Small Joys and Compensations

I took a two hour nap when I got home, and when I woke up I had graham crackers and milk for dinner. It was beautiful and sunny today and I drove home with the top down, for what will certainly be one of the last top down evenings of the year. Driving past the golf course I thought how it would be to bust one down the 10th fairway, but let's be honest, no more than I practice, I'd probably dribble one off the heel of the club. The greens looked beautiful, though, and I'll have to remember to start earlier next spring and play a little more. I went to Sparky's for lunch today, ordered a slice and three humongus bread sticks, with a small Pepsi. I don't drink soda very often--it's a dietary disaster, but I love the fizz. Every once in a while you have to have a little fizz in your life. I enjoyed every swallow and in a week or so I'm going to have another one. Tomorrow I'll work out, but tonight it was nice to do nothing and take a nap.

The Beaver fans are taking over the blog. I'd try to banter with them but it's three against one and I have no chance. Plus they have bragging rights right now, after an impressive victory over the cheaters from USC, made doubly worse by the fact the Ducks play the Trojans this week in the Los Angeles Coliseum after the Beavers have them "mad as hornets" as Coach Bellotti put it. It will be twice as difficult to beat them down there, particularly after an eight-day layoff following a loss. They'll be focused and furious, a bad combination for any opponent. Much different than playing them Thursday night at home. But we'll see.

I'm worried about the American economy, after record losses on the stock market, the failures of several large bank and mortgage firms, and the decision by Congress to reject the President's bailout plan. I'm not a political person, but the signs seem worrisome and a troublesome echo of the most desolate hours of American history. It's a time where wisdom and leadership are desperately needed, and this year's election seems more important than ever. I would never tell anyone how to vote, but I hope everyone considers the choices carefully.

Whenever there is trouble in the world, faith, friends and family become more important than ever. Wednesday I am taking the fine young man Roger to Taco Del Mar for dinner. He sent me a story he wrote last night, about one of his favorite subjects, zombies. Roger has always had a vivid imagination and he's clever and funny, and the energy and humor in his story were infectious. I am so proud of that kid. He and Stephanie are the two things I have done right in my life, although their mothers deserve far more credit than I could ever take. Still, it a joy to be around both of them, smart, funny, handsome and beautiful, independent and aware. I enjoy their company so much. It makes growing old almost worth it, to see what fine people they have become.

A Change of Seasons

I may have to stop blogging soon. Not much happens in my life, so there isn't much to write about one day to the next. What little that does happen is so sordid and melodramatic there's little point in reporting it. The weekend was restful but uneventful. I won $89 playing poker, worked out, watched the Ducks. The weather was beautiful but today I am sad, because it's the first day of the season where it is full-on dark when I wake up. Winter is here, at least psychologically. The long trudge of drudgery has begun. I am not a winter person, and I squandered the summer. I feel a touch of grief over it. Like Lincoln I am prone to melancholy.

A Splendid Indian Summer Day

The Oregon Ducks shook off last week's embarrassing loss by rolling to a 63-14 victory over hapless Washington State, behind the relentless running of their tandem of talented backs, Jeremiah Johnson and LeGarrette Blount. The pair combined for 187 yards and six touchdowns against the overmatched Cougars, who coughed up two fumbles early which the Ducks converted into touchdowns on the way to a quick 21-0 lead. The Cougars managed one long drive, but the Ducks answered with one of their own and the outcome was never in doubt.

Upsets abounded in college football this week. Michigan upended Wisconsin, Alabama has jumped out to a surprise lead over number 2 Georgia, and number 4 Florida fell to Mississippi. On Thursday night lowly Oregon State held off a late rally to shock top ranked USC 27-21.

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Marie and I shopped for an apartment but didn't find anything. We had a lovely day though, lunch at McDonalds, a walk in the sunshine and a stroll through the Farmer's market. We got along and didn't frustrated with each other in a stressful situation. We got only one call on the car, from a lowballing weasel who tried to be rude and intimidating over the phone. "What's the least you'll take for it? Will you take $800?" This without ever seeing the car.

We'll just have to pray harder.

It was wonderful to walk down the street in the fall sunshine, walking hand in hand together as man and wife.

A Leap of Faith

Tonight we're putting an ad in craigslist to sell Marie's second hand car. I'm giving her the keys to the Vista Cruiser and I'm going to ride my bike or take the train to work. Saturday afternoon we're going apartment hunting, in hopes of ending our separation and beginning again together.

Marie's car, 1998 Plymouth Neon with clean tags and decent brakes and an oil leak, should bring in about $1200, enough to finance our move and buy a Tri Met pass. If things go well we hope to find a modest two bedroom apartment in Beaverton, near her daughter Austin's school. We'll have to get a little lucky to have everything work out, but it's time we had a little good fortune.

It's a big step, but I think we're ready. It's time to end the separation and begin the real work of healing and building a life together. In the world we will all find trouble, and sometimes these days the trouble seems overwhelming. No matter what happens, it is much better to have someone close to you, something to believe in, and something to work for. And I wish the same for all of you.

It could be worse...

I love the movies, as friends of the blog know. One of my favorites is "Young Frankenstein", from the mid '70s. I love Mel Brooks' zany and offbeat humor, his uncanny ability to puncture human foibles and find humor in anything. When my smart, funny and beautiful daughter Stephanie was only a twinkle in my eye, Stephanie's mother and I saw another Mel Brooks movie, "Blazing Saddles", on our first date. A risky choice for a first date, but it turned out all right.

Remember the graveyard scene? Dr. Frankenstein and Igor, covered with mud and filth, nearly finished digging up a fresh corpse for their reanimation experiment. They heave the coffin up over their heads from the bowels of the freshly undug grave. The doctor spits a chunk of mud out of his mouth. "What a filthy job," he says, disgusted by the course of his own destiny. And his ever-sunny assistant Igor, one eye cocked archly, looks up over his hump (what hump?) and says, "It could be worse." "How?" the professor demands. "It could be raining," Igor opines. An instant later, a bolt of lightning flashes and a downpore ensues. The doctor gives Igor a withering look. "Why did you have to say that!" It's never a good idea to invite disaster, or look for trouble. It will find you all on its own.

We can put ourselves in terrible peril or a terrible stew, thinking about what could be worse. Things are never quite as bad as they seem, or as bad as they could be, or as rosy as we want to believe when things are good. It's best to accept them, and trust, and finish today's job without digging up trouble for tomorrow.

I woke up this morning before my alarm went off and realized I had 20 more minutes to snooze, and we didn't have a meeting this morning and I took a shower last night, so I could turn it in to 45. It felt good to be warm and in bed, knowing I had a decent job to go to, clean clothes to wear and a last piece of blueberry pie in the refrigerator. I always keep some essentials at work because I hate to pack lunch: a jar of peanut butter, oatmeal, brown sugar and cinnamon, a half gallon of milk, a couple of cans of black beans and a bag of brown rice. I took my rice cooker to work last winter. Everyone thinks I'm a little weird but I don't have to scramble out every day for a seven dollar lunch from a drive thru window.

When I got up I checked online and I'm a couple of dollars overdrawn in my checking account, so the bank will probably charge me thirty five, or seventy if both small debits arrive at the same time. That's how they work it. The fees are a major source of profit for the bank, a way they overcome the effects of bad mortgages and the CEO's bonus. I haven't bounced a check in quite a while; I just forgot about one of the debits I had, a breakfast at McGillicudies at Saturday. $35. An expensive plate of scrambled eggs, biscuits and bacon. But my own damn fault. It could be worse. It could be raining.

