Life Without Poker

It's been over a month since I've played a single hand, and up until just yesterday that was completely fine and seemed to be going great.  But today I find myself with the itch to play, not really because I want to I don't think, but rather because we have a three day weekend here and I'm extremely under-scheduled.  The last few years this weekend found me on the east coast or in Aruba for a wedding, and barring that I'd definitely be visiting a friend or going someplace cool with Danielle because she'd never let an opportunity like this slip away.  And I don't think it's bad that I'm not really doing anything, I just...I dunno, I don't have anything planned for Sunday or Monday and think I'm going to go play.  Just the way it is.

I've apparently turned into an asshat on two plus two, which I blame mostly on posting primarily from my phone but also accept some responsibility for.  I only post on there to maintain friendships with about a small group of close friends, and if I'm going to be stupid about it even that isn't going to work very well so I might as well try a little.

I'm having a business lunch with TylerMes great american poker hero today;  we are going to talk about how it is that he came to buy some rental property and how it might come to pass that he and I might buy some more.  I've wanted to do this for years, and even got so far as to contact an agent in PA and have her send me listings two years ago, but for some reason always let Danielle's "this isn't the right thing to do" speech dissuade me.  I don't have that chirping in my ear now and with Tyler's knowledge of having done it successfully a couple times so far, I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up being a landlord soon, which will be interesting to say the least.  I have a significant percentage of my net worth locked up behind the walls of tax advantaged retirement accounts (not as much as were I to have been listening to Danielle's advice all these years and dropping 10k or whatever I could into a SEP while I was self-employed), but I definitely have enough I can sell to form an LLC with Tyler and buy something.  That's sort of another reason I think I've gotten the itch to play, and it's not good.  I've been falling into my old pattern of thinking the last few days, thinking about striving and where I can get to instead of just enjoying what I have.  Part of me realizes that I have something like 120 days off per year, and that if I spent even half of them playing poker I could log 300-400 hours a year and that would make a non-trivial difference in my income.  But at what cost?  Who knows.  Last week I spent 15 hours on the beach with close to a dozen different friends and you know what?  It was fucking great.  Do I really want to show up at Commerce (or Hustler or GASP the bike) tomorrow at 8am and play poker all day?  I mean....not really.  But could I do it 3 times a month and enjoy it?  Probably.  The enjoy it part is key.  That and being sharp enough to not kid myself about my win rate, which probably means just playing 20/40 or 25/50 or whatever where it almost doesn't matter.

So yeah, that's where I'm at.  I bought a wet suit and a boogie board and a surf board and three beach umbrellas and a TV and a coffee table and a tv stand and some box fans and a swiffer and well I'm just kind of muddying along.  I was doing the online dating thing for a bit, but that's pretty much on hold because it's fucking exhausting and discouraging.  I've watched almost all of Deadwood and it's amazing.  I'm working out almost daily and that's great.  I'm down to 162 pounds, on my way from 167 on April 15th or so to 155 on July 15th or so.  It's not clear that I'm going to make it, but I'll at least get close.  I drink too much coffee but it's fucking amazing and as LeoDoc said "coffee is worth it" even though it raises my blood pressure and sometimes gets me anxious and jittery.  I suppose I never really detailed my full foray into sports betting on here, but that's still kicking around although I've figured out how to make it be a very small amount of effort.  Babar moved to LA which I thought was gonna mean I'd see him all the time but actually means he's traveling a bunch and realistically LA is like two days travel from here;  it's super hard to keep up relationships with anybody in life, let alone someone like him or other poker players who live 50 miles away and don't have schedules.  Johnny Baseball is trying to get me to pick up golf again;  so far we hit a bucket and it was glorious, then my wrist started to hurt which is bad, but we'll play again.

I'm just fucking rambling, I can't imagine anybody cares.  My life is completely different than it was 1 year ago, and that life was very different than it was one year before that.  Things are changing, and I can't really see where I'm going, but most of the time that's just fine.  I have a great job working with great people where I'm challenged and learning on a daily basis, I have good friends, and I live at the fucking beach.  Sure I feel like I miss her, but really what I miss is the comfort and familiarity she provided and the abstract idea of her.  We stayed together on potential for years;  it makes sense that now 2 months removed I mostly think of her in terms of that very same potential (for change and happiness) that drove me forward all that time.  I do miss our pets truly and deeply, and if I break the no-contact rule we have in place it will be to ask to take charge of Tyson for a week or two.  That's all I've got, it's time to go learn about buying property.