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| Home...The Pale Blue Dot |
I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
Vapor in the wind
***
One gal's perspective on the sport of poker...and life.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Pale Blue Dot
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Monday, November 26, 2012
Unapologetic #BushPig
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My twitter stream blew up yesterday with news that Chris Brown deleted his account because of a feud with another user. It's like a fight under the bleachers. You're not involved. You don't really know the actors. But you're still drawn to watch or root or intervene or get mouthy spouty in your own way. Even if it's just to walk away. Or write a blog post.
I was so impressed with this piece (written and published before Chris Brown's twitter meltdown) from Jude Rogers, in which she turns phrases so great they should be bronzed. Phrases like:
Chris Brown is an immature, unrepentant child, whose response to things he doesn't like is to throw things, or punches, to storm out, and threaten to sh*t, fart, shart, or shove a d**k in the offending person's (usually female) mouth, and who's being sheltered/protected/rehabilitated (aka marketed) by people who care only about the almighty dollar and their own bottom line. It's unacceptable.
I'm done with asking why his (and, by proxy, his team's (and his ilk's)) behavior towards women is tolerated. It's unacceptable, can't be condoned, and must be condemned at every turn. It's not the @JennyJohnsonHi5's of this world who are the problem. It's really not.
Shame on Chris Brown for being so crazy talented, but settling for being an ugly stereotype (atm, anyway. I'm all for redemption and change, but until I see some...wishing don't make it so...). Shame on the idiots who are advising this guy. Shame on an industry that protects and promotes this fool. Shame on a us, a public, that supports such an industry and career.
I don't care about Chris Brown. But I do care about young women, like my daughter and her friends, who live in a world where these statistics* are true:
Their website is here.
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| Phrase #'d by Brown during his twitter tirade |
I was so impressed with this piece (written and published before Chris Brown's twitter meltdown) from Jude Rogers, in which she turns phrases so great they should be bronzed. Phrases like:
- Women in pop are asked to be role models all too often, when they're not preachers or politicians – and this annoys me because men in similar positions aren't asked to do the same.
- It's easy, of course, to cast judgement on people's private lives. It's also easy to imagine Rihanna's irritation at being tagged, forever, as a victim of domestic violence. What's much tougher to get around is the way in which Chris Brown's assault, before the 2009 Grammys, seems to be publicity fuel.
- (re: some of Rihanna's song lyrics) – this is sex as disengaged performance, not as a powerful statement.
It's this last sentence that just guts me. Not because I'm a young woman, but because I'm raising one.
- It's not just an image of violence as glamour, inked into the skin. It's the memory of an assault as a fashion accessory. And knowing so many people don't think that there's anything wrong with this – young women, especially – troubles me beyond measure.
Chris Brown is an immature, unrepentant child, whose response to things he doesn't like is to throw things, or punches, to storm out, and threaten to sh*t, fart, shart, or shove a d**k in the offending person's (usually female) mouth, and who's being sheltered/protected/rehabilitated (aka marketed) by people who care only about the almighty dollar and their own bottom line. It's unacceptable.
I'm done with asking why his (and, by proxy, his team's (and his ilk's)) behavior towards women is tolerated. It's unacceptable, can't be condoned, and must be condemned at every turn. It's not the @JennyJohnsonHi5's of this world who are the problem. It's really not.
Shame on Chris Brown for being so crazy talented, but settling for being an ugly stereotype (atm, anyway. I'm all for redemption and change, but until I see some...wishing don't make it so...). Shame on the idiots who are advising this guy. Shame on an industry that protects and promotes this fool. Shame on a us, a public, that supports such an industry and career.
I don't care about Chris Brown. But I do care about young women, like my daughter and her friends, who live in a world where these statistics* are true:
We know that men can be victims of domestic violence. On average, though, more women than men suffer domestic abuse, and younger women in particular (those between the ages of 20-24) are at highest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence. In fact, 85% of domestic violence victims are women.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence:
- One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.
- Females are most often victimized by someone they know.
- Nearly 1/3 of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner.
- In nearly 80% of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner is killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder.
This abuse occurs every day and likely to a woman you know. And it exacts a toll. Monetarily (exceeding $5.8 billion each year (as of 2003)) and in so many other, immeasurable, ways.Contact information for the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.
Their website is here.
***
* Sad that I just cut and pasted these statistics from a blog post I wrote earlier this year on the same damn topic....
Friday, November 2, 2012
Flashbacks of a Fool
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Got back from Choctaw last Sunday and given all the late night WSOP watching that occurred on Monday and Tuesday (through Wednesday morning!) of this week, I feel like I’m just now recovering. It doesn’t help that there are power tools stored all over my backyard, many of which begin running each morning at 6:30 a.m., as we are in the middle of remodeling a bathroom. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that I tend to time my poker forays around instances bahbee gets the itch to remodel. As I said on Facebook, I’m a firm believer in the notion that if you and your partner can survive DIY remodeling, you can pretty much survive anything. Being gone for a large portion of said DIY remodeling helps (although it’s not something I recommend because it’s not really playing fair and kind of defeats the whole ‘staying together’ part of things).
Prior to the trip, I had not played a hand of serious poker, and had not studied up on same, for more than six months (aside from the one poker strategy session and game with @txcardslinger and @halltxholdem). So, it was a sketchy start to a promising weekend of some good poker.
If you’ve never been to Choctaw, well, all I can say is that it’s not Paradise Island, Bahamas,
but it’s also not Kickapoo in Eagle Pass.
The rooms were fine, the hotel is small, the food was terrible (except for the lone steak joint, more on that in another post), and the poker room was freezing. But, the tourney structure was a good value and the fields were such that we should have stood a chance.
There are a lot of good players around the Dallas/Oklahoma border and there were hoodied and head-phoned young men from Houston to Tulsa and all points in between. @txcardslinger and I drove down early on the morning of the 25th and made it in enough time to late reg the noon event and still have 40+ bbs to work with. Alas, it was merely a warm up - both of us busted to not much fanfare.
The interesting part of this first event to me was playing both TJ Cloutier and Scotty Nyguen (the birthday boy for whom the tourney was played). I mean, come on! They’re famous! They’re pros! A poker noob’s dream (theirs too, I’m sure). Wheeee!
Turns out, well, TJ’s a curmudgeon. I was able to play with him three separate times over four days and from what I saw, if he’s raising or re-raising pre, he’s got a monster hand. I didn’t see him play anything worse than Ts+ or AQo+ during all that time. (Which is why my later play against him was so shameful…but more on that later).
In addition, he rides the dealers hard. If he runs a few orbits and doesn’t catch a hand he feels he can play, he asks the dealer for a wash, which is not something the dealers were doing until they would move and rotate in to a new table. Refused by one dealer who had just washed the cards and dealt a few hands, TJ called the floor in a huff. Ultimately, the floor backed up the dealer, but TJ was not happy about it and he let everyone know it for the next ten hands.