They played the last game in Yankee Stadium over the weekend, The House That Ruth Built, the ballfield where Lou Gehrig gave his famous speech ("Today, I'm the luckiest guy on earth.") even as ALS ravaged his body and took his life; the ballfield where Dimaggio and Mantle patrolled centerfield, where Don Larsen threw the only perfect game in over 100 years of the World Series, the lockerroom where Yogi Berra uttered so many of his marvelous non sequiturs ("Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded."): it will all be torn down in a few days. They're building a spanking new stadium across the street, a 1.3 billion dollar palace with gourmet restaurants and lavish skyboxes, a martini bar and steakhouse and an art gallery and $2500 seats.

The monuments in centerfield of the old ballpark will be transferred, and architectural details of vintage Yankee stadium will be duplicated or preserved. But it is a passing of a rich history and worth mourning, a piece of American Myth and folklore lost. 26 world championships. The Babe mugging and tugging on his cap in a grainy piece of film are all that is left of its marvelous unveiling, on the day it was the grand new ballpark. Once home of The Mick and the Yankee Clipper and The Sultan of the Swat, it will soon be reduced to rubble, carted away in a thousand truckloads, like the debris from World Trade Center and yesterday's news.

The theater where we saw Young Frankenstein is empty now. The Southgate closed down several years ago, a victim of multimegaplexes and the VHS, which are now a victim of DVDs and the Redbox and computer downloads. The old gives way to the new. It always has. And in a few short years, they will be digging a grave for me. If it rains that day, taste it on your tongue, and think how many good days we passed together.

Now is the winter of our discontent, made inglorious and empty by an interception at the one.

The Ducks had a miserable game today, losing 37-32 at home to Boise State, and looking utterly awful while doing it. Three failed conversions, two missed field goals, a three-yard punt deep in their own end of the field, a fumble in Boise State territory, three interceptions, one at the Bronco one-yard line when they were driving just before half, another deep in their own territory; blown assignments, horrible pass defense: it was a debacle in every way, a reminder of the bad old days when three wins and a couple of moral victories was the best you could hope for.

I'll be officially depressed for three days, and then I'll forget about it and go on to the next game. As I've said before, it's not life or death, it's way more important than that.

I only played one game of poker this morning. My heart wasn't in it. Played an ace-king for 10000 chips versus an ace and eight of diamonds, and the other guy flopped a flush. Not my day, for football or cards.

I think I'll go to Winco and get some fruit, then go to the gym. Marie and I have a date tonight--we're going to Hayden's in Tualatin to hear Conroy-Debrie and have a glass of wine. I need consolation and a memoratorium on poker and football for a while.

It's gray and chilly today. It's almost feels like a winter day. "Now is the winter of our discontent," Shakespeare wrote. Some days the gloom hangs in the air like an inversion layer in the Gorge. Usually I see the world as a beautiful and hopeful place, but right now I don't want to talk about it. I need a banana and a kiwi fruit and two hours of sweat.

A Nap Gone Horribly Wrong

I came home determined to win some money. I was through pussyfooting around. I was going to play solid and determined and build my stash. I've done okay this month, with some small wins and altogether I'm up about a $100 for the month, but I haven't made a final table, and my goal is five final tables a month, which would bring in a $1000 or so and make my hobby worthwhile, in addition to supplying a nice windfall to keep the wolf at bay.

I played one tournament, folded bad hand after bad hand, then saw the flop with a pair of sixes in a 5-way pot, a good proposition. It was a lively game with lots of raising, what poker players call good implied odds. It means you will get paid off when you win. The flop came 10-6-4, two clubs, and the betting was again crazy around the table. Someone bet, someone raised, I reraised, and a fourth player put in a final reraise. I wasn't alarmed--I had a set of sixes, a good hand, and this particular table was pushing maniacally with all kinds of lesser hands, so the set was probably good at this point, worth defending, a good hand to go broke with.
The turn card was a blank, a five of another suit, and the betting continued madly. I was firing away with the best hand, pretty certain I was correct in doing so. The pot had grown to 8000 chips by now, enough to catapault the winner into great position in the tournament.

The river card was an 8 of spades. This was mildly worrisome. The club draw had missed, and any overpair hoping to make a miracle overset had missed, but any clown foolish enough to withstand 10 raises to draw to a 7 had made a miracle straight. I wasn't as confident now, but logic dictated playing the hand out. It was the sort of draw "you have to pay off" if a player had it. And of course, the principal clown, the player who had made the most frantic and insistent of the raises, was playing from first position and turned over a 9-7 of diamonds. He'd bet like a fiend and called every reraise with an inside straight draw, and now he had 10000 chips. And I was down to a paltry 115, nearly busted and completely disgusted. Every decision had been correct. A great variety of other cards on the river, and I'm sailing to the final table and a good payday. That's poker. That's why I play, to draw with better cards against frantic fiends with worse ones. This was the Friday Night of the Frantic Fiend, triumphant with his Texas Chainsaw, hockey mask and the 9-7 of diamonds. That's okay. I hope he takes his wife out to dinner and makes love to her. Eleven other nights, Marie and I will have the rib eye and broccoli special at Boss Hawg's. And we'll have better attention either way.

Enough poker, I thought. Gretchen is probably thinking that already. I plunged in the shortstack on my next big blind, pot committed, had a couple of squares of delicious dark chocolate left over from our last delicious date, and decided to take a nap.

Here on the blog we have extolled many times the virtues of the two hour nap, the Greatest Invention in the History of Mankind, no matter what Doug says. I especially recommend them after horrifying personal experiences like river inside straight draws, and to get the week out of your system at the start of the weekend. Start your weekend with a two-hour vacation. Start slow, and gather your strength. Let your body know we're entering a better place and a better time, a furlough from the cell block and all its stresses. There are no shanks to be pulled on the weekend. It's safe to drop the soap. Be here and be whole. I slept like baby Ethan after a good warm jar of Gerber Macaroni and Cheese, dreaming blissfully of the next one. Got to see that chunker soon. I can't wait for him to meet Marie. She loves babies, especially adorable little boy babies, and babies invariably love her and come delightedly to life at her attention.

The nap proceeded perfectly according to plan and began its rejuvenating magic. It had been a rough week and two hours turned into three. That was okay. It must have been what my body needed, and my tired overstressed weekday brain was enjoying going along for the headsetless ride. No phone calls in the two hour nap. No angry customers, no inside straight draws. Just perfect peace. All I needed was the blue-eyed girl with the delicious curves and the fun curly hair, but those days are coming soon. Right now it was just good to rest.

Then it all ended abruptly with a persistent and maddening beep beep BEEP BEEP BEE-OPP BE-OPP. My alarm! I shook myself out of bed to turn it off. Why wouldn't it stop? It was ringing in my ears, louder and LOUDER. It won't stop. I pressed the button, I changed the time, I unplugged it from the surge protector but IT STILL WON'T STOP. Frantic and disoriented, I rushed into the hallway, the unplugged alarm still in my hand, trying to figure out why the hell my ears wouldn't stop ringing, why my brain was filled with this furious beeping, sure I was going to wake up the entire neighborhood and piss off a an entire street of vengeful dogs and cats.

Then I figured it out. Someone had fired up the barbecue and burned a steak. It was the smoke alarm, going crazy above my head in the hallway. This time I wasn't going mad, just out of sorts and disoriented in the dark. It was okay. I didn't need to smash my alarm clock in the driveway to make it stop. The cops weren't coming to haul me away, not yet.

Relieved to solve the beeping mystery I rotated my laundry and started another game. This time I was even more alert and decisive, and it took three inside straights to finish me off. Five dollars in the hole for the weekend. Five fifty to be exact. That's okay. The moon will set eventually, the maniacal straight drawers will return to earth. I'll be waiting when they do, well-loved and rested. I'll earn enough to go see my beautiful grandbaby boy, and we'll celebrate with two steaming bowls of macaroni and cheese. Just wait till Ethan is old enough to taste the kind you make from scratch. I hope I'm there for that day of lip-smacking goodness, and maybe his first crawl. That's the good stuff. Make room in your life for more of the good stuff. Set your alarm as infrequently as possible, and try not to burn the steaks.

