Life in the Slack Lane

Over the past month I have been a slack, lazy degenerate. If you don't believe me, ask my wife. The dear soul puts up with a lot. So much so that when she dies, she gets to by-pass the traffic lane and go directly to the front of the line. Well, that is if she is going somewhere that the front of the line is the kind of place one would like to be. On the other hand, if she is going to one of those "other" places, she will be allowed to lollygag in the back of the line for as long as is necessary for the powers that be to forget about her and send her to the other line out of shear bureaucratic inefficiency. Such are the advantages of loving a slack ass, as she loves me.

I must say there is really no one area in my life where I have excelled more than any other in slackatude. I have not written, I have not read. I have no idea what is going on in the lives of the writers of more than a few of the blogs that I used to happily follow. There are lots of people out there that really write marvelously talented musings almost every week, if not several times a week. I have been lucky enough to make friends with a few of them. And while there are others who I can't quite call friend yet. . .yet being the key word. . ., it is only a matter of time before friendship will break out. To paraphrase Will Rogers- I haven't met a poker blogger I didn't like. Either way, I have read almost nothing for the last month, left no comments, made no new friends. . .Truly, If I had a conscience, I'd feel guilty about now.

I have no delusions. If I stopped blogging and playing poker tomorrow, there would be few if any who would miss me. Other than my nominal contributions to whatever tourney I am playing at the moment, I just aint that important. However I do write something so that I can be, or at leasr feel, a part of. . a friend among. . .a player in the company of. . .this nice little community of poker players who like to read and write and play. It allows me at it's best to not take myself so damn seriously, while I get to put faces and names and personalities and lives. At it's worst, I get to expound a little self indulgent ignorance for the world to ignore.

There are several folks who write regularly that I am very grateful to read. I am mentioning a few because they pop to mind as I type. . .there are more. . I promise. If I forget to name you, please realize that early onset Alzheimer's is not a pretty thing. If you have read anything I ever typed, you know how fond I am of the Tuck Fards (true and honorary), Bam Bam, Lee, Suzy, Don Baywolf, Memphis Mojo, Cemfredmd and all the others who take time to show up there even once in a while. They are a friendly group.. . . Who has not played there and not felt welcome? It really is refreshing. There is also the crew at BDR, not least of which is Buddy himself. Witty, entertaining, not a bad poker player, humble, and always fun to listen to. Joanada, Numbbono, Rambler, Scotty Mc, OhCaptin, Katitude, Pushmonkey, Brainmc among the others I have met there, are all nice folks, all add up to give these faceless on line tourney's the feel of a home game.

Who hasn't read read Julius Goat and split their sides laughing from time to time, or been able to take a step back when needed to realize how not to take ourselves too seriously- sometimes all in the same post. If you want to read some one with some genuine insight into the game and an art for putting it down in a way that is fun to read, there are more than enough true poker bloggers out there, but Emptyman is as good or better than most. Then there are the genuinely nice people, really talented writers or just plain interesting reads whether they write about poker or not, like Katitude, Oh Captain, Big Pirate and Lightning.

I write because you folks make my life a little nicer when when I get to read what you have to say. I write to give back in some small little way. Hell, let's face it. I'm the guy who writes and makes most people say, "Jeez, what a load of crap. I can do way better than that without even trying." Thus, inspiration is served!!!

I haven't had the chance to say this lately but. . .

Thanks for stoppin by, ya'll come back now, ya hear.