TJ also had a tendency to blame the dealer if a hand he had beat on the flop caught up to him and beat him on the river. He told stories about this, remembering hands from 5 years ago. I remember the “5 years” part because when TJ brought up one particular story, that’s what the dealer said: “TJ! That was five years ago!” He knew the hands in play and what was in the pot, street by street, five years after the fact. It was pretty amazing, actually, but also kind of a bummer to see him rail on dealers the way he did. If TJ was not at the table, dealers were not shy about voicing their dislike.
Scotty, on the other hand, was universally praised by players and dealers alike. The tournament, billed as the Scotty Nguyen’s Dream Catcher World Poker Challenge, was being played in honor of his birthday (which he said was his 29th). Scotty is known by many as The Prince of Poker, but may be remembered most recently as something else entirely. Knowing that history, but also following him on Twitter where he just seems to be a sweetheart, I didn’t know what to expect.
What I saw was a true ambassador for the game. Obviously he had some interest in drawing a crowd, but I’m sure he didn’t have to work the room the way he did. Every day after the start of the noon event, Scotty walked around the entire room, posed for pictures, and made people feel welcome. In fact, he went to each table and shook four to five hands at each and every table in the room during play. Remembering names and faces from days prior and if you’d run deep the night before, he’d ask "how'd you make out, baby? You playing good, baby? Keep building that stack, baby!"
On my first day, I was seated immediately to TJs right at a 10-handed table and nearly doubled up right off the bat when I had to post the BB from LP as a late entry. Folded to me, I check with 5s. One caller and the blinds come along. I flop my set and get to hear BB count out some chips for a bet, “This will be your first mistake if you call this bet.” I look at my cards and call, saying, “well I just sat down, maybe I’ll get lucky, since I don’t really know what I’m doing here next to TJ!” Everyone else folds, and BB seems confused, but unconcerned, by my call.
Turn gives him another opportunity to lead out, this time with “And this will be your second mistake.” I min-raise in silence and he reluctantly calls, while TJ says with a laugh, “I think she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
River pairs the board, giving me a boat, and BB checks to me. I put out a little less than half the pot. BB stammers and hems and haws, and finally says his two pair just got negated. He folds, and everyone waits to see if I’ll show (I don’t) and then proceeds to give BB hell, talking about how I either bluffed or had a monster. Two hands later I get moved to Scotty’s table.
As I said, he’s doing a lot of ambassadoring and since we’re not at antes yet, he’s not missing much by working the room and having the dealer fold him. When he does return from time to time, he raises blind, PF, and this induces some fun action and crazy poker. He would raise pre and check to the callers. If they bet, he’d look at his cards (by flipping them up for all to see and then making his decision after that, often folding). He cracked As once doing that, and in one remarkable hand he went bust when he turned trip 7s to a guys FH (both checked the flop). Playing with him at that table was a blast. I was able to get him to rethink his blind PF raise when I was in the BB by kind of looking pitiful and shrugging at him right before he put in the chips – “but Scotty, it’s my big blind? Have pity!” He did! (I still lost the hand).
I ran deep in only one tournament and played acceptable (to my noobie standards anyway) in only two out of the four tourneys I played. I milked a short stack all day long in my third event, in a series in which I showed down only two hands during nearly six hours of play – a BB special early on (Ks, in which I got to tell the table: “well, that’s pretty much my range, boys”) and my bust out: Ac8c with less than 10 bbs, I called a Button raise that was essentially putting me all in. He had Q7o, but turned a Q, so that was all she wrote. I was 60%+ favorite going in (against your typical internet looking young dude who I assumed was playing as he should’ve been) and would make that call again all day long.
My last tournament (on Sunday) was a $50k guaranteed. There were a lot of young guys and as I sat there and profiled my table for the first hour, it was fun to watch real poker being played. I learned after the fact that two of the young men at my table had won previous tournaments at Choctaw in a past similar series. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was obvious they knew what they were doing and were thinking players. This helped me quite a bit, especially when I had position and was able to 3-bet (and even 4-bet shove on at least one occasion!), value bet rivers, and fold when beat. I was playing poker!
Or so I thought.
This kind of cocky thinking (i.e., me thinking for a second that I knew how to play) got me in trouble when I got moved to my final table, four seats to the right of TJ.
I was in fine shape: ~25 bbs and didn’t need to get crazy.
Yes, no need to get crazy.
Famous last words…
As I said before, I was able to watch TJ play in several hands where I could just observe. He played back at aggressive, younger players only when he had a real hand, and his mode of defense was to raise (or reraise) 5 and 6 times the original bet/raise. He would often show these hands to make clear, “I ain’t messing around!” And he wasn’t.
He would check/fold flops when he didn’t hit.
He would bet flops when he connected or when his hole cards had the best of it post flop.
Fairly transparent, right? Seemingly easy to play, right?
Right.
To sane players - maybe. To spewtards like me - not so much. This is why it's so hard to stomach my playing a hand against him out of position (from the BB no less) with a truly horrific holding.
Now, I hadn’t been at the table long and so the only one I really had any info on was TJ. Normally, I sit tight, watch and learn, and try to get some reads before I start getting involved in things. But no…I had just been playing poker with the big boys and holding my own! I knew what I was doing! I am a poker player!
Not only was I feeling (too) good, I was talking at this table, and I rarely talk, unless I’ve been there awhile or am trying to make friends with the person on my left.
I hadn’t even been there long enough for any of that to be the case. Oh no, instead, I was Miss Chatty Cathy. And on this particular hand, the player on my immediate right (the SB), is also female, so OF COURSE I feel the need to lean over to her, as the dealer deals the hand, and say: “Just so you know, we are sitting here with targets over our head at this table.” She smiles and nods, and guys down on the button and CO kind of laugh and nod, “yes, yes you are.”
Har, har, har, I’m thinking…I know what you guys are doing. And now that I’ve said that – you guys know that I know that’s what you’re doing. Harumph. I’m sooooo smart. Watch out!
So…it folds to TJ in LP and he puts out a 4xBB raise. Button calls, folds to me and I look at (oh god I don’t even want to say) 8s5s.
Fold, right? (Yes. Fold. Please. For the love of God, FOLD).
"I call!"
Flop comes 286r.
I check. TJ bets the pot. Button folds. I count out my chips and tell myself “He’s playing AK. I’ve got him here. If I shove, he’s folding.”
“I’m All In!”
TJ snap calls as fast as he can (he has Ks) and starts dragging the pot as the board plays out and I don’t improve (which is actually a good thing because he would’ve torn me a new one if I’d turned or rivered two-pair or a flush, and rightfully so).
It was embarrassing. There were guys at the table who watched it play out with their mouths hanging open in shock.
I think I clapped my hands (applauding my stupendous play, I guess) before jumping up, grabbing my bag, and walking off as fast as I could.
I was mortified.
I immediately went outside to the parking lot and walked about five miles, all while asking myself “What the ______ was THAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”
Out loud.
About fifty times. As I paced back and forth in an empty portion of the parking lot.
I saw one poor guy smoking on the corner pick up his phone, probably to call the paddy wagon, because I was clearly acting like a crazy lady. He probably thought I lost the mortgage at the slots.
No sir...just my dignity and pride.
It was bad. Real bad.