A Story With More Twists Than Luke and Laura

On Monday Marie sent me and email and asked if she could come live with me again. For all my proud posturing and stubborn phone stuffing, these were the words I was dying to hear. The world was instantly lighter and more promising. A weight left my chest. I felt more human and more alive. Just having her tell me she still cared, still wanted me, hoped for the same things I hoped for, it shattered a hard shell of gloom around me, far more oppressive than I realized. I'd been in denial, trying to say it didn't matter and didn't hurt.

Tuesday she came over and we went to the gym together, then to $2.50 all-you-can-eat taco night at McGillicudies. She had a Budweiser lime and I had a Mirror Pond Pale Ale. We walked over from my place, and just talking and walking over there, holding her hand under the orange harvest moon, it felt like the most perfect vacation, a trip to Italy and Disneyland all in one. We came home and made love in the brown thinking and reading chair I bought at a garage sale for $20, and her being mine and me being hers, it was just perfect.

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I look around the world we're living in, and have to wonder. Surely there has always been trouble and uncertainty, good news and bad, but the signs and portents seem stronger than ever these days. Hurricane Ike. The collapse of the financial markets, Shearson Lehman, AIG, Washington Mutual, empires crumbling. Tent cities springing up in Reno, Seattle and Portland. Millions losing their homes to foreclosure. Korea, Pakistan and Iran actively developing nuclear weapons. I am not a prophet or a politician, not a wise man, not an expert. But the difficulties, the calamities and the disasters seem to be mounting. You have to wonder what it means, and who's in control, and where it will end. It's not a good time to be alone. It's not a good time to faithless, purposeless, glib or unaware. It's more than just a bad news cycle or a rough hurricane season. It's a time to ask what's important. It's a time to be prepared. It's a time to keep close to your family and friends, and keep watch. Trouble is coming. Faith, love, friendship and family are more important than ever.


The end of this month, we are going to be reunited as man and wife. We haven't worked out all the details, but I have never been surer of any decision, and I have never been happier. I may not be blogging much for the next several months, although I'll try to check in.

A thrilling comeback and a long road ahead

On Saturday the Oregon Ducks overcame two fumbles, two interceptions, a muffed kick return, ten dropped passes and several missed tackles to defeat the Purdue Boilermakers in double overtime. Trailing 20-3 in draining humidity before an opposing crowd, the defense rallied with 11 straight stops, while junior defensive back Jairus Byrd sparked the team with an interception just before half and an 87-yard punt return for a touchdown in the third quarter.

The team made a long series of devastating and costly mistakes, but they showed tremendous heart and resolve to come back and win. Still down by seven as the third quarter ended, pinned deep in their own territory on second and long, junior college transfer LaGarrette Blount broke free on a 72-yard run, then followed with a five yard touchdown after sophomore quarterback Justin Roper loped for a first down on fourth and two to keep the drive alive. Purdue's kicker duck-hooked a field goal try to win it at the end of regulation. Sacks unraveled two Boilermaker drives in overtime, and the Ducks ran five straight running plays to win the game, Blount powering in from the three.

I watched Blount dance in jubilation at midfield, his helmet off, a face full of pure joy, and I had the sense it could be a special year for Oregon football. Starting quarterback Roper was on the sidelines with a bag of ice on his knee, the second Oregon signal caller this year to go down with a knee injury, but there is a character and a quality of leadership in this group that understands adversity and the need to rise above it. I felt his joy, and their relief at overcoming the great temptation to give in when things were at their worst. That's why we love sports. ABC used to call it "the human drama of athletic competition." It was marvelous to witness. Next week they host Boise State.

Afterward I went to the gym for an hour and a half of cleansing exercise, had some teriyaki for dinner, and came home to play poker. I played with decisiveness and clarity for five solid hours, reached the final fifteen in a field of 3100, then made a critical error. I had a pair of sixes in middle position, with 98000 chips, about 10 times the big blind. I thought for a moment and pushed them all in. A big stack behind me had wired kings. He flopped a king and turned a king for quads, and my tournament was over.

The error was one of timing. With five times the blind or less, pushing in with the sixes would have been absolutely the correct decision. In a later position on the table, it would have been defensible. But in this position and this situation, I should have mucked them immediately without a second thought. I didn't have enough chips to make a minimum raise, and any bet would commit too much of my stack to the pot, so it was either all-in or fold. I should have folded, and I knew this.

It was an emotional decision, a moment of weakness. I'd fought very hard to reach 15th, a plateau where surviving players made $22, and I plunged in, not thinking about the strategy that had gotten me so far. I'd been fiercely patient to that point, not committing chips unless I had an edge, waiting for good situations, and gambling only when necessary, when the situation dictated it. At one point I was down to my last 695 chips and had to put them in with a straight draw. There was 5800 in the pot so it was a perfect decision, and I made my straight on the turn. At another I had wired jacks, put in a raise, and two players went all-in after me and I threw the jacks away, because I had 20,000 left and sensed the jacks were beaten. The second reraiser turned over a pair of aces. In another hand I flopped a full house holding 77 in the big blind, the board reading 7 2 2. This is an actionless hand generally; hardly anyone else could have much. I checked. A big stack with late position made a minimum bet. I quietly called. An ace came on the turn. He made another minimum bet. I called again. Another deuce came on the river. I checked he bet. Only two hands could beat me. The way he had been betting, he either had a big hand and was trying to entice me into a mistake, or he had an inferior hand and was just trying to buy the pot cheaply. I made a minimum check raise, he raised back, just the minimum again, and I knew he had the two. I made a 500 chip call, and he turned over ace-deuce. Well behind at the beginning of the hand, he caught perfectly twice to win, a thrilling comeback of his own.

The significance of this from my perspective, though, is that I didn't go broke. This was a situation that would have busted most players. He caught a 46-1 card at the end of the hand, but I reasoned it out and just called when most players would have reraised and lost all their chips. In poker, it isn't what you do with great hands that determines your success. It's learning how to lose less with your losing hands, and recognize when you are in trouble. Twice in this tournament I spotted trouble and avoided it. Not without damage, but I avoided the crippling damage that would have sent me to the rail. I lived to fight another day. I picked my spots well and outlasted 3100 players. Then at the end I made an awful mistake.

On the very best days, you make few or no mistakes, and outrun one at just the right time. I will have one of those days soon and win $200 or $2000 instead of 20. In the meantime, I got some exercise and some sun, and the Ducks won in double overtime.

Sunday morning I slept in, then walked to the Gateway Breakfast House for a big breakfast. It's an old-fashioned neighborhood place where the waitress recognizes the regulars, "Hey Pedro, sit wherever you want." The service is pleasant and the portions are enormous. An 8.50 breakfast features two juicy porkchops and a pile of perfect hashbrowns; I ordered a pancake with it and the pancake covered a full-sized dinner plate. I'm a big eater and took half of the food home. So it was really a 4.25 breakfast with lunch on the side. I read the college football coverage and the baseball box scores, the Duck stories and statistics twice. The Beavers rolled over Hawaii, their offense starting to jell. Shane Morales, Sammy Stroughter and James Rodgers each caught touchdowns, and their freshman tailback shook loose for some long runs. They have USC and Utah in the next two games, after a bye week. Ichiro was two for five, Manny Ramirez 1 fo 5, and Alex Rodriguez sat out the first game of a double header and went hitless in the nightcap. Even Hall of Famers have bad days. I'll bet anything he makes a comeback. I'll looking forward to reading about it, and having one of my own.

