Suitedjustice's Ongoing Mid-life Crisis
I woke up in the middle of choking to death again; though to be accurate, it was towards the end of the process--woke up right away in a white hot panic with black spots of permanent unconsciousness swooping in across both sides of my vision.
Calm yourself, was the first important step. My lungs were soaked, steeped in the things that belonged only in my stomach, and locked up tight. My air passage was blocked and burning with bile and hydrochloric acid. No, I don't have asthma. I have a drinking problem.
Spoiler
Though, now that I think about it, is that inhaler thing any good? Maybe I'll try a hit sometime, just to see.
This was last Friday, just a few hours after I'd quit my office job of twelve years to take a shot at playing poker for a living out West in Nevada. This will not be my first shot at gambling for a living; although I have only tried something like this once before, many years ago.
Around the turn of the century I quit college most of the way through my senior year and I moved out to Las Vegas for 8 years. My experiences were somewhat of interest: rampant drunkenness, a stolen lab animal, solid card counting, North Korean meth, time spent with Mormons, advantage slot grinding, a cowardly pass on an FBI Most Wanted bounty, facing contempt of court charges, and dressing up as Albus Dumbledore. You can find that in my BBV thread.
[U][url]https://forumserver.twoplustwo.c...[/U][/URL] .
That thread held up pretty well in BBV, which is not nothing.
Starting meditative relaxation can be problematic when you're dying from choking on your own puke. I sat up straight, blind from the black splotches that had slapped away the weak light of the kitchen stove. I dropped my shoulders, relaxed my chest and upper arms, and then, projecting calm with all my might, I tried my throat. I pictured my lungs and throat opening up just a tiny passage, for just a little air to go by--something to get me started. And they did, untethering just the smallest little rivulet of air, and it made the most terrifying sound as it went through. It always does.
Whatever you've heard from actors pretending to gasp after being choked, the reality is worse. At least no one was with me this time. When that's been the case, the other person has invariably freaked the **** out when they've heard my gasping and choking routine, which only adds the burden of myself having to reassure them through nodding and non-frantic gestures, so that they won't call 911, as I hate the idea of calling the cops.
April 13th of this year was 14 months without me having a drink. During that long stretch I had honestly forgotten why I'd quit. That's right, I had completely purged from my recall the years of nighttime memories of myself almost choking to death, this happening once or twice every couple of weeks on average. Now, the terrifying night wakeups didn't happen even once during the 14 dry months. But 3 weeks back into drinking--oh yeah--there was that thing, wasn't there?.
Now, there was something else I'd forgotten about. And that's the Double Tap. The Double Tap happens when I don't force my drunk and tired and traumatized self to remain awake for a good two or three hours after a choking incident. If I fall back asleep before then, I wake up choking to death all over again. And sure enough, that happened last Friday, and I had to save myself again.
So on Saturday I jumped back on the waggy, and Cinco de Mayo is now my new anniversary date, and that's really enough about drinking. I'm not here to write about that business. I should have been done with it; and now I am.
My flight leaves for Reno in a few hours, and I'll be out there for the next 3 weeks scouting out the live poker games in the city. If I like it, that's where I'm moving to.
Nice review. 😀 For what it's worth, I don't think the tempo increases in "Trodding", but I could be wrong.
On Saturday, I drove down to Norwich to visit with my friends Will and Octavia. For that trip, I like to take the scenic back roads down and back instead of the quicker but more stressful highway route.
The back way mostly follows Route 32, a two lane secondary road that beats a pleasant and fairly straightforward path through 60 miles or so of southern New England's farms and woods.
On this trip, however, there was a bit of adventure at the bottom of a long hill in Franklin, CT. where I found a dozen cars at a standstill on my side of the road in a spot where there are no driveways or turnoffs.
I couldn't see what was halting the cars up front, and we all sat there for more than 2 minutes, with no indication that there had been an accident, and with no one pulling around whatever the obstruction might be.
Finally, I saw a Mercedes SUV pull away from the front of the crowd. It was in our lane, facing the wrong way, and it had been the obstruction. It was now backing up, but not for long. The driver slammed the Mercedes into forward gear and swerved around but very close to the next car in line, just missing it. The Mercedes then swerved back into its own lane, then swerved back again towards the next car, just missing that one. Then it gave the next car after that the same treatment, missing it by inches, then the next car, and from there on every stopped car in the line.
Finally, the driver made it up to my Jeep, and I saw him: an Asian guy in his 40's. grimacing manically around what looked like the stub of an expensive Macanudo cigar as he swerved right for me, only to serve away just before hitting my front fender, then moving on to the next car.
In the moment that he was coming for me, I was terrified. I had seen him just miss everyone in front of me, but that didn't convince me that I wasn't going to be the one he finally hit.
After it was over, I began to appreciate the grim humor in it, the kernel of which was that the man's expression was the same as the one from the old meme that many of us will recognize.
Spoiler
And that recognition has cracked me up periodically over the last two days.
Hi Perrone66. Thanks for reading! I appreciate you!
Back before I discovered advantage slots, I stayed away from slots for being -EV leaks. That said, the best -EV games to run your $750 through one time would be certain video poker variants, particularly the ones that return between 98-100%
[u]This site[/u] will locate the best, least losing machines at your local casino. Then you can google the game variant and the word strategy and find a strategy table that will fit on your phone. No one has e
I would make sure you track the number of hands of VP played. Say you’re playing 50 cent VP at $2.50 a hand stop at 300 hands. You only need run the freeplay through one time. Tracking 300 hands may be difficult. You might be able to track points. Point accumulation varies by casino the site SJ referenced will have player club point accumulation info. Other option maybe every 50 hands or hit cash out, collect the ticket. Keep doing this until you have no more freeplay and you’re unable to play another hand.
How much money did that Asian man in the Mercedes lose at the casino?
Connecticut is a dangerous place. It's running amok with Yankees and Jets fans.
They're bussing them in from New Jersey and Long Island. I've seen them.