@txcardslinger and I had planned to stay the night (we'd hoped that one of us could run deep), but when I texted to ask if she wanted to stay or go, it seemed we both couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
We packed quickly and in silence (this is why packing with paper bags can sometimes come in handy. #youmightbearedneckif) and didn’t talk for the first 45 minutes of the ride. I was still steaming with embarrassment and didn’t want to tell her how bad it actually was.
The silence was good, soothing.
It really helps to have a friend in the middle of these things and @txcardslinger is one of the best. When I was finally able to talk about the hand, she did the best thing she could’ve done – she laughed her ass off.
And rightfully so. Rightfully so.
In the face of these facts, and the play at this week's WSOP Final Table, it seems so damn far fetched to think that someday she and I could be laughing our asses off at a final table we’ve won. Far fetched, sure. But I know we're going to keep trying.
-----
The title of this post is appropriate given the poor play I exhibited throughout much of the tourney. It’s also the title of one of my favorite movies of all time. Most people know Daniel Craig today because of the James Bond franchise, but this is one of his lesser known works that I think is better than all the Bond movies combined. The story it tells implies that even when our choices lead to really bad outcomes, we can learn from our mistakes and be better. After this trip, I sure as hell hope that’s true.
Prior to the trip, I had not played a hand of serious poker, and had not studied up on same, for more than six months (aside from the one poker strategy session and game with @txcardslinger and @halltxholdem). So, it was a sketchy start to a promising weekend of some good poker.
If you’ve never been to Choctaw, well, all I can say is that it’s not Paradise Island, Bahamas,
but it’s also not Kickapoo in Eagle Pass.
The rooms were fine, the hotel is small, the food was terrible (except for the lone steak joint, more on that in another post), and the poker room was freezing. But, the tourney structure was a good value and the fields were such that we should have stood a chance.
There are a lot of good players around the Dallas/Oklahoma border and there were hoodied and head-phoned young men from Houston to Tulsa and all points in between. @txcardslinger and I drove down early on the morning of the 25th and made it in enough time to late reg the noon event and still have 40+ bbs to work with. Alas, it was merely a warm up - both of us busted to not much fanfare.
The interesting part of this first event to me was playing both TJ Cloutier and Scotty Nyguen (the birthday boy for whom the tourney was played). I mean, come on! They’re famous! They’re pros! A poker noob’s dream (theirs too, I’m sure). Wheeee!
Turns out, well, TJ’s a curmudgeon. I was able to play with him three separate times over four days and from what I saw, if he’s raising or re-raising pre, he’s got a monster hand. I didn’t see him play anything worse than Ts+ or AQo+ during all that time. (Which is why my later play against him was so shameful…but more on that later).
In addition, he rides the dealers hard. If he runs a few orbits and doesn’t catch a hand he feels he can play, he asks the dealer for a wash, which is not something the dealers were doing until they would move and rotate in to a new table. Refused by one dealer who had just washed the cards and dealt a few hands, TJ called the floor in a huff. Ultimately, the floor backed up the dealer, but TJ was not happy about it and he let everyone know it for the next ten hands.
TJ also had a tendency to blame the dealer if a hand he had beat on the flop caught up to him and beat him on the river. He told stories about this, remembering hands from 5 years ago. I remember the “5 years” part because when TJ brought up one particular story, that’s what the dealer said: “TJ! That was five years ago!” He knew the hands in play and what was in the pot, street by street, five years after the fact. It was pretty amazing, actually, but also kind of a bummer to see him rail on dealers the way he did. If TJ was not at the table, dealers were not shy about voicing their dislike.
What I saw was a true ambassador for the game. Obviously he had some interest in drawing a crowd, but I’m sure he didn’t have to work the room the way he did. Every day after the start of the noon event, Scotty walked around the entire room, posed for pictures, and made people feel welcome. In fact, he went to each table and shook four to five hands at each and every table in the room during play. Remembering names and faces from days prior and if you’d run deep the night before, he’d ask "how'd you make out, baby? You playing good, baby? Keep building that stack, baby!"
On my first day, I was seated immediately to TJs right at a 10-handed table and nearly doubled up right off the bat when I had to post the BB from LP as a late entry. Folded to me, I check with 5s. One caller and the blinds come along. I flop my set and get to hear BB count out some chips for a bet, “This will be your first mistake if you call this bet.” I look at my cards and call, saying, “well I just sat down, maybe I’ll get lucky, since I don’t really know what I’m doing here next to TJ!” Everyone else folds, and BB seems confused, but unconcerned, by my call.
Turn gives him another opportunity to lead out, this time with “And this will be your second mistake.” I min-raise in silence and he reluctantly calls, while TJ says with a laugh, “I think she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
River pairs the board, giving me a boat, and BB checks to me. I put out a little less than half the pot. BB stammers and hems and haws, and finally says his two pair just got negated. He folds, and everyone waits to see if I’ll show (I don’t) and then proceeds to give BB hell, talking about how I either bluffed or had a monster. Two hands later I get moved to Scotty’s table.
As I said, he’s doing a lot of ambassadoring and since we’re not at antes yet, he’s not missing much by working the room and having the dealer fold him. When he does return from time to time, he raises blind, PF, and this induces some fun action and crazy poker. He would raise pre and check to the callers. If they bet, he’d look at his cards (by flipping them up for all to see and then making his decision after that, often folding). He cracked As once doing that, and in one remarkable hand he went bust when he turned trip 7s to a guys FH (both checked the flop). Playing with him at that table was a blast. I was able to get him to rethink his blind PF raise when I was in the BB by kind of looking pitiful and shrugging at him right before he put in the chips – “but Scotty, it’s my big blind? Have pity!” He did! (I still lost the hand).
I ran deep in only one tournament and played acceptable (to my noobie standards anyway) in only two out of the four tourneys I played. I milked a short stack all day long in my third event, in a series in which I showed down only two hands during nearly six hours of play – a BB special early on (Ks, in which I got to tell the table: “well, that’s pretty much my range, boys”) and my bust out: Ac8c with less than 10 bbs, I called a Button raise that was essentially putting me all in. He had Q7o, but turned a Q, so that was all she wrote. I was 60%+ favorite going in (against your typical internet looking young dude who I assumed was playing as he should’ve been) and would make that call again all day long.
My last tournament (on Sunday) was a $50k guaranteed. There were a lot of young guys and as I sat there and profiled my table for the first hour, it was fun to watch real poker being played. I learned after the fact that two of the young men at my table had won previous tournaments at Choctaw in a past similar series. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was obvious they knew what they were doing and were thinking players. This helped me quite a bit, especially when I had position and was able to 3-bet (and even 4-bet shove on at least one occasion!), value bet rivers, and fold when beat. I was playing poker!
Or so I thought.
This kind of cocky thinking (i.e., me thinking for a second that I knew how to play) got me in trouble when I got moved to my final table, four seats to the right of TJ.
I was in fine shape: ~25 bbs and didn’t need to get crazy.
Yes, no need to get crazy.
Famous last words…
As I said before, I was able to watch TJ play in several hands where I could just observe. He played back at aggressive, younger players only when he had a real hand, and his mode of defense was to raise (or reraise) 5 and 6 times the original bet/raise. He would often show these hands to make clear, “I ain’t messing around!” And he wasn’t.
