The Unintended Encounter and Remembering to Avoid Trouble.

Brevity. Or at least a close approximation thereof.

A series of three dominated beats and a BB special to end today's endeavours. I am not talking about short stacked desperation plays that got bounced by a large stack. I am talking about getting someone to do what you want them to do, and then wishing you hadn't. I should know better after more than a year with this game, but it's getting to me. It really is. I am contemplating a break to shake this thing off.

Nonpoker content? Days Residue then, since I am too tired to participate otherwise. Met someone today who really got under my skin.

I'm a pretty contented individual but this woman just had that thing. Not a conventional stunner, but something about her left an immediate impression. Sort of knocked me on my ass because it happened at work and I am triple-double on guard against shit like that when in uniform. Anyway, the loaded but essentially harmless moment passed without me doing anything ill-advised. In retrospect I was unable to name what I found so captivating, but the idea of brief uncertainty retained a haunt. It's these occasional trials that comprise the internal opus that is a meaningful committment.

Sometimes I wish I was more religious and could lean on something larger than myself [an admitted challenge these days] for answers and strength. As it is, I have to make due with words of wisdom from my recently departed spiritual godfather: A little less love, a little more common decency. Vonnegut there, quoting a fan who summed up his life's work in what amounts to a telegraph.

When love can't trump what the moment has me feeling, common decency towards someone I care about tends to iron things out. Secular humanism as marital aid.

Strange, strange days indeed...

And there is another, quieter consideration I've been turning over since this interaction. Ever had the experience where you are admiring a figure at a distance and it turns out to be your girl? You laugh at the imposition of the familiar with beguiling unknown. Milan Kundera wrote a whole book based on the inverse premise; of seeing someone unfamiliar and mistaking them for your love, to experience a whole set of reactions and emotions, only to realize a mistake has been made. Does this empherality of attraction and association invalidate the meaning of deeper ties? What is this love we feel for someone if it is so easily uprooted and dropped on another form that merely resembles the object of our affection?

I have no clue, of course, but I'm working on it. You should too.

Laytah.