Marching to the beat of a different mandolin

We've been doing better as the week progresses. We made one KO semifinal for a nice big chunk of points for Zac -- he was shocked that we got 11 all at once like that. Today we're playing in a playoff for 3rd place in a 3-session KO (they didn't get enough teams to do a full final KO). Then tomorrow I fly home to my sweet boyfriend and devil kitten. I've had a great week and I'm really looking forward to getting home, too.

Last night, we played against Val and his sponsor, Carol. Early in the match, Zac jokingly told me to fuck off. Carol, a woman at least in her 70's, was very shocked, and Zac spent the rest of the match apologizing for his language. As we got up to leave the table at halftime, Zac said once more to her, "Again, I'm so sorry about my language." She goes "I don't give a fuck!" It was my favorite moment of the week.

They annihilated us in the second half after we kept it close in the first, so Val offered to buy my drinks at the hotel bar. It was the first time we hung around after, and we ended up shooting the shit with Steve Weinstein and Bobby Levin. It's such a small tournament, they're some of the only pros here, and we were the only people around to hang out with them. That was a good time. It made me feel like one of the cool kids.

I also witnessed the most awful human behavior I've ever seen yesterday. I've already told this story all over Facebook, but I'll put it here for a more permanent record. In the first bit of the first session yesterday, a woman playing in the small room (7 tables) with us fainted. Everyone in the room stopped playing as we waited, concerned, for her to wake up. Paramedics were called, but her husband assured us that she has a fainting disorder and this is not uncommon. She's probably fine. She wakes up and the color starts returning to her face, and she says she's okay. The surrounding tables continue their play. The paramedics arrive, lift her off the ground and back into her chair, and begin to evaluate her. Then a woman (JH) gets up and walks over to the patient and paramedics and says "could you please take this outside? It's really bothering me."

What. The. Fuck.

Like, seriously, I know bridge players are selfish assholes, but that was a spectacular new low. God damn.

Anyway, one more day of fun-filled excitement, then home to my love. It's been a great week :)

Also Happy Fucking Birthday to my little sister today! I dunno if she still reads here now that I'm not on LJ and she has an infant to wrangle, but I've wished her happy birthday in several other places as well. (Hi Em! Are you still with me here?)

I am so sick of all the disrespect I get at the bridge table. I'm too mentally exhausted to go into the whole story from today, but it has a happy ending, anyway. My team won. We're a hodgepodge team thrown together to fill out the event, and we fully expected to be bottomfeeders, but we were solid today and tomorrow we'll play against Dave's team for the district championship. I feel like I'm playing some of my best bridge ever, and while I don't think our team is better than theirs, I think we could win. I would like that very much.

The thing I hate the most, though, is that when I complain about being disrespected, most (older white men) think I'm overreacting. The older white men in charge of ruling the game (and handing out zero tolerance penalties) don't think any of the transgressions that bother me warrant a ZT. (Then why call it ZERO tolerance if you'll tolerate MILD abuse?) But get fucking disrespected every goddamn time you play, and the littlest things eat at your soul. I just wish the directors would have my back here. Or that I could stand up for myself without looking like a whiner or some kind of tattletale.

But you know what?

Scoreboard, motherfuckers.

I've played more sessions of live bridge this week than I had in the previous two years combined, just about. I'm diving back into it rather heavily (at the club level, anyway), and I'm really happy to be doing so. I played Monday night in a small game with Toby and mostly either beginner pairs or pairs of mentor-mentee partnerships. We won and Toby earned his very first masterpoints :) (Well, fraction thereof.) David mentioned that the club was really in need of more directors, and I volunteered myself. I want to be involved with his club if he'll have me, and it would be nice to earn a little extra money doing something I enjoy anyway. I can bring a craft or a puzzle and work on that between obligations, and make more contacts for either bridge or real estate or whatever in the meantime.

My demeanor at the bridge table has changed entirely from what it used to be. Playing with mostly beginners these days, I just don't give a fuck about the results, or the stupid cheaty things that happen at the club, because the offenders aren't doing it on purpose and how does it affect my life even if they are? I'm just really nice to everyone and I don't make a fuss over the shit that used to bug me and it turns out it's way more fun this way. There are still some people who rub me the wrong way, but it's not like I have to spend the whole day with them, so who cares? I'm having fun and sharing something I love with people I love. That's a win.

On Wednesday, I played in an open game with a friend I've known for a while but never played with. He's not an expert, but he's not someone who's playing with me to get lessons, either. I'm not sure if he's technically flight C or B but he's a good B-level player who can hang with the A's on most days. We had a 54% game, which I felt great about. We've made plans to play most Wednesdays together.