I hope this day brings you blessings. Here in Oregon it is an utterly marvelous day. I'm in a poker game right now and I'm off to a great start, with 4200 in chips in the early stages. When the game breaks up I'll take the Vista Cruiser for a spin and get outside. Maybe I'll drive out to see Roger, or go for a bike ride. It's a long road ahead, but some of the scenery will be wonderful.

postscript--

The poker game went on for five and a half hours. I played steadily and well, played only the strongest chances and had 300,000 chips with 35 players left out of 5544. I need you to understand it is phenomenal to play in events like this every day and reach the later stages of them as often as I do. Be assured it takes a great deal of skill and nerve. Anyway, a certain player had raised three times in a row, on tilt after a bad beat, and he had shown A7 suited twice. He goes all in again. I have king-king in late position, and I know there's a range of hands he might have, most of which I'd be a good favorite to beat for dominating position in the tournament, the chip lead. His bet has me covered, so my choices are to call or fold. I call, everyone else folds, and he turns over an ace of spades and a queen of clubs. I'm a seventy percent favorite to win this hand for 615000 chips. 615,000 chips, twice as many as anyone at the table if I win. He flops an ace, and my tournament is over. I won $27, but if I win this hand I take dead aim at the final table and $500-1700.

As I've said before, these things happen. All you can do is put yourself in position, play strong, and wait for your night to win. I did everything right today, won money, and I could have won two weeks pay. You probably don't believe me, but I will win soon. Based on my results it's a matter of time. I'm reaching the final 100 of large field events routinely. I just need to break through with a win. You may be skeptical but don't bet against me. You'll be an underdog if you do.

Our Latest Last Words to Each Other

In the dark night of the soul on Friday night, I sent an email to Marie, and Saturday afternoon she sent a reply.

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Marie,

Not taking or returning my calls is hurtful and mean.

You going out to bars when we are still married, 2 and 3 nights a week, is not okay. You wouldn't accept that from me.

I try to help you. I did a nice thing for you today, and I did it because I care about you, and I've done that several times.

You could at least show some respect and compassion, and be honest with me, and try to understand when I express fear or insecurity. This has been very hard on everyone.

Storing up resentments and throwing them in my face makes things so much worse.

I wish you still cared for me and wanted to be with me. But you don't act like you do. And that really, really hurts.

I love you and I am sorry things have turned out so badly. I am sorry for my part in the fight, and the ways I've failed you as a husband.

Marie, I don't think you can get over my leaving. I only left because we had such terrible bad fights. I've always loved you and I always will, and I don't want to be with anyone else and haven't been, but you have so much hurt. I am so sorry for the way things have turned out.

I feel awful. I'm sorry we have gone through so much and your life is so uncertain right now. I wish I could fix it and heal the hurts between us.

Please forgive me. I know we probably will never be together again, but I am filled with sadness for us to dislike each other or not be able to talk.

I love you so much and want the best for you. I wish you happiness and peace.

take care and I'm sorry


Dale

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Dale,
I am sorry I didn't return your call last night. I love you and am just devastated by all the pain we have caused each other. I am really sad that you have apparently given up on us. Your blog entry was pretty emphatic. I am surprised that you can flip so dramatically in a matter of a few hours. You wrote this email @ 12:16 and the blog @ 1:30. What happened in that period of time?


As far as trying harder, I have been trying. I think you should allow to be human. Heaven knows I have more than my share of fears and insecurities. Most of the time instead of reassuring me, you just get angry and impatient with me and then I am just more upset.

I think the part of the blog about the "stunning woman" at Alyssa's graduation is misleading. The fact is, you had not returned MY phone calls for days prior to your entry about said woman. I had no way to contact you other than your workplace. Yes, I was enraged by you ignoring me, you writing about another woman and you having sold your wedding ring.

I will not phone or text you as it would be futile since your phone will be in the drawer. I don't think I will read your blog anymore either, it would be too painful.

I understand your decision to remove your wedding ring, it will make it easier to move on with your life. Giving up on us will be the most difficult thing I will ever do. We had so much potential and really did love each other and have a great time when we weren't battling our demons. God, I hate that the demons won...

I really do care about you and want you to be happy. I wish we could be happy together but that doesn't seem possible. I know losing you will cause me a deep, soul wrenching wound that will always be with me. God, why does it have to be this way? I hope we can stay in contact and resolve our problems in a civilized manor. I don't want to cause you any more pain and I really do like and love you and know you are a good man.

I feel so lost right now, as you know in many ways I am still a little girl who needs her daddy. I miss my daddy. Thank you for helping me out financially, I know you don't have to. I do appreciate your help, you have always been very generous. Thank you for your kindness.

Take care of yourself and know that I did and do love you and wish you well.

Marie

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Marie,

i just want you to know--I'm not angry with you. I'm lonely and hurt
--- Dale

Tomorrow is a new day

People say that all the time, but this time it's really true. I'm done with the sad gnawing insecurity of it. I'm through making myself miserable, worrying about what might or might not happen, whether she'll call, whether she loves me, whether she's with someone else. No one should have permission to make you feel this way. It's so high school. It's so self-defeating. I'm old. I don't have time to do this again, to go down this road of self-induced craziness again. If she wanted to be with me, she would try harder. She would pick up the phone. She would hold me when I was feeling blue. She would forgive me if I got a little crazy or afraid. I could be human with her. I could admit to a fault or fear without fear of being rejected or replaced. Honestly, this has been a silly six months, a descent into irrationality, futility and madness. Ordinarily I'm way more self-determined, self-sustaining and resilient than this. Ordinarily I live on my own terms.

Don't misunderstand. Grief is real and grief is a process. We've all heard of the five stages, but I think I've already done a fair amount of anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance right here in our hometown blog. Obviously there is more to do. But I'm through making a crusade out of suffering. I'm through with the forlorn waiting and hoping and the postponing of hope and purpose, of everything hinging on what Marie said or didn't say, or whether there was one I love you or two. I'm not going to count them anymore. In fact, the phone is being turned off, I'm putting it in a drawer for a month, and if any of you want to get a hold of me you can send me an email in the blog.

I'm not looking to get laid and I'm not looking to get even. I just want a more hopeful life, a more well-rounded one, days and weeks that don't revolve around someone else's whims and suspicions. Starting today, I'm going to stop writing about her and stop waiting for her and stop pining for her. I don't care. I mean, I don't completely not care, but where she goes and who she drinks with and when she comes home are all things over which I have no control and no knowledge, and I'm tired of suffering over them.

It's a bit of a pickle that I blog, because all my decisions and movements and activities are right here in plain sight, and Marie is prone to jealousy and retribution. Just two months ago she was so inflamed by a blog entry she literally hunted me down and tore at my face, because I wrote I noticed a woman at Alyssa's graduation and thought about saying hello to her. Imagine if I joined someone for a cup of tea.

No one should live in fear, and no writer writing a living memoir can write half of a life and leave the other half deliberately out. It would be fundamentally and irredeemably dishonest. A censored blog, a tentative or reticent blog, is no blog at all. In the words of the immortal Howard Cosell, I'm going to tell it like it is. Or at least how I think it is. Occasionally I will be deluded or dead wrong, or lost in my own rationalizations. But I promise you they will be the most emphatic and deeply-felt rationalizations I can think of.

I made the money in the tournament tonight, busting out 122nd of 1800 playing another pair of queens too strong. A more clever and patient player slow played aces and I fell pot-committed into the trap short stacked. It was a bad time to have the second-best hand. I could have smooth called, checked the flop and folded, and stayed alive a little longer. Patience, Recognition. Clarity. They are all essential. There are no shortcuts, and you can't be in a hurry. A loss of discipline or an impulsive rash move is nearly always wrong. See the situation and make a decision based on all the information available. Then trust it. It really is a fascinating world, poker. There's a lot of grace and subtlety in the game, and then there is brute force. It has a rhythm, an interior logic, a justice. And then sometimes it can be randomly cruel.