He would check/fold flops when he didn’t hit.
He would bet flops when he connected or when his hole cards had the best of it post flop.
Fairly transparent, right? Seemingly easy to play, right?
Right.
To sane players - maybe. To spewtards like me - not so much. This is why it's so hard to stomach my playing a hand against him out of position (from the BB no less) with a truly horrific holding.
Now, I hadn’t been at the table long and so the only one I really had any info on was TJ. Normally, I sit tight, watch and learn, and try to get some reads before I start getting involved in things. But no…I had just been playing poker with the big boys and holding my own! I knew what I was doing! I am a poker player!
Not only was I feeling (too) good, I was talking at this table, and I rarely talk, unless I’ve been there awhile or am trying to make friends with the person on my left.
I hadn’t even been there long enough for any of that to be the case. Oh no, instead, I was Miss Chatty Cathy. And on this particular hand, the player on my immediate right (the SB), is also female, so OF COURSE I feel the need to lean over to her, as the dealer deals the hand, and say: “Just so you know, we are sitting here with targets over our head at this table.” She smiles and nods, and guys down on the button and CO kind of laugh and nod, “yes, yes you are.”
Har, har, har, I’m thinking…I know what you guys are doing. And now that I’ve said that – you guys know that I know that’s what you’re doing. Harumph. I’m sooooo smart. Watch out!
So…it folds to TJ in LP and he puts out a 4xBB raise. Button calls, folds to me and I look at (oh god I don’t even want to say) 8s5s.
Fold, right? (Yes. Fold. Please. For the love of God, FOLD).
"I call!"
Flop comes 286r.
I check. TJ bets the pot. Button folds. I count out my chips and tell myself “He’s playing AK. I’ve got him here. If I shove, he’s folding.”
“I’m All In!”
TJ snap calls as fast as he can (he has Ks) and starts dragging the pot as the board plays out and I don’t improve (which is actually a good thing because he would’ve torn me a new one if I’d turned or rivered two-pair or a flush, and rightfully so).
It was embarrassing. There were guys at the table who watched it play out with their mouths hanging open in shock.
I think I clapped my hands (applauding my stupendous play, I guess) before jumping up, grabbing my bag, and walking off as fast as I could.
I was mortified.
I immediately went outside to the parking lot and walked about five miles, all while asking myself “What the ______ was THAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”
Out loud.
About fifty times. As I paced back and forth in an empty portion of the parking lot.
I saw one poor guy smoking on the corner pick up his phone, probably to call the paddy wagon, because I was clearly acting like a crazy lady. He probably thought I lost the mortgage at the slots.
No sir...just my dignity and pride.
It was bad. Real bad.
@txcardslinger and I had planned to stay the night (we'd hoped that one of us could run deep), but when I texted to ask if she wanted to stay or go, it seemed we both couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
We packed quickly and in silence (this is why packing with paper bags can sometimes come in handy. #youmightbearedneckif) and didn’t talk for the first 45 minutes of the ride. I was still steaming with embarrassment and didn’t want to tell her how bad it actually was.
The silence was good, soothing.
It really helps to have a friend in the middle of these things and @txcardslinger is one of the best. When I was finally able to talk about the hand, she did the best thing she could’ve done – she laughed her ass off.
And rightfully so. Rightfully so.
In the face of these facts, and the play at this week's WSOP Final Table, it seems so damn far fetched to think that someday she and I could be laughing our asses off at a final table we’ve won. Far fetched, sure. But I know we're going to keep trying.
-----
The title of this post is appropriate given the poor play I exhibited throughout much of the tourney. It’s also the title of one of my favorite movies of all time. Most people know Daniel Craig today because of the James Bond franchise, but this is one of his lesser known works that I think is better than all the Bond movies combined. The story it tells implies that even when our choices lead to really bad outcomes, we can learn from our mistakes and be better. After this trip, I sure as hell hope that’s true.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Down with Difference!
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As much as I seemingly like to argue and get all mouthy spouty on a variety of issues, the truth is, I really just want people to get along. I don’t like confrontation and I don’t like people mad at me. Maybe this is what happens when you grow up bombarded by this kind of marketing:
This is a weakness, I know, because you have to be able to stand up for what you believe in. If you can’t, then maybe you really just don’t believe in that which you think you hold dear.
But what does it mean to stand up for what you believe?
There’ve been so many stories in the news recently about positions that are unpopular with at least a certain portion of the population. The whole Chik-Fil-A debacle comes to mind: The founder of the company gave an interview in which he gave his opinion about “the biblical definition of the family unit.” He believes marriage is between a man and a woman and he said as much to the Christian publication taking the interview.*
Many people’s heads exploded and the media ran with the story during what was apparently a slow news cycle. I can get why the lazy media would run with this issue. They’ve got to write about something. But everyone else? Come on, the last time I checked at least 50% of the population (if not more, my poll wasn’t scientific**) believes the same way the Chik-Fil-A guy does.
Then I read the story about Angela McCaskill, the first deaf African-American woman to earn a doctorate from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., who was hired last year to serve as their Chief Diversity Officer. Apparently she was at church one weekend, off the clock and not in her role as CDO for Guallaudet, and she signed a petition backing a referendum that would put Maryland’s same-sex marriage law to popular vote.***
Someone saw her signature on the petition, questioned whether that interfered with her ability to serve as Gallaudet’s diversity officer, and raised hell. The university then suspended her so that it could “evaluate whether McCaskill’s signing of the petition was appropriate.”
So…I take from these stories that people in positions of power (or otherwise) can no longer have opinions?
Apparently, if they do, they’re going to face what looks to me a lot like bullying.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not a post about people like Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn) who advocated a position with the force of the federal government behind him (ala “abortion is wrong and we need to make it illegal”) and then pushed his mistress to get an abortion. And it’s not a post about government or church officials who are anti-gay activists who get caught being gay.
Rather, it’s merely me documenting my confusion with what we’re doing to ourselves, as a country and a people, when it comes to legitimately articulating our differences. It seems as though America has become – the “Right” and the “Left” - the tragically unhappy married couple on the verge of divorce that has taken to wounding each other as deeply as possible, all for the sake of being “RIGHT;” whatever “right” means.
As any marriage counselor could tell us - nobody wins that fight.
A racist person is not going to have a change of heart merely because the government mandates equal rights and protections under the law for people of color. 40ish years after Loving v. Virginia and Brown v. Board of Ed we can still see that to be true in many parts of the country (although, thankfully, we have come a long way, Fisher v. UTA notwithstanding).
Likewise, people who are opposed to gay couples and families like mine are not going to have their own hearts and minds changed because we shame them, bully them, or (knock wood, someday soon) pass laws that actually give us equality.
When I read stories like the ones I reference above, and then reflect on the conversation I had last week with my daughter about Amanda Todd, I can better understand the horrible instances of children bullying other children.
 |
| Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying. - Ralph Waldo Emerson |
This is a weakness, I know, because you have to be able to stand up for what you believe in. If you can’t, then maybe you really just don’t believe in that which you think you hold dear.
