on the game of Hearts

Again, I'd like to start by tossing out a little recommendations on how to be awesome (talk like Tom Brokaw, really emphasize your "L's", try the phrase "I'd love to lick a lemon lollipop in Lillehammer", and you're gonna have a good time. Courtesy of Family Guy). Also, I want to give an apology that I've not been able to write on this as much as I'd like. I've vowed never to put any crap up on here that isn't worth reading. Just like I've vowed to never be a hippie, to one day really be Batman, and to never eat raw avocado that's not guacamole. It's disgusting. The texture. To me, it seems the way you make an avocado is to throw a giant pear at a friend one fun night, let it fall behind the television, forget about it for, oh, a while, let it turn black as night with a hint of green, find it in an archaeological dig eons from now, and call it an avocado. On the other hand, mix some salsa, lime, onion, cilantro, salt and pepper with that bad boy and ill consume every type of chip in your house: Tostitos, Mission Rounds, tortilla, potato, poker, computer. I swear. The chip matters not.
But clearly thats not why we are here today.

On a more related note, we somewhat recently passed a great topic of conversation that EVERYONE LOVES to talk and hear about, guaranteed....

necrotizing fasciitis.

Wait, thats next week. Oh man, stay tuned for that. (Google it if you cant wait... SWEET LORD DO NOT GOOGLE IT)

Yikes, that just took a horrible turn. Ok, so what I meant to bring up was Valentine's Day. Single's Sunday. Normally would have been a little sad for Mase Dawg, but not when you have a roommate like Wilder, who's birthday happens to be on that very same day. We threw Wilder a fantastic party, of which this is the tag line for the Facebook event I created for it: "Mankind's finest representative (Wilder) invites you to try and win his heart at the Sleaze Easy Motel". Just the best. Nothing but the usual mayhem and madness we've come to know and love from this guy, so we'll leave it at that.
We'll take another turn, and finally come to the subject of this whole ordeal... in a minute. Valentine's Day seemed like a fantastic subject for one of these blog-ertins. I had it all planned out, I'd find some underlying truth about that day that would be really witty and justify myself as a freelance life college student with no girlfriend. It was gonna be a doosey. But then that's the thing about plans... valentine's day, heart shaped candy, heart shaped cards, heart shaped jewelry, heart shaped hearts...
I walked by my kitchen, and saw the paper score sheet pinned to our wall for the most fantastic card game fit for kings on this good earth; Hearts. Background: our water polo team took a trip to Europe this past summer, a lot of travel, and you've gotta kill time while sitting in the airport or ferry dock waiting to be yelled at by our coach on how slowly we are carrying our month's worth of luggage. Hence, Hearts. It's a game of degradation, backstabbing, and intrigue that can turn the most avid card player into Nancy Kerrigan at the '94 U.S. Ice Skating Championships. WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!!! WHYYYYY?!?!?!?! I swear. That was me, just the other night. So for those of you who don't know the game, there's a play called Shooting the Moon, and it's fantastic. Incredibly risky, but if achieved, absolutely devastating to everyone else. In the middle of the game, I look at my hand... taylor made for shooting. My heart pounds, and the plan is set in motion and there's no turning back. It's going swimmingly. I begin to tank the hand, sheepishly pretending to lose with cruel intentions hidden like Cool Hand Luke, until... my friend Big Country, a relative rookie to our other two competitors, like a complete ass and without any clue that he's foiled my bulletproof plan, brainlessly gives my compadre Brada-Man my coup de grace... 1, little, bitty, useless, eight of HEARTS. In order to shoot the moon, I NEED THEM ALL, AND THAT DAMNED QUEEN OF SPADES TOO. I eat the hand and lose virtually all chance of winning the game. SO DAMN SAD. I then proceeded to berate him for a good 2 and a half hours.
But I looked at what occurred that fateful night with a cool head today, and realized I guess that's what I get for making plans. There's a good few things I thought I had wrapped up and figured out recently, including my moment in the sun as I finally shot the moon. I thought I was playing it way cool with these things, cruisin' down the highway of my awesome plans, then they all just turn tragically James Dean on me. So here's what I got out of it. You've gotta have some sweet goals set for yourself. Make some cool plans and have all kinds fun working to try and make them an awesome reality. But promise me that you'll never, ever, count on them to stay set in stone. You'll think you're on the right track, you make one wrong move, all of the sudden you don't even have the right map. And that's the part you've gotta learn to enjoy. It's tough, I know, I whined like middle-school girl trust me, but adapt, and make some new plans. Maybe those work out, who knows? The only constant, is change.
So put that in your pipe, and attach it safely to your toilet, because that shit is deep.