That's another thing. I'm a poker player. I play poker for money. I do it because I enjoy it, I enjoy the extra money, and there's a chance, once or twice a year, to make a significant amount of money. You grind along and do as well as you can and occasionally things go your way. I know I've written about this a lot. But some people build model airplanes and some people drink and some people gossip about their neighbors. I play poker. I like it. I play to win. And it isn't anything to hide or be ashamed of. I don't have illusions of the World Series or poker groupies. I like the game. I like the challenge. I like finishing in the money. I'm paraphrasing The Big Lebowski, one of my favorite movies: "f*ck it, let's play poker."

I'll play 3-6 hours a night, and I'll take a night off when I need one. Weekends, I'll pick 3 or 4 tournaments to play in, go to the gym, see a movie, watch the Duck game, hang out with Doug. I'll go to the occasional family barbecue or birthday. I'll visit my kids. I'll dress up and go see some blues and have a glass of wine. I'm not afraid of tomorrow, of being alone, of uncertainty or adventure. It is what it is.

What it is now is 1:48 in the morning, and tomorrow has become today, and it is a new day. I'll get some sleep and have some breakfast and hit the weights, watch the Ducks and play poker. It's going to be a damn nice day. I'm washing my hands in some warm water, I'm going to slide this ring off my finger and I'm tossing it in my sock drawer. I'm not going to be married to someone who won't take my phone calls, and won't hold me when I'm hurting inside.

A Bad Fight

Marie and I had an awful fight. I don't want to write out all the details, except to say all the fear and uncertainty and sadness spilled out, all the resentments and sorrows, and it was just a terrible, hurtful uncovering of all our frustration and helplessness. I apologized after but the damage was done, and we're farther apart than ever. Between us there is all this attraction and desire, and we genuinely love each other, but then there are the hard realities and the harsh insecurities and the sad memories of the worst things we've said and my decision to leave. She is so hurt at the core by that abandonment, and it colors everything else, and makes every difference or misunderstanding a crisis.

I wish I had $2000. It's not that it's all the money in the world, and it's my fault I don't, but if I had $2000 the financial barrier to reuniting our household would be removed, and we could decide on our merits, is this what we want? Right now we are hopelessly trapped by circumstances of our making, in helplessness and uncertainty born of carelessness and bad decision making and our inability to take responsibility for things. This is my fault. I'm the husband. I promised to take care of her, and I can't. In pure simple economic terms, I don't deserve her. I have too much debt and not enough disposable income. In my defense, a lot of the debt came in our meals and entertainments and adventures. We had a hell of a good time with that money. But our situation today is a direct result of our own decisions and our behavior, and no one should feel sorry for us, least of all ourselves.

I left her initially because the fighting was too hard and too awful. I keep coming back because I love her and want to be with her, and wish somehow we could get along without all the sorrow. I'm embarrassed with all the melodrama and indecision. What a tawdry, maudlin little soap opera we have created. Thus far there has been no transformation, and no triumph of faith, hope and possibility. But that is what I live for.

When we are angry with each other we talk about incidents and suspicions, little hard pebbles of doubt or unbelonging, the worst memories and moments, the bitter fears. How can we forget all the good that lies between us, all the devotion, all the tenderness? Why does love go wrong? I guess musicians have been asking and answering that question forever. Maybe I should drop everything and learn to play guitar.

After she left I phoned her to apologize again. I told her I loved her and I wanted the best for her, that I was sorry we had a fight and sorry I hadn't done better by her. I'd given her a little bit of money. Not much, enough maybe for groceries and gas. I try to share whatever I have and stay connected.

Just now I played in a poker game and I busted out in two hands. The first one I had wired queens, the third best starting hand in hold 'em, and a guy beat with a3o. Flopped an ace on the dreaded ace draw. I probed once and checked it down, my best possible play. He'd called 12x the blinds preflop to draw to his ace, and he wasn't going to let it go now. The very next hand, the second hand of the tournament, I have wired kings, the second best hand in poker, in the small blind. The table has to think I'm on tilt, so I put in another raise 12x the blind and a player in early position raises me all in. It's possible he might have aces, but unlikely. Another player calls. I call. The raiser has two deuces, the lowest possible pair, and the caller in the middle has ace-jack offsuit. Two incredibly mediocre hands to be all in on the second hand of a tournament. An ace flops, and I'm busted, out in two hands with wired queens and wired kings. There's all kinds of possible symbolism in this but I don't have the emotional strength right now to wrestle with it--I'll just say it wasn't a good time to be bold. A conservative way to play those hands is to make a minimal raise and see the flop, but online players are so rash that you usually want to be aggressive with great starting hands because they will call with much less. All you can do is draw strong and hope to win your share, and I do, but it's the losses that stick out. It's the losses that stay with you, in poker and in life.

I miss Marie. I want to be with her, and I want to be a good husband, and I want us to get along and be happy and provide for each other. Right now things are a mess, and it's a mess of our own making, and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know what step one is, and she has so much hurt and frustration and genuine worry about her situation that I can't say she's in the same place I am or of the same mind I am. I wish our conversation tonight had gone better. I started it off wrong and it got terribly, terribly worse from there. I adore her. But I'm not patient enough with her, and she's not gentle enough with me. We bring out the best in each other and the worst.

For now, I'm just going to hole up and bear down. I'm going to try to win $500 this weekend. I'm going to play as sharp and focused as I can, and I'm going to finish deep in an event and cash out some money. I've done it before. I've done it recently. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll go down to FedEx or Fred Meyer's and ask for a job until someone gives me another one. I don't know if Marie and I can make it. I want us to. I want to get past the hurt to a place of hope and devotion and acceptance. Right now I've made a mess of things, and she is across town and may as well be across the world. There's more than a river that separates us.

I love her and I'm sorry, but it's entirely possible that's not enough.


postscript---I called Marie twice tonight, and she didn't answer or return my calls.

Advice from someone way smarter than me

Richard threw another barbeque tonight and it felt like a wake for summer, dark by 7:30. Although it was 90 today by eight it was coolish, and we enjoyed maybe the last corn on the cob of summer and a burger, shared what we had. I excused myself and went inside and lost two dollars in two minutes flat, falling with pocket kings to a smarter and luckier guy who had the good fortune to hold pocket aces. Statistically this happens once every 4000 hands or so, and when it does, you just smile and wish everyone good luck. Unless fortune tosses a stink bomb into your opponent's lap and visits you with a king.

Marie stayed over last night and it was wonderful to hold her again and wake up to the sight of her, pulling a tee shirt over her blonde curls. If I live to be 80 (and a lot of times I hope I don't) I don't think I would ever forget her. I sent her a mournful email when I got home. I can't shake the feeling that something is going on in her life, a new development, an alternate path. The last few times I've seen her as she's left I've had the feeling she was on her way to somewhere else. Of course thinking like that is foul and dishonorable and bound to turn things for the worse. Sometimes I am tired of living inside my own head. I ought to dig a ditch or something, so I could think only of cold water and how the sweat stings in my blisters. I spend too much time thinking, and that turns thinking sour. It's a fruitless pursuit, a bridge to nowhere.

Bridge to nowhere. That's been in the news. It's sad to me how the presidential race has turned. I think in trying to discredit one another they disgrace themselves, and there is too much innuendo and mischaracterization going on, trying to demonize the opponent and their views. People want real solutions and a more hopeful future, but all they're getting is a lipstick-on-a-pig show that threatens to turn mean. I thought it was a graceful touch that both candidates met at Ground Zero today. Maybe that will raise the level of discourse. It's a shame that so much of the electorate makes their decision based on an almost primal fear of what the other candidate represents, sold the notion that Candidate X will invade their wombs or their pocketbooks or make the world unsafe for decent and right thinking people. I don't think either candidate is a bad man. Certainly there are ambitious or they wouldn't seek the job. Ultimately that's the trouble--who would want that job?