But what does it mean to stand up for what you believe?
There’ve been so many stories in the news recently about positions that are unpopular with at least a certain portion of the population. The whole Chik-Fil-A debacle comes to mind: The founder of the company gave an interview in which he gave his opinion about “the biblical definition of the family unit.” He believes marriage is between a man and a woman and he said as much to the Christian publication taking the interview.*
Many people’s heads exploded and the media ran with the story during what was apparently a slow news cycle. I can get why the lazy media would run with this issue. They’ve got to write about something. But everyone else? Come on, the last time I checked at least 50% of the population (if not more, my poll wasn’t scientific**) believes the same way the Chik-Fil-A guy does.
Then I read the story about Angela McCaskill, the first deaf African-American woman to earn a doctorate from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., who was hired last year to serve as their Chief Diversity Officer. Apparently she was at church one weekend, off the clock and not in her role as CDO for Guallaudet, and she signed a petition backing a referendum that would put Maryland’s same-sex marriage law to popular vote.***
Someone saw her signature on the petition, questioned whether that interfered with her ability to serve as Gallaudet’s diversity officer, and raised hell. The university then suspended her so that it could “evaluate whether McCaskill’s signing of the petition was appropriate.”
So…I take from these stories that people in positions of power (or otherwise) can no longer have opinions?
Apparently, if they do, they’re going to face what looks to me a lot like bullying.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not a post about people like Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn) who advocated a position with the force of the federal government behind him (ala “abortion is wrong and we need to make it illegal”) and then pushed his mistress to get an abortion. And it’s not a post about government or church officials who are anti-gay activists who get caught being gay.
Rather, it’s merely me documenting my confusion with what we’re doing to ourselves, as a country and a people, when it comes to legitimately articulating our differences. It seems as though America has become – the “Right” and the “Left” - the tragically unhappy married couple on the verge of divorce that has taken to wounding each other as deeply as possible, all for the sake of being “RIGHT;” whatever “right” means.
As any marriage counselor could tell us - nobody wins that fight.
A racist person is not going to have a change of heart merely because the government mandates equal rights and protections under the law for people of color. 40ish years after Loving v. Virginia and Brown v. Board of Ed we can still see that to be true in many parts of the country (although, thankfully, we have come a long way, Fisher v. UTA notwithstanding).
Likewise, people who are opposed to gay couples and families like mine are not going to have their own hearts and minds changed because we shame them, bully them, or (knock wood, someday soon) pass laws that actually give us equality.
When I read stories like the ones I reference above, and then reflect on the conversation I had last week with my daughter about Amanda Todd, I can better understand the horrible instances of children bullying other children.
They’re simply following our lead.
-----------------------
To be heard, hear.
To be cared for, care.
To be loved, love.
And even then, you still may not be heard, cared for, or loved.
Do it anyway.
* The company also gives money to organizations that oppose gay marriage. It's his company - isn't that his right? You or I have the same right, don't we? And, at the very least, we can choose not to patronize the business if we don't like that practice.
-----------------------
To be heard, hear.
To be cared for, care.
To be loved, love.
And even then, you still may not be heard, cared for, or loved.
Do it anyway.
***
* The company also gives money to organizations that oppose gay marriage. It's his company - isn't that his right? You or I have the same right, don't we? And, at the very least, we can choose not to patronize the business if we don't like that practice.
**Yeah, so, I checked in with my mom. She was eating some waffle fries.
***If you follow me on Twitter or read my haphazardly updated blog, you know how I feel about putting issues of civil right to popular vote.
***If you follow me on Twitter or read my haphazardly updated blog, you know how I feel about putting issues of civil right to popular vote.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Things I Did this Week
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I should probably change the title of this post to "things I tweeted this week" because in reality I haven't actually *done* much this week. Which is sad. Not sure what my younger self thought being a grown-up was all about, but one thing I do (now) know: there's a ton of laundry involved.
I guess one of the biggest things I "did" was talk with my seven year old about Amanda Todd. We watched her video and just talked.
Maybe because I have a daughter...maybe because I, oh I don't know, am a member of the human race...I cried. This story is just so sad. At any rate, we talked about things.
My daughter, she had some insightful questions and thoughts. The last one being: "This means I'm not getting a phone until college, doesn't it?"
Yep. Yep it does.*
-----
And then I read about Violentacrez via Jess Welman.
First admission is this: I never really got into reading Reddit because I have no idea what it is or how to use/navigate it. I did not know it was "the front page of the internet" (because this is the front page of my internet). I guess I just thought of it as 2+2 for non-poker-playing-people-but-mainly-nerdy-guys.
After reading the Gawker article, I'm pretty sure I still don't know what Reddit is. It seems to kind of boil down to this:
I guess one of the biggest things I "did" was talk with my seven year old about Amanda Todd. We watched her video and just talked.
Maybe because I have a daughter...maybe because I, oh I don't know, am a member of the human race...I cried. This story is just so sad. At any rate, we talked about things.
My daughter, she had some insightful questions and thoughts. The last one being: "This means I'm not getting a phone until college, doesn't it?"
Yep. Yep it does.*
-----
And then I read about Violentacrez via Jess Welman.
First admission is this: I never really got into reading Reddit because I have no idea what it is or how to use/navigate it. I did not know it was "the front page of the internet" (because this is the front page of my internet). I guess I just thought of it as 2+2 for non-poker-playing-people-but-mainly-nerdy-guys.
After reading the Gawker article, I'm pretty sure I still don't know what Reddit is. It seems to kind of boil down to this:
Under Reddit logic, outing Violentacrez is worse than anonymously posting creepshots of innocent women, because doing so would undermine Reddit's role as a safe place for people to anonymously post creepshots of innocent women.Yeah, no. Reddit's just not for me.
-----
And then there was Amy Cheong, former Assistant Director with the National Trade Union Congress (it sounds so official but I have no idea what it means) who, like Violentacres, lost her job after posting something online.
She not only lost her job - she had to flee her country!
Point is...: once we put something on the internet, it's there for good (or for ill).**
-----
This time last week (so technically not a "things I did this week" point of discussion, but just give me a moment because I will connect the dots dot dot dot), was National Coming Out Day. NCOD, not to be mistaken with/for NKOTBSB, is basically a day when otherwise closeted gay people can "come out" of the closet and tell the people around them, "I AM GAY", thereby raising the consciousness of straight people that gay people a) do exist; and, b) are not all in bed sexing it up all hours of the day and night. We only do that 17 out of 24 hours of each day. For the record.
In response to NCOD, Ann Coulter tweeted:
Class act, that Ann Coulter. Not real sure why she, a straight, 50-year old, unmarried, non-parent of neither son nor daughter, gay or straight, is talking about this issue.*** But, I will tell you from experience that she's right. In far too many instances, the day after a kid comes out is often "disown your [gay kid] day" for a lot of confused and embarrassed parents.
I was twenty-two when I came out to my folks. I've always had a very close relationship with them and I love them very much. And, I know they love me very much.
That said - the days after I came out to them was pretty much as Ann Coulter said - dispwnage! (see how I connected those dots? And, arguably, mangled used a word from 2+2?)