Then tonight I was going to play with Toby again in another mentor game, but we had to juggle our schedule at the last minute, so I asked Brian to play with me when Toby had to cancel. He enthusiastically accepted my invitation, and we had a 61% game where lots of relevant teaching points came up. Brian is about a year ahead of Toby on the learning train (plus several years of sort of knowing how to play but not actively working on the game), so I feel like going over more advanced theories and practices with him is doable. He did really well, and I feel like the stuff we discussed really sunk in, too. Both Brian and Toby have rather high bridge potential, and I look forward to competing with each of them in the really high level shit one day. I'm going to have to work harder than I ever have at the game if I want to stay better than both of them long-term, but I've got a few years before I have to really hit the books ;) One thing I love about this game is how you can just keep leveling up, no matter how long you've played or how expert you get. No one has solved this game yet.

Tomorrow night, I'm going with Toby and our friend Eric to see Joel McHale do some comedy. I look forward to it eating up some time in a happy way before the election. I'm so freaking scared about this Tuesday and the ensuing political climate, you guys. Even if Hillary wins, the Trumpians aren't going away. They're riled up, they're armed with misinformation and actual weapons, and they're dangerous as any enemy this country has ever seen. I don't know what it will take to bring reason back to our country, but I'm hoping it prevails...not just on Tuesday, but in the long-term. Fingers crossed, y'all.

Last night I had my regular therapy session, followed by therapy round 2 at Josh & Mary's. Josh and Mary listened to me bitch and moan about my problems (thanks, guys!) and let me hold their baby for a while, which is exactly the kind of therapy I needed. I love that little girl. And her skin is so soft, I just wanted to give her all of the kisses all of the time.

Work this week has been good -- when I'm in emotional turmoil, I tend to be more productive at my desk for some reason. So I stayed on top of everything as it came in, and was rarely busy. I've played a lot of BBO this week, and I have felt zero guilties about it because all my work is done, for serious. I even did some real estate work from here at my insurance office, too.

It doesn't look like my aunt will be able to make it anytime soon -- she has company for the next couple of weeks, and she's taking her own real estate exam right after they leave. She said she would try to come in late February. I guess knowing she's not going to come right now could be another way to get myself going. Okay, she's not going to come reboot your life; do it yourself. I'm feeling somewhat motivated, anyway. I have productive and healthy plans for the weekend, and I'm kicking around ideas for how I will spend some of my free time next week. I'm thinking of starting a weekly or bi-monthly craft night at my house. If people came over specifically to do crafts, I'd be more likely to use all my craft stuff, too. I really should do that. Tuesday nights, anyone?

My fish are still going strong. I'm going to swing by the aquarium place in Beaverton on my way home tonight and pick up some more stuff for the tank. Watching them is really great meditation. I'm glad they're surviving, and appear to be doing well. The magnitude of the bigness that is the deal that I have live fish in there cannot be overstated. I'm really pleased.

Youguysyouguysyouguys! I finished my real estate coursework! I still have a few steps before I'm licensed -- there are end-of-course exams I have to pass, and I should study a bit before I try to take those, because some of that reading is not very fresh in my mind, but I did take one of them today and passed it (for the most recent subject material I covered). It only took about ten minutes to complete that exam, though, so I don't think that the rest of them will take up too much time. Then I need to schedule my final licensing exam, pass the mofo (you find out immediately), and proceed with my startup stuff like getting photos taken and launching a website and all that fun stuff. I'm so close! Finishing the coursework was huge for me, though. I've been stagnating for a long time, really close to the finish line but just not focused enough to fucking get it done. We talked a lot about that in therapy last night, discussed strategies to get the ball rolling again (and to stay on task), and whaddya know, I applied said strategies and was successful. Huzzah!

Therapy has been really good lately. I'm feeling a lot better about so many things, and both Z and I are much more relaxed in our coexistence than we have been in...ever. So that's good. Obviously there's a lot about it that's still really hard, but I feel like we're making the right kind of progress.

I've got an awesome long weekend ahead of me. We've got three different guests coming for various stays -- Jen Cote is coming up from NM tonight, and will be here through Tuesday. She was here about this time last year and I love her and we always have a blast together. Then tomorrow, Jen Chalfan is coming down from Seattle, probably bringing her daughter, and staying for the weekend. We're all signed up to run a 5K on Saturday, which happens to take place at a local amusement park, so that'll be a fun day. Then on Sunday, we have a new short-term renter moving in.

In preparation for all of this, we've been doing a lot of housework. That's something else I'm working on in therapy to try to be better at...not letting my laziness overcome me to the detriment of my living conditions. It's a struggle. But guests are good motivation.

