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.
Hope you checked in with your family for the holidays and are having a nice New Years week.
Here’s to crushing 2025 and moving up 🫵[emoji2534][emoji1434]
Ditto.
what has cutting out the alcohol done for your general health?
can we expect thirst traps posted in 2025?
Hope you checked in with your family for the holidays and are having a nice New Years week.
Here’s to crushing 2025 and moving up ��[emoji2534][emoji1434]
Thanks guys! I ran out of bankroll in December and couldn't risk playing with the small life-support roll that remained. I'm cashing in on a very modest, last-chance investment in January, so that the taxes won't hit me until next year. That should be arriving by check in a few days (who still does checks nowadays? Apparently IRA managers. This will give me a slight bankroll on which to hang my dreams.
what has cutting out the alcohol done for your general health?
can we expect thirst traps posted in 2025?
I'm a middle-aged white guy. Not to be racist, but a lot of us are hard to tell apart, being vaguely thumblike.
The Dry 2024-2025 Challenge Update
January: ✓
February: ✓
March: ✓
April: ✓
May: ✓
June: ✓
July: ✓
August: ✓
September: ✓
October: ✓
November: ✓
December: ✓
January: UNLOCKED
I made it a year without—to paraphrase Homer—the cause of, and solution to, many of my problems.
My longest streak prior to this was 14 months. I've decided that—having come this far—I may as well try to break that record and make it 15 months without the booze. Let's Goooooooo.
I made it a year without—to paraphrase Homer—the cause of, and solution to, many of my problems.
This made me think of lyrics to one of my favorite country songs.
People say I've got a drinkin' problem
That ain't no reason to stop
People sayin' that I've hit rock bottom
Just cause I'm living on the rocks
It's a broken hearted thinkin' problem
So pull that bottle off the wall
People say I got a drinkin' problem
But I got no problem drinkin' at all
They keep on talkin'
Drawing conclusions
They call a problem, I call a solution
Sitting here in all my grand illusions
They call it a problem, I call it a solution
I know you're not much into country, but if you'd like to take a listen...
Spoiler
And wishing you a happy and prosperous new year!
A country song about drinking? No way!
LOL. You got me!
Thanks CowboyCold! Back atcha.
This is one of my favorites in the genre.
I was not a fan of many of Charlie's views towards the end of his life, but he was a real talent, and I'll always love his peak career stuff: Uneasy Rider, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Still in Saigon, Legend of Wooly Swamp...all great tracks.
Found this gem on YouTube, and I'm watching it now for the first time.
No, I won't ask you to watch the whole 3 hours, but just flip around a bit and see what Fellini does so well with—not just the black and white film format but—specifically the colors black and white, and how they interact with each other.
See how he fills the frame with interesting composition and action in almost every minute of the film; but it's not cluttered, like Lucas's CGI junk in Phantom Menace, so it doesn't overstimulate into dullness, it's just enough novelty.
Great stuff.
I don't know how to embed it with the subtitles turned on, just hit the CC button on the bottom.
If you're reading this post months or years from now, the video has probably been copyright struck. It was Fellini's La Dolce Vita. The version that's on all the pirate streams has the subtitles off kilter with the dialog by a minute or so, which is maddening. But this version—while it lasts—is excellent.
anita ekberg is something
The term Va Va Voom is pretty outdated, but I think it fits well for 1960 and Ms. Ekberg. Also, Andy Warhol and Velvet Underground-adjacent model slash artist slash etc. Nico was in it, playing herself. The beatnik cool factor on that is pretty much through the roof.
The Dry 2024-2025 Challenge Update
January: ✓
February: ✓
March: ✓
April: ✓
May: ✓
June: ✓
July: ✓
August: ✓
September: ✓
October: ✓
November: ✓
December: ✓
January: UNLOCKED
I made it a year without—to paraphrase Homer—the cause of, and solution to, many of my problems.
My longest streak prior to this was 14 months. I've decided that—having come this far—I may as well try to break that record and make it 15 months without t
Yay!
Yup. There are two good reasons to watch that movie.
happy new year sj!
live version of a song my okie alky pawpaw always played
(to clarify he was not a musician just had access to a record player)
the first place to be searching for answers
is anywhere indirectly adjacent to
the way a languid and aged kris kristofferson
cunningly flicks drinking lyrics with his tongue
apologies in advance if i missed appropriate pagination
in my rush to post his lyrical genius
Spoiler
You ask me if I'm happy now
That's good as any joke I've heard
It seems that since I've seen you last
I done forgot the meaning of the words
If happiness is empty rooms and drinkin' in the afternoon
Well, I suppose I'm happy as a clam
But if it's got a thing to do with smilin' or forgettin' you
Well, I don't guess that I could say I am
Did you ever see a down and outer waking up alone
Without a blanket on to keep him from the dew?
