Just a Few

I have 700 e-mails to answer delete. I have over 250 posts stored up in Bloglines. I have a month's worth of material from my trip and other stuff I jotted down. When will I get to any of it?

God only knows.

Welcome to the furious tornado that is the return to Real Life after 10 days of immature galavanting. I hate this part. Anyway, I'm all tied up, but I thought I'd at least give you a few brief looks at what you may or may not find in this space in the coming days and weeks.

I dropped £42 playing poker during the trip, in two £20+1 SnGs at the Cincinnati Club in Glasgow. The best hand I was dealt during roughly 100 hands was 88, which ran into TT. I am officially card dead on two continents...I met a player who achieved Supernova status at Poker Stars, meaning I know TWO of that very exclusive fraternity. Of course, I had to find out if The Tank knows The Nerd and he responded (good-naturedly) to my query with, "I own The Venetian!" Cocky Scots...Back-water, dip-shit tourists from Alabama arguing exchange rates with condescending Asian money-changers is pure comedy fucking gold...Driving Irish backroads is a harrowing experience, even as well as Donny managed it...I met people, actually living, breathing Irish people, who refer to Guinness as "cheap beer" and consider Budweiser a delicacy...I missed my flight from Scotland to Ireland. It totally wasn't my fault. In fact, I'm almost certain I was simply a faceless pawn in a global racketeering scam, a faceless pawn who got to spend an extra hundred bucks to fly to an airport not of his choosing...There are a few mouthy youths in the village of Broadford, Ireland who are fortunate Kool Breeze and I posses requisite amounts of self-restraint as we were both quite willing to, in the immortal words of Tom Araya, "spill the blood." If, by some quirk of fate, you kids are reading this right now, allow me to use an Irish expression I picked up, "Mind yerselves"...I may have a gambling problem based on the fact I was making blackjack prop bets with The Tank at 4 a.m. for stakes 500% higher than those we were betting on the cards...Schott's new wife is beautiful and gregarious and treated me as if we'd known each other our whole lives even though we'd only just met. She's also a good listener and I really appreciate it, D, even if I can't quite remember what I said, only that I said a lot...I learned Donny's three rules for finding the right woman. Only one of them contains the word "fuck"...The women in Scotland and Ireland seem "fresher" to me. Less make-up, less haughty attitude. I've been in LA too long...Despite paying €99 per at my reasonably posh hotel, I spent two nights sleeping on a coach fully dressed...Picking up your room key at 10 the next morning while still wearing a rumpled suit tends to give you a reputation at small town lodges...I had one of the most beautiful, heart-breaking experiences of my life during the week, which, frankly, I'm not sure I can even talk about yet and no, it's not anything like what you might think...Won't you remember, won't you remember, won't you remember me?