After telling my mom (ok, comparing myself to Jodie Foster, actually, in the hopes that my mom would be heartened by the fact that gay people are/can be productive members of society****), who cut short her trip and returned home at the crack of dawn the next day, I got an emotional phone call from my dad in which he said a lot of things, including the words "heaven" and "hell" and...well, then we didn't speak for about six months.
As I said, I was twenty two. I had already graduated college. I had a job. I lived in a city far away from where I'd grown up. I had friends and resources.
And still.
And still....A less resilient me might not have survived the stories I was telling myself in the days, but mainly the nights, after I came out to the people I loved the most.
Far better people than me don't.
Ms. Coulter is not helping in that arena.
But when you re-read her tweet and think about it? Well, I guess she's just kind of telling the truth.
-----
And the last road leads back to poker. Ah, don't they all?
Yesterday, Donnie Peters wrote a very nice op-ed piece in PokerNews, in which he raises some most excellent points:
What I'm getting at here is that poker no longer seems to be fun. It's not as fun for the players, it's not as fun for the media, and it's not as fun for the fans. The latter of that trio is the most important part and something that needs attention.
I read the piece and very much enjoyed it and fired off with:
I wish I didn't feel that way and I probably shouldn't have tweeted it, but...I do. And I did. Unfortunately, I'm kind of an asshole, too (ask my brothers), so...there's that.
The point is...well, I'm not sure there is a point. Except, maybe...wouldn't it be nice if there were just no assholes? Anywhere? Ever?*****
----
* No, Judge Judy, the gist of our talk did not revolve around whether she's getting a phone and there was nothing lighthearted about our discussion of a beautiful child who killed herself. After sitting in silence for sixty seconds or so, though, my daughter did ask, after the light bulb flashed on over her head, whether this meant she might not actually get a phone until college, even though some of her friends have phones now. Smart phones are awesome. BUT THEY'RE JUST FREAKING PHONES AND NO ONE pointstoself EVEN USES THEM TO ACTUALLY TALK TO EACH OTHER ANYMORE. And the answer is yes, you're not getting a phone until college.
** She says all ironical and stuff since here I am posting it to the interwebz where it's going to be forever. And ever. And ever....Also, where is "Gay World Park" and how can I get there?
*** This is not a backhanded insult to Ann Coulter's age, singleness, or lack of children. I am genuinely confused as to why this woman, who has no personal experience raising children or being married, has been given a platform to speak about either of these issues. Ever.
**** Yes, in hindsight, I realize that "Hollywood Celebrity" was really not the way to go. Also, yes, I know Jodie Foster is still, to this day, officially, in the closet. I was twenty-two and she was the only positive-ish gay-ish role model-ish I could think of at the time. What can I say? smh
***** Well, yeah, except on our bums, of course. ldo
* No, Judge Judy, the gist of our talk did not revolve around whether she's getting a phone and there was nothing lighthearted about our discussion of a beautiful child who killed herself. After sitting in silence for sixty seconds or so, though, my daughter did ask, after the light bulb flashed on over her head, whether this meant she might not actually get a phone until college, even though some of her friends have phones now. Smart phones are awesome. BUT THEY'RE JUST FREAKING PHONES AND NO ONE pointstoself EVEN USES THEM TO ACTUALLY TALK TO EACH OTHER ANYMORE. And the answer is yes, you're not getting a phone until college.
** She says all ironical and stuff since here I am posting it to the interwebz where it's going to be forever. And ever. And ever....Also, where is "Gay World Park" and how can I get there?
*** This is not a backhanded insult to Ann Coulter's age, singleness, or lack of children. I am genuinely confused as to why this woman, who has no personal experience raising children or being married, has been given a platform to speak about either of these issues. Ever.
**** Yes, in hindsight, I realize that "Hollywood Celebrity" was really not the way to go. Also, yes, I know Jodie Foster is still, to this day, officially, in the closet. I was twenty-two and she was the only positive-ish gay-ish role model-ish I could think of at the time. What can I say? smh
***** Well, yeah, except on our bums, of course. ldo
***
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
The American Dream
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In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, the US is smack dab in the middle of election drama. After November 6, maybe we’ll get a reprieve from the misery our media seems to delight in slinging at us from every possible angle. But, I doubt it.
We also just marked the passing of an 11 year milestone of the tragedy most Americans identify as “9-11” or, simply, “September 11 – Never Forget”.
Last year at this time, I was consumed with my memories of 9/11. I sought out words and pictures and documentaries about the day, and I stayed up late into the night on many consecutive nights watching people on my screen share their stories about their own personal experiences surviving the event.
This year, I gave my attention to two pieces on the subject (here (@_otis_) and here (@grange95)), and no more.
My thinking this year on the tragedy is, again, great sadness. The destruction of the towers, the injury to the Pentagon, the plane-turned-bomb failing in its original mission and crash landing in a field in Pennsylvania, the loss of lives. These are things that those of us who lived through it will never forget and those who come after will never fully understand. And what was destroyed physically pales in comparison to what was done that day to America’s mentality.
Our media, particularly during this election season, illustrates each day how America’s mentality was injured, possibly irreparably, that day. What was not destroyed by outsiders eleven years ago, now seems to be hanging by a thread.
We have become a nation of division, hell bent on achieving specific, individual, interests, rather than seeking shared and united goals or dreams. And there is no unifying leader or inspiring call that Americans can look to and rally around as one. For if you like Obama, you are an anti-life socialist. If you like Romney, you are a capitalist religious extremist pig. And where is the middle ground in those choices?
In 1931, James Truslow Adams wrote a book called The Epic of America, in which he defined the American Dream as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement….It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”
Inherent in this definition is the notion that the innate capabilities of each man and woman are different. Not everyone will attain the same “stature”. What is “success” to one will be less than success to another. But, the dream is the opportunity to achieve “the fullest stature of which [one is] innately capable.”
To me, this idea is merely a truth. We are all created equal under the law, in that we each have the right to work as hard as we wish to work and achieve as much as we wish to achieve; however, we are not all born with the same smarts, the same strengths, to parents who push and guide (or hurt and harm), or into impoverished families or those with money, land, power, or privilege. This is simply a truth.
There once was a time when what you were born into mattered less than what you personally did with what you were born into.
There once was a time when striving to be a millionaire was something to aspire to rather than a pejorative used in political ad campaigns.
There once was a time when we were inspired by a candidate asking us not what our country could do for us but what we could do for our country.
Was I living in a fog before 9-11 and just not fully able to see the inequities all around me? It’s possible.
Today we seem as ants scurrying around and in and out of a bed destroyed by a torrential downpour, our colony fusion off-track and our queen, Lady Liberty, long drowned.
I wish I could express myself better, but it’s the best my innate capabilities will allow….For me, 9-11 destroyed more than buildings and landmarks and the lives of nearly 3000 innocents and their families. That day marked the breaking of America’s heart and psyche and blinded our eyes to a common dream that once stood as a beacon of hope to the world.
If we, as Americans, can’t see it (or don’t believe in it) any more, how can anyone else?
 |
| What is it today? |
We also just marked the passing of an 11 year milestone of the tragedy most Americans identify as “9-11” or, simply, “September 11 – Never Forget”.