I've also solidified most of my travel plans for the rest of the calendar year. I've all but given up on hitting the mileage requirement for Gold status again, but I'm well into Silver anyway. I was hoping to go someplace international, and I still might if the right fare pops up, but right now I'm just planning on sticking around here for the most part, and going to Providence for the duration of the NABC (after having Thanksgiving in Virginia with my folks). Because of my work schedule and the Thanksgiving holiday, I'm able to take two full weeks off and only having two days covered by my coworker, so even though I'm traveling for a long time, it's not a major burden on my office. That's nice. I still haven't worked out what I'll do for Christmas. I would say that going home over Thanksgiving is enough, really, but William and his family don't come down then -- only for Christmas. So if I want to see them, I need to go then. And of course I want to see them! So we'll see. All this stuff is time off work, money spent, etc. More likely to go to VA for a quick Xmas visit if I don't end up doing any more traveling the rest of the year, and it looks like that's how it'll go. I'd like to get down to Phoenix a time or two to visit with A and Katy, and my regular four-day weekends should make that a viable option. But I also want to dive into real estate up here, which means I probably should be around a lot.

Anyway, super excited to have some of my favorite people visiting for the weekend, and I look forward to hugs and talks and good workouts and girlfriend time.

<3

Vegas was super fun. But holy shit I should've taken today off work. I am barely here. Luckily it's been pretty slow in the office so it's not a big deal. I'm just bored and tired and cranky.

I got upgraded to first class on my flight to LAS, so I got a head start on drinking for the weekend. McKenzie picked my drunk ass up at the airport and we were back in our hotel before 1am on Saturday. Adrian had arrived shortly before, and he was already asleep for the night, so we tried to quietly settle in. Somewhere in there, though, I found a second wind I wasn't looking for, and I ended up awake doing Kakuro puzzles until 3am.

I rolled out of bed for real around 9, and A and I hit the town. He wanted to do the roller coaster at New York, New York Casino, so we took the monorail up there. When we arrived, the coaster still wasn't open yet, so we decided to start drinking while we waited. I hadn't exactly had breakfast, and I knew going into it that it was possibly a terrible idea, but YOLO...

I do think being tipsy made the roller coaster way more of an adventure. When we finished that, we grabbed some food and then started walking up the strip. When we got to Casino Royale (basically the midpoint between LVH and NYNY), we ducked in and got going on the craps table. We did quite well and both left up a couple hundred bucks. Adrian used to deal craps, so I always like gambling with him. I was too young when he worked in AC to actually visit him there. He's got good stories, though.

We were going to get on the monorail and ride the rest of the way back, but at that point, we were already most of the way to our hotel, so we just decided to walk instead. That is a long, hot walk. It was about 110 degrees outside. We saw Bruce Willis (not really, just the wax museum sculpture of him outside Madame Tussaud's, which my brother thought was real). Then we saw Bill Gates at our hotel (really. He was playing bridge. Adrian was psyched). I honestly can't remember what we did that afternoon. Must've involved more drinking. We had dinner with McKenzie and A went to bed early while I stayed up to heckle bridge players and join the midnights. We lasted exactly one round there.

The next day, Adrian and I monorailed back to Casino Royale, where we both gave back what we'd won the day before. We hopped around some other places on the strip for food and drink and to place a bet on the Blazers to win the 2015 championship. I was hoping to find a sports book with more interesting prop bets, but the only NBA bets available this time of year were who would win the title. Closer to the season, oddsmakers will set the lines for the other stuff, but instead of putting some money down that the Blazers would win X # of games or whatever, I had to go for the all or nothing bet. I put $5 down for the championship, which will pay $180 if it hits. In other words, I gave away five bucks to prove that I'm a true fan.

Adrian took off to go back home at that point, so I went back to the room for a good long nap. McKenzie took the night off and we got dressed up super fancy for a date. We went to Cirque's Love, and he loved it as much as I expected him to (lots), went back to the LVH and played more midnights (again, early exit -- apparently we're bad at bridge). Z went to bed, but I stayed up playing electronic craps and shooting the shit with Ankur and Mike. Craig and Rob joined us much later in the night, and by the time I went to bed, I was up $100 or so and the sun was rising.

I slept until noon, then went back to the casino to try to undo my losses from the day before. At one point, I was down 95% of the bank I'd brought with me, and it looked like my gambling was over, but then I hit a couple of huge dumbass bets (hard six, hit once, then parlayed, hit again for a $100 to $1 payout), and I was back in the saddle. I don't recommend this approach. It's a stupid fucking bet. I just got luckier than I deserved.

