just keep swimming...

It's like this: you're a fish. Sometimes you're swimming in the water as fast as you can, whipping that tail along, concentrating on moving forward. And sometimes you leap out of the water into the air and sun and whip your body back and forth so that you can see with the eyes on both sides of your head. You try to spy some kind of landmark, and make course adjustments. And maybe it's the air, or the thrill of the leaping, but you have Ideas. Some big Ideas. And you contemplate them, and your course adjustments and wonder what you should do — and then you hit hit the water with a slap and next thing you know you're swimming again.

I've been swimming lately. Not a lot of thoughts beyond the day-to-day, at least not for more than a momentary pang of wonder. But I've been getting things done. Ella's room is coming along nicely. And there is something to be said for swimming — the actual physical act of moving forward. It's reassuring. And necessary.

Poker Update: Played for the first time in three weeks. Got some good cards at good times. Played them well (mixed up playing strong and limping — confused people some, it seemed) for the most part. Hit a huge hand in Omaha and took down a $150 pot with the best boat over the second-best boat. Also felt like I was putting people on hands and was able to logically think through people's bets and see where I was really at in the hand. This, of course, was helped immensely by catching some cards. (I sucked out on two flushes for small-ish pots toward the end of the night because the person I was up against let me draw for practically nothing.) A good night. Glad to be on the positive side of winning for the night, and now the year. Game 5 — bought in: $30, up $167, total for the year: +$63

woooooaaaah!

It's time to admit that this whole having a baby is stressing me out. I notice that my usual filters are breaking down. Especially in regards to eating. Brownies in the kitchen here at work? Have one! Have two! Maybe some M&Ms for an after lunch snack, etc. I've obviously gained quite a bit of weight in the past couple of months (I'm afraid to weigh myself at the gym, but I'm going to have to if I want to get any of this weight off. Of course, I'll have to get to the gym to do that...) and that's not all. I just feel a little... constantly on edge these days. Not hysterical, but just not as in control of the old emotions as I usually am. This is not altogether bad, and is understandable, but I've got to gain a little of the tiny bit of composure I used to have back. I don't want to be hugely fat. I want to be able to handle any crises that come up.

I knew that this would happen, really. I expected that, with a new life coming that I will be responsible for, I'd freak out a little. And, entering the third trimester, it's coming into bloom. I've just got to gain a measure of control back. The food thing will be the easiest to measure as far as success or failure goes, I think. And it'll make me feel better if I can stop eating so much crap.

No poker again this week — trying to get the baby's bedroom painted before Amy's folks get here this weekend and we do some furniture shopping (Ikea, here we come!) A taste of things to come: baby first, poker second. Damnit. (I kid.)

what good are flying fingers if they're wrapped around a duck?

I am spending too much time thinking. About how things should be. About what I should have done in situations. About opportunities missed. About minor failures. I keep thinking about the epitaph I'm most afraid of: he had such promise. I am afraid of squandering what meagre talents I have. I am afraid of my children finding things that I wrote and saying "I didn't know that dad used to write." I am afraid of dark, sarcastic mumblings that I would make to hearing such a thing. I am afraid that I am becoming, have become bitter for no good reason. I've written on here, before, about how I am "trying to figure out what place writing has in my life." That is true. What is more true, and which encompasses and envelopes that question is another, stronger drive: to figure out how to deal with the fear I am hiding behind. It's the same fear that I've lived with, fed, and learned to lean on. It's the fear that allows me to scoff and hide, and the fear that keeps me safe from anything that would make me put myself truly in danger of artistic failure, personal failure.

I seem to remember playing hide and seek with that fear for a while, and finding some places to hide from it where I could enjoy creating — writing. I'm looking for that place again.

I've got to put down the duckie.

Yes, all of this started with a tiny jolt from a silly video this morning that made me think, and has kept me humming and thinking all day.

...aaaaaand exhale

I've been busy.

Work has been absorbing far too much of my energy these past two weeks. I've been going nonstop from the moment I get here until the end of the day. But the book I've been working on went out yesterday, and the boss woman doesn't come in on Thursday or Fridays, and so I find myself with a much lighter workload today and not feeling one smidgen, not one jot, not one tittle bad about the fact that I'm stretching out two hours of work to fill an eight hour day.

A long lunch is in the works.

There's plenty to say, mostly about my awareness that the subterranean stress I'm feeling from work, baby, The Future, is popping up as increasing lack of self-control as far as eating and going to the gym and tackling other projects that need to be thrown to the ground, kicked a few times, and told in a stern voice while pointing aggressively: "you will get done."

And that's all for now. Oh, well, except to say that we had folks over for the SuperBowl and played games (RoboRally and Bang!) and ate homemade pizzas and it was pretty damned fantastic and has kickstarted my gaming drive again. Must... play... more... games.

poker? poke me.

poker update: game 4 — bought in: $60, down $45, total for the year: -$104

Not a result I'm happy about, but I'm not really that unhappy with how I played last night. About ninety minutes into the eveing I made a couple of fairly big, incorrect calls (both to Paul) which wiped out the rest of my first $30 buy-in. The hand afterwards, however, I flopped the nut flush and, as luck would have it, ended up heads up against Paul again. I acted my way through the hand, cursing him and betting like I was on tilt until the river when I raised him (and his straight) and took down a good sized pot — probably half of what I'd lost to him.

After that, I stayed pretty even. I didn't get a lot of cards, and when I did I couldn't get a lot of players (I got AA three times last night and never made it to a showdown). Well, I stayed pretty even until the end of the night when Reggie went on a tear and took about $25 from both me and Jon in the space of about half an hour. He made quads, flopped a boat, pulled nut flushes (against my top two pair), etc. I'm not sure that I could have gotten away from any of those hands against him. I had good hands, but they ended up being second best every time. It was ugly. All you could do was laugh. And give him all your chips.

So, basically, I had another night where the cards didn't help me much. Still, I played solid (mostly). If I'd made one or two decisions differently... I'd probably still be down, thanks to Reggie's unbelievable cards at the end, but not by as much.

I didn't "wussy bet" very much — a good thing — I only once made a short bet, when I could have tried to push someone out, and Jamie said that it didn't matter, that he would have called anything. So, I came out losing less money than I should have on that hand.

And I made some good folds and calls. Still, I'd like to win some money sometime soon, if that's okay. Poker gods, are you listening?

go forward. move ahead. try to detect it. it's not too late. to whip it. whip it good.

Been on a bit of a rollercoaster ride this past week or so. Some days I feel completely incompetent and at sea, and other days I feel like I'm plugged in and on top of things. A lot of that has to do with this huge project I'm doing here at my day job, without the assistance of my immediate boss who — as previously mentioned — likes to take off for vacation at times like this.

But it's also the coming baby and the mounting feeling that I'm totally unprepared for the realities of having a baby, and feeling like I'm doing the same thing I always do with large projects or events in my life — start out strong and excited and then, start to fade as the work piles up. I need to get my head out of my usual scared place and get back on top of the few things I know I can and should do to prepare for miss Ella arriving in three and a half months.

Change is happening all around me. More friends are pregnant. Two close friends are moving, or have moved. People getting new jobs. And I'm still in the same place, stuck as to what I want to be doing. I'm too damn comfortable being undecided and conflicted. I need to figure out how to make a decision (look HARD for a new job? try my hand at tv writing? figure I'll be at Workman for a while longer and really commit to moving up here?) and make the fucking decision already so I can get a move on.

I'm too much a prevaricator and too little an actor, in the action sense of the word.