Last year at this time, I was consumed with my memories of 9/11. I sought out words and pictures and documentaries about the day, and I stayed up late into the night on many consecutive nights watching people on my screen share their stories about their own personal experiences surviving the event.
This year, I gave my attention to two pieces on the subject (here (@_otis_) and here (@grange95)), and no more.
My thinking this year on the tragedy is, again, great sadness. The destruction of the towers, the injury to the Pentagon, the plane-turned-bomb failing in its original mission and crash landing in a field in Pennsylvania, the loss of lives. These are things that those of us who lived through it will never forget and those who come after will never fully understand. And what was destroyed physically pales in comparison to what was done that day to America’s mentality.
Our media, particularly during this election season, illustrates each day how America’s mentality was injured, possibly irreparably, that day. What was not destroyed by outsiders eleven years ago, now seems to be hanging by a thread.
We have become a nation of division, hell bent on achieving specific, individual, interests, rather than seeking shared and united goals or dreams. And there is no unifying leader or inspiring call that Americans can look to and rally around as one. For if you like Obama, you are an anti-life socialist. If you like Romney, you are a capitalist religious extremist pig. And where is the middle ground in those choices?
In 1931, James Truslow Adams wrote a book called The Epic of America, in which he defined the American Dream as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement….It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”
Inherent in this definition is the notion that the innate capabilities of each man and woman are different. Not everyone will attain the same “stature”. What is “success” to one will be less than success to another. But, the dream is the opportunity to achieve “the fullest stature of which [one is] innately capable.”
To me, this idea is merely a truth. We are all created equal under the law, in that we each have the right to work as hard as we wish to work and achieve as much as we wish to achieve; however, we are not all born with the same smarts, the same strengths, to parents who push and guide (or hurt and harm), or into impoverished families or those with money, land, power, or privilege. This is simply a truth.
There once was a time when what you were born into mattered less than what you personally did with what you were born into.
There once was a time when striving to be a millionaire was something to aspire to rather than a pejorative used in political ad campaigns.
There once was a time when we were inspired by a candidate asking us not what our country could do for us but what we could do for our country.
Was I living in a fog before 9-11 and just not fully able to see the inequities all around me? It’s possible.
Today we seem as ants scurrying around and in and out of a bed destroyed by a torrential downpour, our colony fusion off-track and our queen, Lady Liberty, long drowned.
I wish I could express myself better, but it’s the best my innate capabilities will allow….For me, 9-11 destroyed more than buildings and landmarks and the lives of nearly 3000 innocents and their families. That day marked the breaking of America’s heart and psyche and blinded our eyes to a common dream that once stood as a beacon of hope to the world.
If we, as Americans, can’t see it (or don’t believe in it) any more, how can anyone else?
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Cibola
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Y'all, I spent all weekend working on this super serious blog post about Chick-Fil-A. And then I fell asleep editing it. So...you're welcome for my not posting it. It kind of fit in with a Facebook rant I made about how we in America seem to be so quick to line up and define ourselves by issues. After traveling for a few weeks in Europe I was sad to see the same ol' same ol' spirit of division so prevalent upon my return to the States. Alas, it is an election season. So...what're you gonna do?
Me? I'm reading Stephen King's The Stand again for the umpteenth time. And imagining I'm either Stu or Frannie...and not Harold or Nadine or one of the poor saps who got the tube neck.
We're all just looking for our own Cibola, I suppose. Bumpity bumpity bump bump.
Maybe the key is recognizing that Cibola can be a state of mind. Sure, life seems more laid back and awesome on holiday in a beautiful part of the world. But the great thing is, you carry a piece of all the people and places and things you experience with you, always.
That's true whether your travels take you across continents or just to the grocery store and back.
I dig that.
 |
| Trevi Fountain, Italy |
Y'all, I spent all weekend working on this super serious blog post about Chick-Fil-A. And then I fell asleep editing it. So...you're welcome for my not posting it. It kind of fit in with a Facebook rant I made about how we in America seem to be so quick to line up and define ourselves by issues. After traveling for a few weeks in Europe I was sad to see the same ol' same ol' spirit of division so prevalent upon my return to the States. Alas, it is an election season. So...what're you gonna do?
Me? I'm reading Stephen King's The Stand again for the umpteenth time. And imagining I'm either Stu or Frannie...and not Harold or Nadine or one of the poor saps who got the tube neck.
We're all just looking for our own Cibola, I suppose. Bumpity bumpity bump bump.
Maybe the key is recognizing that Cibola can be a state of mind. Sure, life seems more laid back and awesome on holiday in a beautiful part of the world. But the great thing is, you carry a piece of all the people and places and things you experience with you, always.
That's true whether your travels take you across continents or just to the grocery store and back.
I dig that.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Create
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If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country
If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country
Thursday, June 7, 2012
The Road Trip
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Her nose was a granite block, porous and grand. Her brow was wide and plain, unburdened by worry (she always gave it all to Jesus) but quick to furrow because she was so easily frustrated. Her short hair was naturally wavy, and always reminded me of West Texas snow: delicate and erratic and constantly in flight. But it was her hand, and what she held in it, holding my fascination at the moment.
“Like this…now watch again,” she said.
Behind her, the sun was caught low in a horizon of mesquite branches and dust, setting in a hot cloudless sky that stretched over a barbed wire fence as far as my eyes could see. Even with all the doors and windows open, my legs were starting to sweat and stick miserably to the car seat. Yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was the same for my older brother, David. He’d been polishing his marble collection, but now they lay still in the handkerchief in his lap. Infrequent blasts of atomic wind from a passing rig rustled our hair, but did little to help cool things off. As she curled back down to a laying position on the concrete picnic table bench, she tucked the blade between her hands and used them as a pillow. Before it disappeared, the sun reflected off the blade in clean, quick bursts.
She closed her eyes and lay still. The desolate blacktop stretched empty out the window behind me, the only sound the angry, intermittent buzzing of a fly as it lit and flew, lit and flew, at a scab on my knee. From my scalp, a lone drop of sweat slid slowly to the corner of my eye. She may have been 53 years old, but she was lean and quick like the rooster that lived in the hardscrabble plot of land she called a backyard. Not wanting to miss a thing, I forced myself not to blink and my eye began to water.
It was the summer of ’58 and I was nine years old.
August in West Texas is a furnace of caliche and creaking pump jacks, and it’s the perfect time for kids on summer break to spend a Saturday in an oasis of natural spring water. We’d made the trip down Highway 17 many times that summer, but we got started late that day and that little stretch of two-lane government blacktop between Pecos and the park in Balmorhea hadn’t seen a new coat of asphalt in twenty years, if not more. Even though we were less than an hour from the park, she’d made up her mind and that was all she wrote. We were camping out at the only rest stop for 50 miles: two concrete picnic tables under twin rusted awnings sitting as if abandoned, ten-feet from the dividing yellow line.
It was time for an adventure, she’d said.