McKenzie and I had planned to play the evening side game that night, but Mike was also off, so we teamed up for loser Swiss instead. Mike and I had spent the hour before the game at the bar, where obviously the bartender liked me a lot because I could barely walk after the two -- okay, it might have been three...possibly four -- drinks I had there. I do think it was just two. But I had some of Mike's, too. Z was annoyed at how drunk I was when I showed up to play, but aside from revoking on the very first board (d'oh!), I played reasonably well and we went 3-1.

I was sober by the midnights, and we actually made it to the second round this time. We had what looked like a really solid card that round, and our opps were sure we'd crushed them, but sometimes your teammates shit the bed. So we got to go to bed then, too.

That was basically it for my Vegas escapades. Just a lot of drinking and gambling. After all the ups and downs, I finished my trip about +$100. I got back home at midnight, was in at work before 8 today, and I'm tired as fuck. But I had a good time. Woo.

I had a fabulous and full weekend. I'm exhausted now, but not because of fatigue (yay!) -- it's because I did a whole bunch of awesome, active shit all weekend. Jen came down from Seattle, and we did very Portlandy things in beautiful Portland summer weather, and I spent a lot of time with Paul as well. Paul and Jen are good friends from college, and it just worked out for us to meet up both days, and it was lovely. I love Paul. I love Jen. I love all my friends. I was surrounded by good people all weekend. Other activities included a bridge lesson (Jen and me teaching Brian and Paul), game night with a huge group, 10K this morning, brunch with Lorie & David, games, ice cream, and more vegging with Paul.

The 10K was great! I was able to manipulate Jen into doing it with me, and I'm so glad she did. She's always been a runner, but due to persistent injury issues, she's taking it slow and doing the Couch to 5K program right now. She's right in the middle of that, which is the perfect time to insert a 10K race into the training, right? Heh. I agreed to do plenty of walking with her, because truth be told, I was in no condition to run 6.2 miles anyway. She was my excuse to take it a little easier than I otherwise would have let myself. We agreed to do the race in 4x1 increments, running approximately 4 minutes, then taking a 1-minute walk break, and repeating this pattern throughout. It was great! We don't know our official time yet, because it's still not posted (wtf?), but the clock was at 1:02 when we crossed. It was chip timed and we didn't start at the very beginning, so it's possible we broke the hour mark. I don't think quite...but still, an impressive time for me. My 10K PR is actually my split from the half marathon, like 55 minutes or so, but my best 10K race was 58 minutes and change. To come damn close to a PR after phoning in the training and then doing plenty of walking feels kind of amazing. Though there are rumors that the course was a little short. We're going to ignore those rumors.

Difficult things in life remain difficult, but the perspective and outlook keep improving. Improvements are outpacing my expectations, in fact. I feel good about things. ((Hugs)) to the world because I'm just feeling huggy right now -- but especially to anyone who wants them from me right now. :)

It's been a really good few days. McKenzie and I are working hard on changing our perspectives so that we stop expecting negativity from the other. I'm honestly blown away by what an amazingly positive impact this attitude shift has had. I'm trying to be more conscious of when he's bidding for my attention, and vice versa, and we're just trying extra hard to engage each other. Not forcing it, but seizing opportunities. It's working beautifully so far. We had a really nice trip to Klamath Falls for the weekend. We listened to Jon Stewart's "America: The Book: The Audiobook" on the way down, and finished it just as we were pulling into our hotel.

We played two days of bridge and then drove home after the Swiss on Sunday. As is our grand tradition, we finished 2nd in the pair event. That's not just my tradition with Z -- I think I have more 2nd place finishes than any other results combined. Not a bad way to be, but I'd love to actually WIN more often. Oh well :)

I'm working the first half of this week so I can fly back to Virginia on Thursday for the big huge Massie reunion on the farm. I'm so unbelievably excited. Lucy is already in Charlottesville staying with my parents this week, so I've been checking in with them each day and talking to her a lot. You guys. My niece is so cool. I love that kid. I can't believe she's 10 years old. She's amazing. I can't wait to see her, and the other two nieces, and the hundreds of other relatives that will be at Pharsalia this weekend.

I was just going to pack a carryon, but I've just been informed that I will be returning to the PNW with the at-long-last-completed bridal shower/slightly-belated-first-anniversary quilt for Emily and Chris. I'm really psyched to see that finished product, too. Emily, when are we getting together for the quilt exchange? And by exchange, I mean I just give it to you; you don't have to give me a quilt in exchange. I know they don't have the fourth of July in Canadia, but maybe you can come down that weekend anyway and run a 10K with me.