Who I am kidding? I don't know anything. Here is some advice from someone smart:


"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things."

---Albert Einstein

I am too blue to blog. I'll leave you with that.

The greatest invention in the history of mankind

The two hour nap is the greatest invention in the history of mankind, with the possible exception of the pizza oven. I got off work a half hour early today and I decided to celebrate this windfall by investing it in a nap. Two hours is the ideal time for a nap, the best way I know to turn two hours of your life into a tropical vacation without the plane fare. It's particularly effective if you have a cute girl in tiny blue girl underwear to nap with, but the nap works either way. You'll wake up larger and more full of hope and energy, and a lot of your small problems will have solved themselves while you sleep. It's not they go away; it's just that they won't matter as much when you're not dragging yourself around nap-deficient. I highly recommend leaving work early and taking a two hour nap, particularly if you begin it by making love to your wife. Take the nap, wake up slowly and put on your loosest and most comfortable pair of summer shorts, and take her out for pizza by the slice. You can work out tomorrow. I promise the gym will still be there.

Thank God for Winco. When I got up I walked the four blocks to the grocery store, taking the short cut through the bank parking lot and the old North's Chuckwagon. Probably lucky for me the all-you-can-eat buffet closed down last year. They're turning it into a strip mall and condos. We certainly need more of those, although I would have preferred unlimited Sunday morning bacon. Anyway I got to Winco and called Marie on the way. Austin's birthday is Thursday. It was a lovely night but you can really feel fall in the air, the long shadows, a cooler breeze, sunsets full of color. I haven't noticed that the leaves have started to turn but they soon will. We talked about ten minutes and I told her I loved her. She loves me too. Now that's a good phone call, and T-mobile didn't drop it this time.

At Winco I got two bags of food for $16: fruit, carrots, Skippy peanut butter and a nice loaf of whole grain bread, a deli sandwich, one can each of albacore tuna, black beans, and Stagg's chicken chili and four bottles of water, lunches for the rest of the week and dinner tonight and I spent less than 20 bucks. I love Winco. The clerk was even nice.

I went home and ate my sandwich and listened to some music. I played uninspired poker tonight, lost four dollars, made a couple of poor decisions, both reflected a lack of clarity--you have to have a reason for what you do when you play, there has to be some internal logic and a realistic assessment of the total table situation. Both times, I was just tossing in chips and hoping to win, and that's a recipe for disaster. Patience, clarity and focus, you absolutely can't win without them. Although some people seem to.

There are some more games available but I think I'm done for the night. I'll come back tomorrow after a good night's sleep and a good workout, and I'll pick my spots better.

Poker takes a lot of time, and sometimes I wish I had something better to invest it in. Tonight half the country is watching tv and eating potato chips, so it's not a complete disaster. Still, the energy and attention I give to it could really amount to something if I applied it elsewhere. Maybe I should start a blog about Pac-10 football or write another book. I'll have to give some thought to this. Right now I'm not in a decision-making mood.

Failing a test of endurance

I finished 30th out of 1737 players in a $2 poker tournament Monday night, which is harder than it sounds, but less lucrative than I'd like it to be. The good money doesn't start until you make the final five. I got a little impatient at the end, and pushed a chance that was well outside my normal character. I should have waited for a better opportunity; there was no need to flame out in that moment, because I had a little more time. It was a loss of discipline. By then it was 1:23, and I think the thought that flashed in my head in the moment of decision was, "I'm tired of being pushed around. I know he doesn't have much. I'm going to take a chance here and challenge him. If it works out I'll have a stack to do something with, and if it doesn't I'll get some sleep." I had a jack and a ten in the big blind, a mediocre hand with some possibilities. The big stack bully turned over a ace and a four. He called an 18,000 chip reraise with an ace and a four, and it was enough. He flopped an ace and I flopped into bed.

I tripled my money, but missed out on a better prize. Work is interfering with my poker. I'm just kidding, but my, yesterday was a particularly toxic day. The last call of the day was a young woman with no limits--she had more garbage in her mouth than we missed in her can. From the way she spoke to me you'd think I'd personally tipped it over and tripled her bill. My stomach was in a knot when she got off the phone, and immediately I got another call. I could barely speak, shaken and feeling humiliated and angry with myself for not disconnecting her. I'm really a terrible fit for what I do, but I have to earn a living somehow.

Marie and I didn't get a chance to talk yesterday. We exchanged a couple messages but that was all. I went to the gym after work and had chicken teriyaki for dinner, and one Curveball ale for dessert, in the third hour of the poker game.

I'm slow to learn the lessons and fend off the blows. Mick is doing his best in the corner but he wants to throw in the towel. I have rounds to go before the bell rings, rounds to go before the bell rings. Bonus points if you get the references.

Squeezing the last juice out of summer, and encountering someone who has let theirs go sour

Sunday afternoon Marie and I took a hike up Angel's Rest Falls and had a picnic in a community park in Wood Village on the way home, bread and cheese and salami, grapes and blueberries and a bottle each of Curveball pale ale. I won $46 in the $3 rebuy, finishing 265th out of 5200 players. Here is how much I love Marie: I skipped watching the Duck game on Saturday, and left a poker game today with 61,000 chips. Set the computer on "fold next hand" and walked away, folding until I blinded out, so we could leave for our hike. The game could have taken another five hours. First prize was $7000, but the prize I won was far richer. There was no guarantee I would have done better than 265th had I stayed--in any tournament poker game your next hand can be your last. You can flop trip aces and lose--it happened to me this weekend in a 20,000 chip pot.

Marie wasn't feeling her best today and the air quality was subpar in the George. I'm no meteorologist but it seemed like an inversion layer or something. It was much harder than normal to breathe going up the trail. We only hiked about three quarters of the way up, and stopped to rest at an utterly holy place where the trail comes next to a stream. There are flat rocks to sit on and a canopy of trees, and a breeze blows through the ravine, freshening the air. We sat for a moment and absorbed the stillness, the play of the water over the rocks. I said a little prayer for us, silently to myself, and thanked God we had come to such a beautiful place together, a place where God's purpose and plan are so evident. Marie was clearly tired and under the weather a bit, but she was a good sport and good company and I enjoyed just being around her.

I like to take the backroads whenever possible, especially on trips. It's fun to drive leisurely in the Vista Cruiser with the top down, taking our time, enjoying the music and each other and the splendid view. On the way home we were tooling down the Scenic Columbia River Highway, doing 35 miles per hour, the speed limit, on a fairly windy road that has country homes along its banks, and a jerk in a silver Lexus comes screaming up behind us and just lays loud and long on his horn. I gave the Cruiser a little more gas but didn't hurry. This was Sunday afternoon after all, on a road called The Scenic Columbia River Highway. How could anyone object to someone taking their time on a scenic highway? That's what it's for. That's why they call it "scenic". There's a perfectly good freeway a few miles north, where el Jerko could scream down the fast lane at 80 if he wanted, get a couple more traffic tickets to keep his lawyer busy.

We got a little further down the road, around a couple of bends near Tad's Chicken and Dumplings, and wouldn't you know there was a white Lexus in front of us going even slower than I was so I had to slow down again, you know, maintain proper following distance, like we all learned in driver's ed. By this time Silver Lexus is livid. In the rearview mirror I can see him gesturing and swearing, and then he lays on his horn again, really loud and hostile.