When the water from the weeds has soaked the papers
He's been puttin' in his shoes to keep the ground from comin' through
And his future feels as empty as the pockets in his pants
Because he's never seen a single dream come true
That's the way that I've been feelin' since the day I started falling
From the bottle to the bottom stool by stool
Learnin' hard to live with losin' you
You wonder if I'm better off
With freedom now to do the things I choose
Well, all my times my own and
I got nothin' left but sleepin' time to lose
There's no one here to carry on
If I stay out the whole night long
Or give a tankerous damn if I don't call
I'm livin' like I wanted to
And doin' things I want to do
And nothin' means a thing to me at all
Did you ever see a down and outer waking up alone
Without a blanket on to keep him from the dew?
When the water from the weeds has soaked the papers
He's been puttin' in his shoes to keep the ground from comin' through
And his future feels as empty as the pockets in his pants
Because he's never seen a single dream come true
That's the way that I've been feelin' since the day I started falling
From the bottle to the bottom stool by stool
Learnin' hard to live with losin' you
Happy New Year REDeYeS00!
I like the jam at the end of the Merle Haggard song. He always had a good band backing him up.
I'm also a fan of Mr. Kristofferson. He wasn't the greatest actor in the world, but that didn't stop him from making some good coin on that particular side gig. He was Rubber Duck in one of the first movies I saw in the theater, Convoy, which, combined with Smokey and the Bandit and BJ and the Bear, made young me abandon dinosaurs for truck drivin' and CB radios.
Kristofferson's biggest talent, I think, was his songwriting. He wrote this absolute gem, and then Johnny Cash made it his own.
Congrats on the whole year sober, happy new year.
Hopefully you can bring the hustle to the next level.
Congrats on the whole year sober, happy new year.
Hopefully you can bring the hustle to the next level.
Thanks, Da_Nit! Happy New Year to you and yours.
My modest check came in. I'm starting back at the casino on Friday. To date, I've not proven myself reliable enough to write about putting in hours. Going forward, I can only make amends by doing the thing and then writing about having done it.
I've mentioned the accepted wisdom around talking about ones dreams: they're boring and you'll bore people with them. But there is one strange archetype of dreams which my buddy Will first brought to my attention that continues to fascinate me, and that is the little car, or the tiny car.
Both of us, Will and I, don't drive normal-sized cars in dreams. Many times within them I take public transportation: typically a bus that follows a labyrinthian route to anywhere but where I want to go. But when I do drive in dreams, I drive a tiny car, sort of an adult-sized version of a fortunate toddler's sit-in toy car.
More often than not—as Will has mentioned—the car will get stuck, and I'll have to manually pick it up and place it somewhere else to get it going again. What is it about normal-sized cars that make them verboten in my dreams?
It's your subconsciousness rejecting American consumerism.
It might be that my mind doesn't want to expend the processing power to generate an environment inside of a big car, along with a separate exterior environment, both of which would have to respond to my driving movements, whereas a tiny car is all, or at least mostly, external.
I mean, this is the same dreaming brain that has my best friend turn into a complete stranger halfway through a conversation, then forgets about them entirely to focus on something different.
I'm also a fan of Mr. Kristofferson. He wasn't the greatest actor in the world, but that didn't stop him from making some good coin on that particular side gig. He was Rubber Duck in one of the first movies I saw in the theater, Convoy, which, combined with Smokey and the Bandit and BJ and the Bear, made young me abandon dinosaurs for truck drivin' and CB radios.
Kristofferson's biggest talent, I think, was his songwriting. He wrote this absolute gem, and then Johnny Cash made it his own.
agree, and it ain't just the lyrics
it's listenin' for the needle weaving sylables and rhythm warp and weft while recording words on a baloom
Yesterday, I finally returned to the tables; but first, I had to pour two quarts of oil into my Jeep. The old girl reliably burns up a quart a month, which is better than leaking, I suppose, though it's not a great contribution to the world's air quality. Still, I rode the damn bus in Las Vegas for years and years. i should have some sort of carbon credit banked for that.
When I lifted my Jeep's hood, I heard something plop to the ground, and I also found that my oil cap was missing. I must have left the cap off when I last filled the oil, and the closed trunk must have kept it from falling out for these last two months.
I started looking for the cap on the ground, and I could not find it after a short search, so perhaps I'd been wrong about the plop. I imagined making a trip to NAPA for a new one.
"2005 model? They don't make those oil caps any more. You'll have to go to a junkyard" is what I imagined I'd hear, as I tend to project bad case scenarios when it comes to running errands. It's one of the reasons why I procrastinate.
So instead I got down on my belly and crawled around on the ice and the mud and I eventually found my oil cap leaning against the back of my front tire, exactly the same color as the tire and hiding in its shadow. I would have backed over it on my way out to get a new cap.
Wetter and dirtier for my efforts, I took off for the casino, where I promptly punted off around $350 getting KK in pre vs an aggro player's AA. Standard.
Damn sorry that sounds like a terrible day.
Plan B get a job as a librarian at some small Western Massachusetts town library or small liberal arts college in some town I’ve never heard of that the Blue Jean Committee is from.
