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It starts innocently enough.You are experiencing the tedium of the afternoon, restlessly wishing the ticking second hand on the clock would just only tick faster, though you’re not entirely certain why you might wish for this to occur, as not one single thing will be different by dinnertime, and in fact, there is a good chance you will feel worse when dinnertime does come, because dinnertime is in the future and more of your life has been wasted and thrown away in the future.Nevertheless, you wait, and you begin to feel the anesthetizing languor take hold.In order to combat this sensation, you start a game of spider solitaire.Your father loves this game, and you love your father, so you play the game.It is more challenging than regular solitaire (a game for neophytes), and when you win, you know your father, sitting in Miami in his tropical print shirt, is psychically proud to have had a hand in raising such a brilliant child.
You defeat the game five, six times in a row.I am a genius, you think.And then you lose.It’s obvious you were not fully invested in that particular game.You were distracted, otherwise you would have won.It is possible to win every game of spider solitaire, and someone of your faculty would never be trounced by a silly card game.You play again, and lose again.What’s happening? you wonder, and your father’s psychic pride turns to disappointment.Never having been one to surrender at a low point, you attack the game with the determination of a winner, because that’s exactly what you are – there’s nothing you can’t do, nothing you can’t accomplish, and you prove that when you are once again triumphant over the game.
You have dinner.You’ve earned it.
On the way home, you choose to play the game over speaking to your friend, who has been kind enough to both chauffeur you and accompany you to In-n-Out Burger.You know this is rude, but what does your friend expect?It’s not as if you’ve gone to a five-star restaurant.This was not a formal affair.And in the event that it had been, this is still your friend and he must understand that you are who you are, and he is not merely friends with the good parts of you, but also the bad, and if you choose to ignore him in order to play a game of spider solitaire on your phone, he still must accept you, despite your many deficits in propriety.In Miami, your father would approve – it is more important to achieve intellectually than to fraternize mindlessly.You have made the right decision.You win the game three times during the drive home, and repeat the words “yeah,” and “God, me too,” and “totally,” and “that’s stupid,” to your friend as he speaks and you ignore him.
You continue playing this game.You play it when your alarm clock goes off.It helps me wake up, you tell yourself.You play the game when you are stopped at stoplights.You play the game any time you have even a single moment free.You win, usually, but sometimes you lose.These losses appear to be far more significant than any of your victories.Upon realizing you have run out of moves, you experience a wave of anguish, and the loss suddenly represents a pattern in your life, which had conveniently gone undetected until the loss.I am a loser, you think.This is symbolic for every other aspect of my life.Nothing ever works out for me.I should kill myself.This is ridiculous, of course, but you abandon yourself to this self-pity until you win another game, at which point you remind yourself that you are so extremely powerful and brilliant that you can turn around even the stubborn fact that is the misfortune in your life, making lemonade out of the most rotten, decaying of lemons.Shhh, you tell yourself.Shhh, you are in control.
It takes another couple of months of playing spider solitaire before you realize that you are absolutely not in control.You catch yourself playing spider solitaire in your head – there are cards flipping in your brain, you are organizing by suits. Eventually, you create a language out of the potential moves and strategies in spider solitaire, and every emotion, every thought you have, is now expressed internally through the language of spider solitaire. You are now forced to weigh the pros and cons of having created a complete language out of a card game like 아리아카지노, something your father would likely find fascinating and impressive if he actually knew you’d done it, which he doesn’t, because you haven’t told him, and being consumed every minute of every day by the flipping of cards and the organizing of suits, which has created a mess of vociferous noise inside your brain, each card hollering at you, keeping you from focusing, working, interacting, sleeping.
You discover that, using all you have within you, the mental spider solitaire can be contained.It is a matter of energy at this point; this challenge becomes more difficult in the weary hours of the night.Your dreams are still written in the language of cards, because you cannot actively fight against the compulsion while you rest your exhausted mind.Because you are spending yourself during the waking hours, engaging in the battle against your new language, your friendships suffer.You can no longer communicate with humans anyway, unless they offer nothing but pleasantries.In becoming a master of spider solitaire, achieving this higher level of intellectual functioning, you have become a fruitless interpersonal blob, rendered incompetent even in effortless conversation.
Spider solitaire has ruined your life.You blame your father.
Does this mean that when you said ‘that’s stupid’ to me on the phone the other night, you were ACTUALLY playing Spider Solitaire? Is that why you were up at 2.00am?
You are hilarious. And possibly the most unique girl I have ever encountered. You make my lips smile and my heart happy.
Oh and this…
“…he must understand that you are who you are, and he is not merely friends with the good parts of you, but also the bad, and if you choose to ignore him in order to play a game of spider solitaire on your phone, he still must accept you, despite your many deficits in propriety.”
Perfect! May your deficits in propriety continue to grow..
i am not playing spider solitaire when we talk on the phone because the game is on my phone. i assure you, you’ve got my full attention any time we communicate.
i’m glad you think i’m so unique. it’s very flattering. i don’t know how i can possibly be so unique from my couch, but i’m not gonna argue with your assessment of me. <3
I have one thing to say to you:
forkforkforkforkforkforkforkforkforkforkforkforkfork.
seafork.
