposeful) send me an email.

I almost walked out of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" crying on Sunday night. It really has less to do with "us" than it does with me. You would just be the one that would happen to inhabit the Winslet role - although the similarities are not really there between her character and yours. The Jim Carrey character is the second Charlie Kaufman character in a row (self-portrait, "Adaptation") that really hit too close to home for me.

Again, this has very little directly on your shoulders, but when (make it "when," not "if") you see this movie, it's not about asking "why" would someone wipe someone completely out of their mind, but rather "what kind of man" would do that very thing. It's a give-up, a cop-out.

Unfortunately, unlike the Jim Carrey character, I don't have the ability to mentally jar myself into remembering in a positive and longingly loving way why we were together in the first place. Every memory I have of "us" is loaded. I don't want to use the word �poisoned," because that's probably too strong, but that's the direction I mean with "loaded." I can come up with every why, wherefore, and how in the book, but ultimately they all exist as cop-outs in my mind.

It's so much easier to give up than it is to forgive.

I don't have the luxury of being able to remember the way I must have felt about you in certain moments in the past. I don't know if those moments are gone, or if they're "loaded," or if they're just being overridden by that unbelievably intensely powerless feeling I began to live with in the last six months of our cohabitation. I'd guess the latter.

There is a part of me, though, that wishes I could remember, but know that I've definitely passed that moment quite a long time ago.

I don't know why I feel the need to say all this, it really doesn't
have much to do with you. I guess one of your complaints for awhile has been that I haven't been real with you about what's going on outside of my complaints to you.

Well, here you go.

----- Original Message -----
From: The Ex
To: BG
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 8:04 PM
Subject: Re: Email down for a bit

Don't really know what to say, so I suppose I will tell you how I
reacted. Let me preface that I have been doing some work for a friend
named Hamish, and he was over to finish up some web work, and we made
some dinner. I replied to your two worded, ''What About?'' response an hour later due to the eating of said dinner. Gave me an hour to quietly ponder my one worded response.

So, we finished dinner, had had a few drinks, and I came back to
Read what you had written. I sat here for awhile, re-reading and reading again...and I had to leave the room because I started crying.

Lead next to me standing at our backdoor, smoking a cigarette,
Trying to figure all of this out. We have this split barn door thing here, which I was leaning against trying to get myself together. And then I, again, start mentally writing you an email. At which point I ask why I do this. I really don't know. Not that this matters, but I don't usually smoke...sometimes when I am drinking...but not a day to day thing.

I remember you saying once that I was your greatest happiness and
Your greatest sadness. I think tonight I got first hand knowledge of what you mean. Part of me wants to be your friend and have you in my life. The other part can't handle even the thought of it.

The things that you have said have hurt me. I don't think that's
Your intention, but they do, maybe not hurt so much as leave me the most sad that I have ever been. I want you to know that I have tried not to think about you, or to want to email you, or any of that. Maybe over time this will get easier. I hope that it does.

OK, so you see why Tuesday night got me a little edgy.

Actually, to relax I ended up playing in one $10/$1 SNG on PartyPoker. Iggy had it right in last night�s post when he mentions that patience is the key to winning these things. Even half drunk (on a pretty nice Montepulciano) and still reeling a little bit from the above conversation, I committed to myself to stay focused and try to win the damn thing.

I couldn�t believe how many hands I was folding. And the other players were taking notice too, pushing me off my blinds left and right in early action. I stayed patient, willing to take a hit of 10 or 20 chips in the first two orbits if it meant that I�d stay away from playing that 6To.

We�re down to nine players, and I�m in the SB. I�m sitting on 690 in chips, and get dealt Cowboys. UTG comes out with a raise of 3xBB. I�m thrilled when a couple call, as I take that raise, and bump it up to 150. UTG raises again! Now, I never put AA on aggression like this on these low-limit games. 90% of the time you�re looking at high suited cards or a middle/low pair. But damned if another player comes in over the top of that raise, moving his entire stack (totaling about 650) into the pot.

Now�s as good a time as any to triple up I figure, so I raise the additional 45 all-in, and UTG follows.

BG: KK
UTG: 44 (!)
Other Dude: AKo

You want an amazingly scary flop? How about 235? Now UTG is looking much better than Other Dude. The Ace can�t help him anymore, so it�s me and UTG. The turn is a 2, so we both have two pair. The river is a T, and I go from 5th to 1st in one hand (up to about 2100).

We�re down to seven, and I tighten up. Fold, fold, fold. I do manage to see a couple other decent hands, and by the time we�re down to five players, I�m personally responsible for knocking four players out, and have the 3500 in chips to prove it.

As I�m the only player left at this point (nearest stack = 1950) who isn�t really affected by the blinds, I continue my aggressive regimen of folding. The dude on the button every time I�m in the BB sees me folding to even the smallest marginal raises, and makes it a point to make sure he�s the one cleaning up.

Of course, what is a smart play for a little while can come back to bite you in the ass.

I�m still hovering around 3500 when the blinds hit 150/300. There�s four left, I�m in the BB, and the guy on the button (stealer) sees UTG fold to him. He raises to 600. Unfortunately, that was about half his stack. As he�s been doing this every single time, after the SB folds, I push all-in with my KQs. Hoo boy did that tilt the poor kid. I guess I was supposed to keep folding. He didn�t call, but was blinded out in the next rotation.

Down to three with a huge chip lead, I made it my business to raise up with just about any marginal calling hand. It wasn�t until both stacks were under 1000 that they bothered to call.

Let that be a lesson people, you can�t just sit and wait for AA. I knocked someone out earlier (he had 450, I had 2400) when I called his all-in with 89 after catching a 964 flop. Sometimes, you just have to play the hands you�re dealt.

And so I won. It was beautiful.

Wednesday

There�s not much really to say about Wednesday, except that my boss was in town. It�s actually quite nice to have him all the way on the other side of the state, although it makes our personal interaction a little awkward in person. Maybe it�s because I�m so tightly wound sometimes that I always figure I�m going to get a lecture or a bad review or fired or something, even though I think I�m doing a pretty capable job here for my company.

Anyway, the challenge yesterday was to appear productive with my boss over my shoulder all day, even though it was slow to the most epic of proportions. My phone rang twice all morning. I had about three emails to which to respond. It was dead.

Nerve-wracking, but dead. Thankfully, by 230PM he was involved with other meetings onsite, and then back on the plane out of town. And it never got any busier.

So it wasn�t until after my evening obligation yesterday (which I�ll touch on in a second) that I could finally wind down a little bit.

Except that I have a lot to do today, but can�t seemingly get either the people I need on the phone, or the computer to work properly to get it done.

Hence, one uber-post, coming up.

I really hope I turned my coffee pot off.

[>>]posted at 10:06 AM by BG - click to email
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