Are We Done Yet?

So I hate to dwell on this whole "I'm in a funk" thing -- and honestly, I feel like it's at least starting to lift -- but now the universe is just getting comical with respect to how much it hates me.

Last night is my usual pub poker night. I sent an email to a girlfriend of mine (who sometimes joins me for these games) to ask if she was planning on going:

If I can slip out of here by 6.15, I'm thinking of getting some poker in, despite the fact that I've been in a somewhat bad mood and may therefore suffer a losing streak which will put me in a progressively worse mood. Now that I've totally sold you on the pleasure of my company, were you thinking of going tonight? :)

Luckily for her, she declined.

I steeled myself and went anyway, if for no other reason than to re-establish a routine. Besides, poker is fun, right? And besides the fact that I've been losing like crazy on line, at least this is social, and I get to interface with actual people (one of whom was kinda cute last night).

The game started at 7:00.

I was done by 7:30.

Taking the lion's share of my chips was when my opponent had a pocket pair which tripped up on the board where I hit top two pair. I tell ya, when the universe is unhappy with me, it really makes the effort to let me know. I went all-in in the next hand (it was relatively weak anyway) and promptly lost it all. This was a shame, because one guy I was talking to had flirt potential (and by this all I mean is he had yet to drop a reference to a girlfriend). Perhaps I'll see him next week.

Then I came home and decided I'd do laundry, because, well, I needed to anyway. Well, upon my return from the laundry room I saw the most unmistakeable shadow: I kid you not, there is a rodent in my kitchen. I have no idea how it got up to my floor, but I saw it duck into a vent in stove. There are droppings all over my counter. I was grossed out to an extreme. I started furiously cleaning and getting rid of any trace of actual food product left on my counter. I can only presume that the thing isn't agile enough to make it into my "dry foodstuffs" cabinet, or even to the top of my cheap-ass table where I keep (for example) some boxes of cereal.

I was so grossed out I was on the verge of crying again. Then I resigned myself to my Joe's Apartment lifestyle and started watching tv.

Then I fired up the computer and played a few hands of online poker -- and came in second and third on two different tables. Not great, but still in the (play) money. So perhaps the tide is turning. I can only hope.