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Thursday, December 14, 2006

Tats, Toos, and Double Dichos


My never-met buddy, Maudie, finally did the virtual stripdown and went skinnydipping in the pool, and got that tattoo she's been threatening us with for lo these many weeks. "Character is destiny" is the loose translation of the konji, says Ms. M.

I might slightly disagree, as the phrase reminds me of one of Hemingway's "double dichos," a saying that makes a statement forward or backward. From my view, destiny is character. We become who we are through the path we walk.

It's a good essay. I wish Maudie would write more, which is about the best compliment I know to give a writer.

If you go to the posting and follow the link, you'll also get a brief commentary cum criticism of the recent Winter poker blogger get-together via Michael Craig, which I'm sure is going to provoke some reaction and probably some invective in our small corner of the blogosphere.

Given that I've never been to one of the poker blogger meetups, Craig's posting pretty much reflects my opinion of them just from reading the trip reports. I probably wouldn't go solely for one - although it'd be nice and fun to finally meet Iggy and Maudie and TroubleCat and a couple of other people in person if I happened to be in Vegas, or if the community decided to do an East Coast meet at Foxwoods. But, I'm not much of a people person - few writers are, bar talk bores me, my days of marathon drinking are some 20-odd years in the past and I'm just as happy about that, thank you very much, and stories of people passing out in restrooms or flicking cigarettes into pools at places where they're guests makes me feel more sad or annoyed than amused. You'll have to forgive my cynicism, but I've had too many drunks in my life to find drunks very funny.

I'm sure it's one of those "you had to be there," things, but you take a random sampling of trip reports from of the meetups, they all seem to be of the, "I went to Vegas, got drunk, spent too much, didn't sleep, caught a massive cold, and was ready to go home by Sunday. Oh, and it's all about the people!" variety. Some people's thing, I guess. Not mine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

geepers, what cynicism.

nothing is quite that simple when you get 80+ people together. all of whom take the time to write and share.

i've said it before - these people are just way smarter and funnier than your average person and/or drunk.

self satisfied smugness doesn't become you sir.

Fred@Dreamtime said...

Chacun a son gout, my friend. :-) And different opinions is what makes my horse races and prop bets.