Half a glass of whiskey

Three games of Doomtown on Tuesday...three losses.

Not just losses, though. I got into shootouts where I was crushed. Hand ranks of 10 or 11 that were legal, leaving me zero recourse to respond with cards that might have helped me. This happened multiple times in a row, luck absolutely coming against my favor.

It was something my third round opponent, Gerald, and I laughed about.

"You are getting a sign," he giggled.

"Absolutely. I'm going to go home, have a bit of whiskey, and crawl into bed," I chuckled.

At the same time, there was an innerspeak, howling at me about how goddamn unfair it all is.

That's something that isn't easy to shrug off, sometimes. Especially when you feel unhappy for other reasons. Maybe you haven't slept or eaten enough, maybe you're lonely, maybe you're worse than lonely. Difficult things come up in everybody's life.

For me, it was a rough end to a stupid day. It wasn't a bad day for any notable reason but nothing came together whatsoever. Not work and obviously, not play.

Gerald asked if I wanted to join in another game: I held my hands up in surrender. "Oh, no. I think I've learned my lesson." Everyone chuckled.

There's always a part of me that wants to hold onto these losses. I've learned I can't. I can't hold onto the wins, either; both conditions do something to my brain where it becomes easy to overload and fuck up my thinking processes. I have to let the loss sting for a moment and then square my shoulders and move on. The wins, OK, let's smile a little longer over that but...holding onto a past victory means that getting a future one becomes harder.

There are any number of ways to process this: when I've been involved in Magic tournaments, I've gone for walks between rounds to clear my head. Tuesday, though, there wasn't such a luxury. I kept a good face up, I think but when I went home, I poured myself a half a shot of whiskey and moped at my desk for a little bit. Sometimes, you just gotta.