If only life were like the movies. I would have loved to have put the car into a half spin and gone all Die Hard/Terminator on this poster boy for road rage. I had to laugh at how really out of line he was getting over a 10 minute slowdown in his obviously overstressed day. Now Marie is a little fiesty, as we have seen here on the blog. You don't want to rile her up. She unbuckled her seat belt and shook her fist at Mr. Lexus, well, shook one particular part of her fist, a finger I think it was, and told him a specific way he should pleasure himself.

I have seldom meant anyone so deserving of that specific saluation. I really wanted to kick his ass, and I'm not normally an ass-kicking guy. Fortunately in another mile we got to the bridge over the Sandy River into Troutdale, and he continued north to the freeway where he belonged. We had our picnic and thought of funny ways Mr. Lexus might get his comeuppence. One day he's truly going to honk at the wrong guy and end up with a bag of garbage or a rotten watermelon all over his sparkling windshield. That would be terrible. I would never think of doing such a thing. And it would be very, very wrong.

There sure are a lot of knuckleheads out there with no idea of how to enjoy a summer day. The beer was cold and the grapes were sweet, and I had a date with the girl of my dreams. I've always liked the fiesty spunky ones. We took the slow way home, down Halsey through Troutdale, Fairview and Wood Village, listened to the Sunday night blues show on KINK. A nice long few kisses good bye and a warm embrace and Marie had to drive home. I wish she could sleep over. But she has to work at 5 am.

And now, in a blog first, I'm going to bed before 11. I'll try to write a longer post tomorrow, something elevated like politics or poetry or Pac-10 football. Tonight this is all I had. Sleep well, and may God grant you grace and peace, and no silver Lexuses in your rearview mirror.

A Perfect Day, Except for the Terrors of Inside Straights

It was a perfect day, sunny and mild and pleasant and full of my favorite things. The Ducks steamrolled Utah State 66-24 with 688 yards of total offense, a school record. I had a date with Marie, a lovely afternoon together followed by dinner at Chang's Mongolian. Oh, to see that girl again in just a tiny pair of blue underwear, then to hold her while she slept, rubbing her temples and shoulders and soothing away her cares and mine, there are neither songs or words or poems rich enough to hold an afternoon that heavenly. I adore that woman. You probably have figured that out by now. We had a terrific meal and a ride home under the moonlight with the top down in the Vista Cruiser, talking about everything from politics to our grandbabies and the little two bedroom condo we'll buy when better days arrive. I'm thinking of George and Lenny, talking as they walk along rivers and work the fields, "Tell me how it's gonna be, George, tell me how it's gonna be." How do we make it that way? I'm anxious to know. I want to hold the future in my hands like a baby rabbit and I hope I don't squeeze too hard. In the beginning the blog was occasionally lyrical and usually ambitious, and sometimes now I'm afraid I just mail it in between poker games--I'm embarrassed that I don't deliver enough for the subscription you've paid of your precious time and interest, a gift as ripe as a basket of farm-picked raspberries, remarkable and bright.

Marie had to drive home after dinner; she has to work in the morning at five, driving straight home and going straight to bed she wouldn't sleep seven hours. They are not much of a job but they are all the jobs we've got, and I suppose we're lucky to have those: I've often said I'm just one bad call from being fired. A lot of the time we have to choose between getting to bed or dragging ourselves through the next day. It's why a lot of us dream of winning Powerball--we know it isn't rational or likely, particularly when I rarely buy a ticket, but we all have this secret half-formulated wish of escaping the rat race to some finer and more hopeful and self-directed life. In the meantime we just set the alarm and put on the apron and mind the store.

Earlier today I promised Doug I'd give him a call. Conroy-Debrie were playing tonight at A Taste of Wine, a congenial, bright and open wine bar in Tualatin. "Would you like to meet for a glass of wine there or are you too busy?" I asked, grateful that T-mobile hadn't yet dropped the call. Doug chuckled his deep-throated chuckle. "Gretchen and I are on our way there now," he said. I told him I'd see them there in 40 minutes. I remember the line from "Dead Poets Society": Carpe Diem. Seize the day.

Doug and I visited A Taste of Wine earlier this summer and had a wonderful time. The staff is cordial and knowledgeable and wines are reasonably priced and accessible, a truly great place to gather with friends and converse and make discoveries. They make a real effort to demystify the wine experience and allow you to enjoy it free of pretense or pressure. Conroy-Debrie is Ann and Dub Debrie and Tony Conroy, and Marie and have gone to see them many times, bringing Gretchen and Doug out for a New Year's Eve party at the old Sweetbriar Inn. Marvelous, marvelous music, tight harmonies, sharp instrumentation, soulful and witty and playful, with an amazing range of material, everything from "Pinball Wizard" to Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line." Every song delivered with inventiveness and devotion. All art aspires to the quality of music, and theirs is a high standard indeed.

Doug and Gretchen and I sipped our wine and enjoyed the music, just chatting and catching up, about an amazing dinner they'd had at a new restaurant, where their son Tucker is the assistant pastry chef, grandbabies and the fortunes of our football teams, my date with Marie. Gretchen has a new passion, hormone therapy. She visited a doctor from the Laurelhurst neighborhood, Kathryn Retzler, who prescribes treatments design to restore hormonal balance. It seems that hormonal imbalances inform a lot of life's ills, particularly as we age, and along with the stresses of modern life can rob us of the joy and vitality that ought to be our birthright. Bags under the eyes and hair loss and water retention are simply outward signs of much larger and more serious problems which hormone therapy can address. I don't completely understand the science, but I can say that Doug and Gretchen looked radiant and happy together, and that is testament enough for me.

Afterward we drove up to their place and had dark chocolate and raspberries and organic grapes. Gretchen had us squeeze some lime juice on the raspberries and it gave them a surprising extra kick. We talked a while more and laughed a little longer, until it grew late and I wanted to leave them some time to enjoy their new found health. Gretchen told the story of when she decided Doug was the guy. It was on a trip to Kahneeta at the end of their senior year. "In my family there was always a lot of anger and bickering, but he was just so totally calm," she explained. A group of friends had decided to hop in the Chevy Malibu and make the drive to someplace warm, the hot springs where they could enjoy some swimming and time away from the greyness that descends on Oregon sometimes. Things didn't go as planned, as things often do. "It was the trip where everything went wrong," Gretchen said. On the way they ran into an unexpected late snowfall. "All of us were in tee shirts and shorts, freezing, trying to put on tire chains." A few miles further up the road and one of the chains breaks loose and wraps itself around the axle. Everybody out of the car, their fingers freezing, struggling to work the chains loose and hook them up again around the tire. A little further and they came to a bad wreck and a long delay. "I learned later that someone died in it. We sat there for what seemed like hours." They'd come to the traffic jam at a place where the road was banked steeply to one side, and the Malibu slid sideways toward a snowbank, and when it slid nearly off the road, the car behind dumbly pulled forward, and slid sideways into the Malibu, the two cars stuck together and the entire side of the Malibu dented and scratched. Everyone out of the car again, to try and push the cars apart, with finally some other folks among the nearby stranded motorists jumping out to help. "Then we finally got to Kahneeta and it was raining, and we had to just turn around and go back. Through all of this I was waiting for the anger and the shouting, because that was what I was used to, but it never came. He was just so calm and understanding, and that's when I knew. I later learned Doug does have a temper, but I was just amazed at how he handled everything that day."

She made him work for it though. Later on that summer she tried to break up with him, explaining she was going away to college in the fall and wanted to be free to date other people. Doug considered this for a long moment and told her he wouldn't be comfortable with that. "He stayed away for four days, and then finally he came over and told me he'd agree to it. I went away to school that fall and sometimes he'd come down to see me on weekends, and sometimes I'd tell him not to come down until Saturday because I had a date on Friday night."