Oh yeah. I signed up for a 10K. It's called the Red, White, and Blues Run, and it's at the Portland waterfront on 7/6. It's my first time doing a course that loops on itself -- it's a 5K course, and those that run the 10K just do it twice. I'm somewhat concerned that I'm going to hate this particular format -- I'll be mentally prepared to go around again, but there's still something really bummery about seeing a finish line and then having to run the opposite direction. Oh well. I've got nothing to prove. I'm just gonna run. Or walk. Whatever. I'm going 6.2 miles that morning, somehow :)

I'm doing a 5-mile practice run tomorrow with Rigo, since I haven't done more than 5K since my half marathon. I should probably make sure my legs are still up to it. I think probably they are...then I'm meeting Marissa after work for noms and walks in our beautiful city. Antidepressants are great and all, but nothing's better for my psyche than walking around Portland.

Two more days of work (and really challenging workouts!), then I'm off to the east coast. Life is still far from perfect, but I'm in a great fucking mood nonetheless. I hope it lasts awhile.

I'm a little irked with myself over how much work I left for myself to do this week. I'm only here Monday and Tuesday, then it's off to Dallas, so it'll all be behind me soon, but I was kind of lazy last week. And of course I'm dealing with it all right now by ignoring it some more so I can write in my blog. What any reasonable adult would do.

I also feel like the weekend was over before it started. In truth, I got a lot done, and had a great time, but I'm used to my four-day weekends, and this time I just had two. Boo hoo.

I ran over to Shanon's on Saturday for a brief visit, and Jack was being super cute. I had lunch with them, and he invited me to sit in his high chair. Then when it was time to go, I said "Bye, sweetie!" and he said "Bye, sweetie!" back to me. That kid can be a real monster, but he also knows how to melt a heart.

Sunday I did my 7 miles on the treadmill at the gym while watching UVA beat Duke for the ACC title. I have mixed feelings about this. UVA looked seriously legit, and a lot of people I love are really happy that they won and got a #1 seed in the tournament, but, ugh, the last thing UVA needs is something else to be elitist about.

I went down to Salem in the afternoon to have my hair cut and repurpled. I told Angie to do whatever she wanted with it, and she went with a very-layered-in-the-back, longer in the front look. If I can reproduce her work well, it looks like a sassy vintage 'do. I'm not sure how well I'll do it, though, and it remains to be seen what it will do when I let it go curly...but I like it :) And I missed the deep purple. It's so nice to have that back. I keep thinking I'd like to try another color sometime, but I just love this purple so much!

Work today, BodyPump tonight, work tomorrow, helping a friend move in the evening, early morning run on Wednesday and then my flight to Dallas. I'm really looking forward to this NABC. I'm only entering two national events, but I have high hopes for both. Trying not to get too cocky about it, though. I don't want to be terribly disappointed when I don't win everything.

Yesterday, my mother called me to tell me that she'd just attended a protest. My mother. Protesting. I love it. I wish I could say it was an Occupy thing, but she was actually at a thing protesting a road construction plan. Heh. Still, good for her, gettin' all civilly active like some kind of liberal.

Then today she called me to say that the ACBL (the bridge league) had called her to get a reference for someone applying for the open editorial position with the league bulletin (monthly magazine plus daily papers at all the nationals). I don't know what kind of reference she gave, but she immediately called me to tell me I should apply for it. No, not going to happen. For lots of reasons. I just think it's hilarious that she called me to apply when she was supposed to be giving a reference for someone else. A friend of mine, even.

Also, my former bridge partner just won an Academy Award. It's one of the technical ones that they give out before the big show, so that's how he's got it already. Basically he wrote a textbook on graphic rendering and they use his stuff in a lot of movies. So good for him. It would be a better story if he wasn't my former bridge partner, but that's one of the bridges that got burned in my meltdown in 2010. Oh well. Still cool. I've played bridge with an Oscar winner. (Add that to NFL coach (Steve Spurrier), disgraced US Senator (Robert Packwood), Supreme Court Justice (John Paul Stevens), Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett, and I think that's all the names I can drop from my personal bridge experiences. But Greg is the only one who was ever actually my partner.)

I'm playing for the next three days in the local regional. I can't possibly get there this week, but I'm pretty close to Gold Life Master. A good showing this weekend and a good NABC in March should get me there. The "milestones" become more spread out as you advance in ranking, so it's been a while since I've last hit one (made Silver in 2009 sometime) and the next one after this is 5000 points, which is double what you need for Gold, so that'll be a while. I'm hoping to hit a better milestone before that, like national champion. Aim high, man.