Wednesday: Snowboarding

wake to a 7:15 call from Deepak. hes already up and ready. I tell him I'll be ready soon. Pass out.

wake up 20 mins later to my alarm going off. I'm thirsty, my head hurts, and my body pulses with the slight desire to throw up. This is how normal people do it every day. How do they do it?

The alarm rings twice more. Ashley's getting annoyed. I don't blame her. I also don't want to get up. I kiss her and try to pass out for just a few more minutes.

Connor calls. Ashley groans from the other side of the bed. Check the time through my now donut glazed eyes. It's 7:48. I really need to start moving.

Socks.

Pants.

Brush my teeth. My breath is particularly awful.

scour the room for a suitable sweatshirt.

I'm almost there. What else did I miss?

Have my phone, grab my wallet. sweatpants. Extra cash for my trip.

Just have to make it to the elevator.

Hit the button for floor one. Stop at floor 3. It's Deepak. He's got a giant snowboard bag, a beanie hat, snow pants, boots, the proper jacket. His hair is gelled and stands up straight. He looks awake and alert. He looks at me, with my pants unbuttoned, my shirt hanging, my eyelids sagging down to my ankles, and begins to smile.

"Fuck off, Deepak."

Hit the gas station. I get waters and protein bars. Some jerky. nothing wakes you up like protein.

Drive to the Aria. Grab Connor and Tony G.

Drive toward the mountians.

The rest of the day is blissful. Snowboarding can be that way. It's warm and sunny and I'm exploring backwoods trails and shooting off jumps. I'm rusty and sore as hell but that cant be avoided. We go hard for as long as we can, then stop for a break and some beers. Everything is perfect. At one point we hike over to a small trail off on the far left of the mountain, which opens up to reservoir and an enormous view of all the surrounding mountains.

the day ends much like it began: rapid and blurry. Pack up. Drive home. Enter the apartment and fall straight into bed. Ashley pulls up next to me. Her eyes gaze down. She missed me.

We hang out for hours. I can't move. She doesn't want too.

She's the best.

We watch Sparticus online and I teach her shoving ranges in tournaments. She's getting good fast. The natural progression of a poker player goes something like this:

Loose (bad) -> tight (bad) -> tight (good) -> loose (good)

and alternates between the last two as their general gameplan changes. It's fun to watch, and I find myself following the same timeline whenever I learn a new game.

Ashley is somewhere between the tight-bad and tight-good spots right now, and moving quickly. We'll be in Italy soon, grinding sit and goes or whatever pays the most money, Flying back to the states only to visit friend and family or when Ashley has a dance gig.

But that's another story for another time.

And this one ends minutes later, when I pass out, my arms around Ashley, my head buried under four pillows.

Thursday: 10/20

Grind today. No real big pots go either way. Just little ups and downs. Usually when I have a session like this, it's boring as hell (or I guess, as boring as POKER!!38 can be boring), but me and a scandi named Marius cracked a bottle of wire and gambled on the side a bit to keep it interesting. Marius is a great kid who seems to have been born into a rich family and makes the most of it: he travels the world partying and gambling wherever he goes. Life could be worse.

Friday: Wynn

Getting in short sessions lately. Ashley's been sick, and I've been trying to hang out with her as much as possible without totally cutting off the hours I put in at the table. So we've been together all afternoon, me giving her poker lessons on my computer, her giving me life lessons about the importance of the Lord of The Rings movies. We get under our blanket, drinking coffee and tea and eating soup as we cruise through the trilogy, occasionally clicking raise or fold. It's wonderful.

I don't know who's a bigger dork.

Anyways, I arrive the wynn. There are bigger games than I expected. There's a 10-20 no limit holdem/pot limit omaha mix game that has my name on it. We play for a few hours and the game goes from ok to bad. I stay in it because I want to get better at PLO. I start playing worse.

Its odd, but lately I feel like I am playing better every day. Not in a slow, "I'm getting this game" sort of way either; but in a rapid, "I'm making clairvoyant reads and sharp decisions" way, like someone who just walked miles to get to his car and now gets to drive the rest of the journey going 90.

Today, the car falters, and I play mediocre once again. I guess I could blame it on not knowing PLO, or running bad and getting into situations where either decision isn't great and I feel like I make a mistake either way, but in this case, it doesn't really matter. I didn't play well, and that's a shitty feeling.

The game breaks, probably to my benefit, and I jump into 5/10 NL. Play better. Feel better. Get a call from Ashley. She's off work. I've been mentally off work for hours.

Cab it home. We pass out shortly after, to Sparticus playing on my computer.

Life is so good, poker feels like background music.