(no subject)

It was difficult to pull myself out of bed today, but I had an 11am session with Ertan, so I eventually rallied enough to get up and out the door.

It's beautiful outside, and I drove to the gym with my windows down and my music loud. I'm still listening to the new Farewell Drifters album on repeat in the car. "Tomorrow Forever" is a particularly wonderful song for driving. I sang along loudly and enjoyed the fresh air.

When I pulled up to the gym, I started thinking about my friend Jen, my former trainer from Charlottesville. I hadn't seen her for six years, but she came up to visit last October and we had a wonderful long weekend together. We're working on another visit as soon as schedules allow. I was thinking then how nice it would be to have her up again, because she always just has a way of making me happy, and that's certainly something I could use right now. Right at that moment, she texted me this: "Just checking in to see how you are. I hope things are well with you and McKenzie both, come what may. I miss you my friend. Love you!" What timing. We're not in frequent contact, so to get a message from her right at the moment I was thinking of her and wishing she was with me was such a strong coincidence that it gave me chills.

I had an intense workout and felt strong and powerful at the end of it. I drove home with the windows down and music blasting again, and I tried to focus on happy thoughts: my friends who love me, my upcoming trip to Italy, my brief stop in NYC to see the nieces before that, the blue seahorse necklace I keep around my neck, purple things, the Urban Dictionary entry a friend pointed out to me yesterday...

I'm definitely depressed, but it's not a failure of my medication or my brain. It's just that things are understandably hard right now and of course I feel shitty about it. But I've got happy things to keep me in a not-too-shitty place. I know the bad feelings won't last. I'll be okay.

Dallas Anecdote

I've been meaning to share this story for a while. I often complain about both sexism and ageism in bridge, and in the finals of the IMP Pairs in Dallas, Jen and I got a huge helping of both from a pair of men in the penultimate round of the event. On the first board, they had a quick auction to 6N, I made a lead, dummy hit, and declarer started to claim. Before he had faced his cards, dummy shuffled his up and put them back in the board. Jen and I both stared incredulously before asking to see the cards. Both dummy and declarer treated us like we were idiots for this. "I've got six diamond tricks, four heart tricks, and two black aces. Twelve tricks. What's the problem?!" The problem is, you pompous ass, we haven't SEEN the cards. Dummy grudgingly pulled the cards back out, we looked over the deal for the two seconds it took to figure out the claim, and put our cards away, too. The opponents continued to mumble some bullshit about how could we possibly have a problem with this, gosh.

On the next hand, the previous hand's dummy was declarer in 4H. Around trick 9, he attempted to claim, and again didn't show his cards, just told us that Jen would get her high trump and he was making 4. We had to insist that he show his cards before he actually faced them. When we saw the cards, it was clear that he thought his long spade suit was good -- but it wasn't. I had five to the jack or some such holding guaranteeing me a trick in the suit for down one. He then insisted that we play it out. No, you fucking prick, you claimed. So we call the director over, and once again he trots out his "these bitches are bitches" line -- he says, "I have 10 tricks, she gets the high trump, making four, what's the problem?" At this point, there's more than one problem, actually. One, you've made a bad claim, and two, you're being a huge jerk. Anyway the director sets him straight, saying that he should know better than try to play out a hand after a claim and of course we get a spade trick, down one. He did not take this graciously.

When we moved on to the next table, our opponents remarked that it sounded like we'd had a nice time against the two previous "gentlemen." Ha. I said to Jen, "I wonder if he thinks he can get away with treating us like that because we're young, or because we're women, or both?" The female opponent chirped up to that, agreeing that this game is full of sexism and women do get disrespected all the time. Her husband and bridge partner couldn't let this sit, and he said, "Now, wait a minute, there's a female pair at our club that no one would dare disrespect!"

"Oh, well, good to know there's one pair."
"Yeah, Shawn Quinn and Mildred Breed."
"AH! I SEE! So all I need to get respect at the bridge table is either multiple world championships, or a penis. Got it."

You know what? Go ahead and underestimate me because I'm female or because I'm young. You'll soon learn that was a mistake. But disrespect me and I will fucking castrate you. Then you, too, can experience the bridge world without testicles.