Through it all Doug stuck with it, but it was hard sometimes. Valentines Day of that year he came down to see her and when he got to her dorm room there were two bouquets of flowers on her desk, from two of her other admirers. "So you just wore her down," I teased. "Yep. I outlasted them all," Doug said.

Apparently he did. This month is their 33rd wedding anniversary, and they have six children and two beautiful grandbabies and a paid-for house to show for it. I left them a few hours ago, and I suspect now they are sleeping soundly, hormonal imbalances adjusted, safe in one another's embraces. Would that the whole world would find a love as rich and rewarding as that.

That was my perfect day. Poker is a disaster tonight, though, a living embodiment of the cliche "lucky in cards, unlucky in love." Extremely lucky to have met the one girl I will never stop loving or wanting, I lose with pocket jacks to a running inside straight, three of a kind to an inside straight, with AQ to 86 offsuit. A poker nightmare, relentless. It doesn't matter what I play or what they play, what follows is what they'd request on dial-a-poker-prayer. I've lost about eight dollars on a night I'd like to make 1500 and a win the girl of my dreams, having been lucky enough to find her at 53.

I'll just have to win her in another way.

Today I Wish I Was Rich

Today I wish I was rich, so I could buy a gold-plated shotgun and shoot the alarm clock and go back to bed. I'm a night owl by nature, as the FOBs know. If I were a rich man I would stay up until 3 every night and sleep till 10:30 and never again set an alarm clock. Sometimes that beep beep beep feels like the cruelest and most unwelcome sound in the world. I threw on my clothes, remembering I'd vowed to ride to work and needed to leave right away to allow enough time. Forgive me, Brad, I'm going to buy some fossil fuel and hit the snooze bar. I am a weak and immoral man.

Stephanie called me last night and we talked a minute. It was good to hear her voice. The child is always overflowing with enthusiasm and intensity, and I love that about her. Tonight she wanted fantasy football advice, whether to start Marvin Lewis or the running back from the Jets, and I told her the Jets, because Lewis is dinged up and the presence of Favre and the threat of the deep ball should open up things for the Jets' running game. You have to love a daughter who calls for fantasy football advice, though I don't play it myself. I can only afford so many obsessions--I'd be up till five and wind up bludgeoning the alarm clock with a shoe. Please understand, I'm not ordinarily a violent man. But I really hate the alarm clock and its incessant beeping tyranny, its call to duties I don't want to accept. I wish I were rich. I'd fire it in a New York Jet minute.

In many ways I am. Last night I had dinner with the lovely Marie Annette George, and five minutes of watching her do situps is a feast and a banquet and a transport to paradise, and five or more of her kisses are a tropical vacation and a Broadway show. We worked out and had dinner from the dollar menu at Wendy's and I felt like the luckiest man on earth, and she promised in the next few days to come and sleep with me. I have to play like a fiend and win a big jackpot, because I want her to sleep with me every night. When I make that happen, I will truly be rich, because no man could want anything more after that.

Got to go to work. The snooze bar says so, and I have to stop at the AM-PM to buy gas. Conroy-Debrie are playing at a Taste of Wine Friday and Saturday from 7:00-10:00. Doug and I might go and bring our lovely brides, and stop somewhere afterward for a chicken fried steak and two more hours of PAC-10 football talk. What a glorious night that would be. Maybe Brad and Thomas and Stephanie will fly into town, and make it a night worthy of the Oscars or the ESPYs, a gala and magical event. We'll feel like the two lovebirds on the bow of the Titanic, kings of the world. A bottle of good wine and a table of friends is all you need to be truly rich, particularly if you are going home afterward with the girl who exceeds all your dreams.

Small Losses and Much Deeper Ones

I had a pair of tens and he had a pair of nines, and all our chips were in the center after a flop of 8,4,2. There were about 2500 chips in the pot, enough to get me healthy and started in the right direction, enough to keep me surviving until my rush, until the cards turned my way and I could create some openings to build a stack and break out of the pack for a pay day.

Not tonight. Lady luck was in a perverse mood, and delivered two running hearts to give my donkey opponent a running nine-high flush. The painful part of poker is that you can do everything right and have everything turn into a disaster in twenty nine seconds of nine-high flush. A truly ugly way to lose. But it's a loss nonetheless. It's part of the game. You hope to win more than you lose, and have a few nights where most of those situations go your way and you make money. I make a few hundred dollars a month doing it, and one of these days I'll have a blessed evening or two and make a life-changing amount of money, because I know what I'm doing and I study what they're doing, and after an hour or so I have a pretty good idea of what they're going to do next. But even with the best of it, you have to get a little bit lucky to win.

There's another tournament at ten, a three-dollar entry fee with $3,000 guaranteed prize money, but I don't think I'll play. I'm a little tired and feel ragged, and that's never a good time to make decisions or compete in a contest of will and nerve and judgement. Tomorrow is another day. Today the sun was out, I had Sparky's Pizza for lunch, no gut churning phone calls, and a good workout. I was minus 4.40 in poker, but I'd count the day a total success.

I didn't hear from Marie though. I called her twice and left messages. I hope she's doing all right. She and her daughter were having trouble and had an awful quarrel the other day, the ugly kind of showdown only families can have, where every rage and resentment comes tumbling out and things are said that never should be, the deep hurts that only someone close to you can deliver, hurting you where all your sorrows are stored. You know the kind. It's terrible when we do that to each other, when anger wins over every impulse of grace and consideration, and all that's left of us is a raw nerve of wanting our way and the last word, and ugliness rules the moment, turning the very air into something sad and hateful and impossibly full of suffering and guilt, and we say the cruelest and most unreasonable things we can think of, not caring how brutal, how humiliating and out of control we are. That's an awful place, 90000 times more awful than a nine-high two card running flush, the sad wrenching ugliness that makes me panic, filled with the remembrance of all the worst moments of life, the brutal memory of unsafe and never-forgotten places, the pain of being completely human in an inhumane world. Family can be the most rewarding and healing thing in life, and it can be the most desperate and terrifying. How terrible to love someone so deeply and have them wound you to your very core. The words of vicious undignified uncontrolled anger, they resonate in our hearts forever. What an awful thing that can be. The hardest part is the day after, when the wounds are fresh and the tension is a physical weight in the room, a monstrous demon fueled by shame and regret and threatening to plunge us right back into the same unforgiving and horrible searing ugliness. Too often the Rager never apologizes or makes amends; they just expect everything to be smoothed over or forgotten, and too often again the anger is a weapon to keep everyone in their place, a little off balance, a little cowed and suppressed. "Walking on eggshells," the old saying goes, walking on eggshells to keep the cruelty at bay, to make the monster stop. But the monster doesn't stop. It's just waiting for another opening, another opportunity to swallow love whole and turn it into regret and defeat.

The capacity we have to hurt one another, to turn our lives into a shell of what they should be, is the worst part of what we are. How enormous is our need for grace, healing and mercy, and the wisdom of a forgiving God. Some of you know what I mean.

The Best Day Ever, Until It Really Happens

Tonight we talked again and decided we should just do it, reunite our household and live again as husband and wife. All that remains to work out is the how. I need to get some money together, take a second job, win a jackpot, something. We'll probably have to raise about $1500 for deposits, moving expenses and the like. Of course in January I can sell my stock again.

I'm brainstorming and scheming as hard as I can. Marie suggested I think about tending bar part-time: I enjoyed the summer gig at my sister's events and I have a server's license. It's not the greatest environment but it is a way to make ready cash.

We just realized we are better together than we are apart, and we have to just decide to make it work. Whatever "issues" (I hate that word; it's so pc and trendy--a generation ago people didn't have issues, they had families and jobs and commitments) we have we'll just have to work out, day by day.

So that's where we are. It will take some faith and acceptance. But we know we want to be together. Now we are searching for solutions and opportunity. It feels like a good place to be.