In Black, Back...aka Postcard from the Edge of the End...aka Winding the Crank Again

Hallo.

Not sure if anyone stops by here anymore and I certainly wouldn’t blame anyone if they’ve given up. This should be an interesting test of whether I truly blog for myself, or instead to be read. I’ve always bet my motivation was the latter, but I guess I will find out as I can ignore Flights no more. I miss it.

And the game as well: although my infrequent forays lately have underscored for me just how much a game of fine touch it is. NLHE is not for the unfocused, the timid or the distracted. She is also regrettably unkind to the out-of-shape. But I can’t complain about my summer love affair with her, and like any good but not great ballplayer, I’m convinced I can crank out another hit if I really, really try.

Oh yeah, hanging out with you idiots in the girly chat had its idiosyncratic charms too. He said as he gracefully wiped a manly tear from his once-chiseled cheekbones.

I’d have logged more blogger MTTs by now, but I just can’t bring myself to redeposit on Stars, which leaves me the narrow window that is Mooknesday to find you guys. Sadly, that’s a lab day for me, but I plan on getting more efficient and making it my dependable hangout once again. Needless to say, acting like a grownup has been a tough habit to reacquire, but at least its had a few consolations. Not the least of which is the primitive joy a boy knows when he once again gets to be the providah for his brood. Regardless of what you think, 50000 years of programming doesn't get washed away that easily. This caveman was taking a real bruising just loafing around the house while his girl made the donuts.

On that note, 2006 was an interesting year.

A grinder. It was the kind of year you look back on with grim reckoning but also a little pride at the fact life laid you out and pressed in on you good and hard. I bent, no doubt about it. But through a miserable 6 month end to eight years of training, a summer internship as a mother of three, an autumnal, interminable cycle through the NYS licensing process and the chilled, unique stresses of re-imagining myself for the first time in a decade, it turns out I did no worse than bend.

Life feels good and exhausting in the way redemption rings you out and leaves you twisted in knots, but sanctified for the effort.

I’ve been looking back at the year, and in particular the summer I was out of the game I play. I’ve realized I am the kind of guy who will always needs the action of my singular mix. Once removed from the context of the job I love, I plainly floundered. As I have spent the last four weeks diving deep into my lab and rounds, I feel in focus for the first time in months. It’s been strange in the extreme being away from my girl and the kids; there is silence in volumes I haven’t known for a long, long time. I would not call it welcome, but I feel no inclination to send it away either. The apartness (I won’t call it a separation given the unhappy context that word has for those of us young marrieds) has allowed me to immerse myself in my work without the usual attendant sense of guilt and conflict. I have no intention of putting these hours in once the house is built and the family is waiting for me, but for now, at the beginning, I am enjoying the freedom to just obsess on my work and craft my vision of what this will become.

I understand from the comments on my last post, some of you got the impression I was referring to my partners when I referenced individuals making my life difficult. I’ll spare the details, but in fact my group is even better than advertised (a rarity in these days of promises made by people who don’t understand the nature of a promise) and I have to blink in surprise at how supportive and helpful the people I work for are. The people who work for me are an even better surprise as they are intelligent, optimistic and well-trained. All the things that make my gig no fun these days are now handled for me, so I can focus on the task at hand – taking good care of people and growing our business. Work can be bliss, but it’s definitely a question of environment. No, my hassles come from the competition, some of whom are directors of the labs I now work in. They can’t stop me, but they can make life inconvenient, and are wasting no opportunity to do so. Fuck ‘em. And that’s not a dismissal; it’s my business model. Empowerment with a bad attitude…aka The Doctah is In.

But all this gets me thinking about the future of my blog and my pokah game in general. If I quit both right now, I could claim I’ve been wildly successful at both endeavours and go out on top with a smile and a wave. I made thousands of dollars playing a computer game. I also met a ton of people who I have come to consider as part of my circle by basically bitching about my game and my life’s occasional tediums in my own peculiar way. More people came by to say hi than I would have ever bet on going into this. Nope, Flights has never been Tao, could never be for numerous structural reasons. But for the limited expectations I have always had for it, it’s been a success beyond any reasonable estimates. It’s always made me chuckle that my friends from work or my travels who’ve read the blog either can’t understand it, or can’t believe I’m writing it. I had one good friend tell me she saw no recognizable traces of my personality in this writing. I find that fascinating; hell I think I’m officially haunted by that observation because I personally think this is as “true” a characterization of me as I am capable of. So what does that mean, eh?

I'm not sure, but accounting for it all, on any terms, I am up - way up - for the effort, and there is always the case to be made one should quit while ahead. To add to that temptation, with the self-imposed layoff this December, I remembered what life looks like without the blog. How easy it is to just experience life and how complicated it can get trying to find the energy to relate what you’ve seen in a way that makes a dispassionate eye want to locate the next words in the tale. Blogging, it turns out, takes work. If you’re exercising regularly, the next run or trip to the gym come naturally (see my wife’s great looking curves for evidence). If on the other hand you let yourself slide for a month or three (see my way, way too tight clothes for evidence) getting back to the groove you know you will eventually find feels like you're navigating the thicket. Not just slow going: painfully slow going.

Nonetheless.

I miss Flights, I miss Poker, and I am curious as all fuck to know what the rest of you are up to, too.

Have a great, safe New Year and I’ll see you on the other side.

Laytah.