Faster than it took for Dave’s marbles to fall from his lap, she burst to a crouch, the butter knife now a gleaming dagger in her fist. For the second time, she played out how we were to defend ourselves if someone came on us in the night. “Now it’s going to be dark. So hold it tight and swing hard in case you hit something,” she said, jerking, stabbing with her right arm and defensively blocking with her left.
My grandmother, Mamaw, was my favorite person in the world. She’d made every stitch of clothing Dave and I were wearing, and the shift dress covering her own skinny five foot frame. We got started late that day because we’d been dunning, one of Mamaw’s favorite things.
“Come on,” she’d said that morning, “It’s time to go dunning.”
During the summer, dunning was when I got to ride with Mamaw in Pa’s Oldsmobile and help her collect on past due accounts for his Auto Parts store. Mamaw always said if she left it to him they’d “be in the poorhouse afore Christmas the way he gives out that ‘credick’.” Pa’s real job probably should have been preaching or youth ministry because that was his passion. For 25 years, he taught a Sunday school class for fifteen year old boys and held a weekly breakfast meeting at the First National Bank for men who couldn’t abide regular church. Mamaw and Pa were a good match; and, she was right. Left to his own devices, Tubb’s Auto Parts would’ve been long on goodwill, but short on cash. And that was no way to run a business or feed a family.
Dunning conversations with Mamaw always went something like this:
“Yes, Mrs. Tubbs, I know I still got a tab pending down to the store. I’m hoping to pay in full by the end of the month.”
“Well now, Bill, ain’t that a pack a smokes you got in your pocket right there? And didn’t I see you down to the drugstore eating lunch yesterday? Now do you think it’s fair you spend extry money on those things when you got that debt pending? My family needs to eat too, Bill.”
In the face of that, and a nine year old curiously looking on, Bill, or Bob, or Chris, would always cave. Usually, the cigarette would get pulled behind the back or smashed into an ashtray, and the stubborn look, if any, would crumble as he looked from her to me
“Yes, ma’am,” he’d say with resignation. “Let me see what I got here to give you today. Gimme just a minute.”
That’s how I learned to be direct.
Being direct is a good thing. But it didn’t help me, or us, that night in ’58 on the side of the road. Today, I’m 63. Neither dunning, nor what I’d learned from Pa’s preaching, could prepare me for what happened that night. And it’s something I’ll never forget.
“Like this…now watch again,” she said.
Behind her, the sun was caught low in a horizon of mesquite branches and dust, setting in a hot cloudless sky that stretched over a barbed wire fence as far as my eyes could see. Even with all the doors and windows open, my legs were starting to sweat and stick miserably to the car seat. Yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was the same for my older brother, David. He’d been polishing his marble collection, but now they lay still in the handkerchief in his lap. Infrequent blasts of atomic wind from a passing rig rustled our hair, but did little to help cool things off. As she curled back down to a laying position on the concrete picnic table bench, she tucked the blade between her hands and used them as a pillow. Before it disappeared, the sun reflected off the blade in clean, quick bursts.
She closed her eyes and lay still. The desolate blacktop stretched empty out the window behind me, the only sound the angry, intermittent buzzing of a fly as it lit and flew, lit and flew, at a scab on my knee. From my scalp, a lone drop of sweat slid slowly to the corner of my eye. She may have been 53 years old, but she was lean and quick like the rooster that lived in the hardscrabble plot of land she called a backyard. Not wanting to miss a thing, I forced myself not to blink and my eye began to water.
It was the summer of ’58 and I was nine years old.
August in West Texas is a furnace of caliche and creaking pump jacks, and it’s the perfect time for kids on summer break to spend a Saturday in an oasis of natural spring water. We’d made the trip down Highway 17 many times that summer, but we got started late that day and that little stretch of two-lane government blacktop between Pecos and the park in Balmorhea hadn’t seen a new coat of asphalt in twenty years, if not more. Even though we were less than an hour from the park, she’d made up her mind and that was all she wrote. We were camping out at the only rest stop for 50 miles: two concrete picnic tables under twin rusted awnings sitting as if abandoned, ten-feet from the dividing yellow line.
It was time for an adventure, she’d said.
Faster than it took for Dave’s marbles to fall from his lap, she burst to a crouch, the butter knife now a gleaming dagger in her fist. For the second time, she played out how we were to defend ourselves if someone came on us in the night. “Now it’s going to be dark. So hold it tight and swing hard in case you hit something,” she said, jerking, stabbing with her right arm and defensively blocking with her left.
My grandmother, Mamaw, was my favorite person in the world. She’d made every stitch of clothing Dave and I were wearing, and the shift dress covering her own skinny five foot frame. We got started late that day because we’d been dunning, one of Mamaw’s favorite things.
“Come on,” she’d said that morning, “It’s time to go dunning.”
During the summer, dunning was when I got to ride with Mamaw in Pa’s Oldsmobile and help her collect on past due accounts for his Auto Parts store. Mamaw always said if she left it to him they’d “be in the poorhouse afore Christmas the way he gives out that ‘credick’.” Pa’s real job probably should have been preaching or youth ministry because that was his passion. For 25 years, he taught a Sunday school class for fifteen year old boys and held a weekly breakfast meeting at the First National Bank for men who couldn’t abide regular church. Mamaw and Pa were a good match; and, she was right. Left to his own devices, Tubb’s Auto Parts would’ve been long on goodwill, but short on cash. And that was no way to run a business or feed a family.
Dunning conversations with Mamaw always went something like this:
“Yes, Mrs. Tubbs, I know I still got a tab pending down to the store. I’m hoping to pay in full by the end of the month.”
“Well now, Bill, ain’t that a pack a smokes you got in your pocket right there? And didn’t I see you down to the drugstore eating lunch yesterday? Now do you think it’s fair you spend extry money on those things when you got that debt pending? My family needs to eat too, Bill.”
In the face of that, and a nine year old curiously looking on, Bill, or Bob, or Chris, would always cave. Usually, the cigarette would get pulled behind the back or smashed into an ashtray, and the stubborn look, if any, would crumble as he looked from her to me
“Yes, ma’am,” he’d say with resignation. “Let me see what I got here to give you today. Gimme just a minute.”
That’s how I learned to be direct.
Being direct is a good thing. But it didn’t help me, or us, that night in ’58 on the side of the road. Today, I’m 63. Neither dunning, nor what I’d learned from Pa’s preaching, could prepare me for what happened that night. And it’s something I’ll never forget.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Focus
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This blog (ok, me) has totally lost focus. I kinda feel like Bill Withers.
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| Wonder Woman, aka @WriterJen |
When I had a consistent routine in poker, I had a more consistent blogging focus and, whether true or not, at least felt like I had stuff to write about. Now, I just get my work done, do my trail, poke around (too much) on the interwebz, and read stupid links about the most depressing stuff people do to each other all over the world...whether it's withhold rights from a class of people in North Carolina, to an inmate from Texas getting on a ballot in West Virgina in a Democratic primary, and everything in between.
A smarter person would create a new routine and discipline. I've totally got to work on that.
Someone who *has* done that recently, and gone all Super Hero disciplined and focused is @WriterJen, who is on Day 7 in her new life as a non-smoker.
You're a role model, girl! Keep it UP!
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