Thoughts on Perspective
"You won't last six months in this town." - Anonymous
If you're sensible, you take an indirect hint from the broke fuckers who spend half their lives wasting away at the blackjack table, pounding back cigarette after drink after sorrow.
"It's always like this," The stranger across the table from me says after yet another losing hand.
I was in the same boat as him, walking away from the cards with 2/3 fewer chips than I started with. Thankfully, the $60 I used to bet with all came from video poker winnings from earlier. No matter what, I told myself, I'm leaving here $20 up.
Greed got the best of me that night. Though ending the night with a profit, it was much less than it could have been. After hitting two four of a kinds on video poker, I had turned my initial $40 into $150 for $110 profit. Half an hour and two more free beers, and that dropped to $60 profit, and I cashed out. It was 4 a.m., and this is when I tried to sleep and couldn't. So I tried my luck at blackjack at 6 in the morning. On a Sunday. Though I lost winnings, I convinced the pit boss to comp me breakfast.
There are two ways to look at this situation I put myself in. Either I could have won more, got greedy and lost, or I simply won $20, free food and drinks, and a night out. All of this seems to relate back to a concept I recently read about called the anchoring effect.
Golden Years
I can feel myself aging.
The same slippers go on the same feet every morning.
It's 6:30am, the only time I can wake up anymore.
I pour the same cup of coffee as yesterday and the day before.
"Hello, Coffee-mate."
What was I to do today? The sun was rising. The colorful but boring rays it cast onto the breakfast table didn't matter. The rose bushes lining my backyard, once perfected by the old woman, didn't matter. This shitty Folgers didn't matter.
"It must be nice to be old," said my young self. "Nothing to worry about. Just take medicine advertised on the so official-looking blue and red grids on TV and worry about nothing."
An early morning used to present me with a display of wonder and freshness. Now it signifies the start of a new daypart. Time for the news.
Then time for soaps. Judy, Maury, Springer - all the daytime classics - perpetuating irrelevant quarrels and failed relationships for all to reminisce over on TV Land.
Time was my only enemy. She graced my life with contrast and affection. And then fate took her away. More like a stroke, really. My life was once again single-sided. Plain, usual, day-to-day.
So maybe the heart attack phobia isn't so bad at this point. Nothing intrigues me anymore, not without her.
I down the last of the day's pills and case them with a Centrum. To my good health, pharmaceutical industry.
Shortness of breath. Upper arm, now jaw pains. Tightness.
This is it, I mumble. Good riddance.