lather, rinse, repeat

That's kinda what life has felt like at the Casa de Falstaff lately. More to the point, it's work, rehearse, sleep, repeat. I get up, head to work, head to rehearsal, go to bed, get up every morning and do it again. With two shows going in rep, we're going to be rehearsing 6 or 7 days a week for most of the summer. Add to that a bust summer of work and it makes for crispity Falstaff. So take pity on me if I pass out at the pai gow table in a few weeks.

Take pity on me translates into "buy me another drink," in case you were wondering. I'm beginning to get close enough to look forward to the trip, and to seeing my degenerate friends again, even if walking outside in June in Las Vegas does feel like walking face-first into a hair dryer.

Rehearsals are going well, which means that we haven't gotten to the point where I've threatened actors with grievous bodily harm or being replaced with sock puppets (I've done it. It's a long story, but the sock puppets don't give me any bullshit about their motivation). We will likely reach that point by next Wednesday, since we should finish blocking by then. I'll toss up some photos next week, we've got a cast of some familiar faces and some new folks, and I think the show will be really good. If I don't kill everyone in the process.

Poker has gone pretty well, but my streak of 9 winning sessions in a row came to an end this week. There was a local tourney, which I missed due to rehearsal, but I stopped by for the cash game later. After quickly blowing through my first buy-in, I found myself all in on my second buy-in (which I had to borrow from BG since I brought hardly any cash to the game) on the last hand of the night with Q9o. I raised preflop, got two callers, and caught a 9 on the flop. I fired again, and Nate called (duh). Dan the Man also called, which concerned me, since he's usually pretty tight. I hit my Q on the turn, but the 8 on the board left a possible straight out there. I still stuck the rest of my meager stack in the middle, and found two callers. I asked "anybody got the straight?" as I tabled my two pair, and when the 6s came on the river, the answer was a resounding NO as I raked in the pot. I paid back BG, and cashed out down $13 thanks to the monster pot I picked up with two pair at the last possible moment. So I feel a little bad that my hot streak has ended, but I'm glad that I didn't lose more in ending a win streak. Now I just need to try to start a new one. Let's try tomorrow night, shall we?