Haha, brilliant!
My mum loves spider solitaire.
I still don’t understand how it works. I’m useless at card games.
And thus a pretty big disappointment to my parents.
good, dude. keep it that way if you want to maintain your sanity.
It is not possible to win every game of Spider Solitaire. Theoretically, one game in three thousand should be unwinnable.
If the ten cards showing obscure all of the cards that any of the showing cards could be played on, the game is unwinnable. This is clearest when it happens on the deal. Imagine that, from the deal, all four 3’s and 7’s are showing, with all the 4’s and 8’s buried underneath; you can’t win this game.
Games 1748 and 14934 are unwinnable, for instance.
Good to see an update.
i am powerful enough to win the unwinnable games. zionpower.
You think you’re a loser? I don’t even know what Spider Solitaire is.
Pardon me while I go shoot myself in the face.
PS. You’re awesome.
please don’t shoot yourself in the face. the world needs nice guys like you.
I know. Someone has to finish last, right?
Hahaha. I can’t even type that with a straight face.
Well, I was going to call you, but now I don’t know. Don’t want to interrupt your game.
Which app are you using? The iTunes store has like thirteen billion and six different ones.
i don’t know how to tell which app it is. i only have like five apps and the only two i use are the spider solitaire one and the sex offender one. it was free, if that helps. i would recommend not getting it and instead carrying on with your life.
I want to get and start playing just to prove that I can walk away any time I want.
I’m that way with Farkle. But only because I’ve already exhausted Spider Solitare. You just have to say no, Lenore. Give it up cold turkey.
i don’t know what farkle is, but i’m not going to try to find out. i don’t think the cold turkey method will work for me here – it’s not an addiction, it’s a compulsion. i think i just need to take sedatives.
I don’t know how to break this to you, but just to come out with it.
Dad hasn’t played spider solitaire in ages.
He moved on to Sudoku for a long time, but that got too easy.
Now he’s doing Kenken, I’m not sure if the second K is capitalized….
He’s doing hard KenKen.
I don’t know what it is, but there are numbers involved.
I painted a new painting.
You could paint.
It doesn’t make a person crazy;
it makes a person relaxed.
Satisfied.
Content.
It’s the Uncrazy thing to do.
How come you don’t want to be like your mother?
i’m always a few steps behind that man.
i don’t paint because i can’t paint. perhaps i’d want to be like you if i’d inherited some of your good qualities. unfortunately, you were stingy with those.
That’s so sweet.
You never said I had any good qualities before.
sure i have. you just don’t remember because you’re always drunk.
Oh, whatever. I want to know why you didn’t comment on your mom’s Fuckerware post.
Don’t think I didn’t notice that.
i suppose i had nothing to add.
Yeah, I wouldn’t have commented, either.
I imagined this comment thread somewhat more humorous than it turned out to be.
i’m quite gifted when it comes to killing the conversation.
That’s really why I don’t comment anymore – I’ve been killing threads since ’09.
I better respond to this or else Steph will accuse me of ignoring her again.
I actually checked back here just to see if nobody had responded so that I could say,
“See?”
now we have to figure out a way to kill the conversation again.
yeah.
right on, guys.
This is awesome. I’d say more, but my son is currently demanding a game of Slap Jack. I’m beginning to think this might work against me (or him) in the future.
slap jack is a gateway game.
That was really, really funny, Lenore.
I wonder if this is the solitaire game that I used to play in Serbia instead of writing. It came with my computer, and it took me a long time before I got good enough to win a game. I was obsessed, and I would probably still be playing it if that computer hadn’t died. Now I’m going to have to search to learn the name of that game, and if I become obsessed again, I’m going to blame you.
it probably was spider solitaire. if you get sucked in again, let me know. i’ll come over and drag you out of your house and make you eat food with me. food is the only thing that can distract us.
almost every computer comes with spider solitaire and freecell on it.
when we first got a computer my mum would always play spider solitaire in the afternoons after I got home from school, just before dinner. In the late evening my dad always played freecell.
now free games on computers are fancy and hi-tech affairs and offer little in the way of nostalgia.
macs don’t, as far as i can tell. i’ve had a mac for about seven years now, and if it has spider solitaire and i just can’t find it, i must be an idiot.
I’ve never owned a Mac.
I don’t think I’ve ever used one, and don’t recall ever even seeing one for realsies.
Years ago I wanted one of those cool Macs with semi-transparent coloured… casing? I don’t know what the word is, but they looked cool.
But I can only talk PCs. Almost every PC from 1995 onwards had spider solitaire and freecell.
Um, it’s Klondike. How could I have forgotten? I liked the name because it evoked the Alaskan gold rush. Now I’m fucking hooked again. Thanks. Thanks a fucking lot.
anytime, buddy. no reason we shouldn’t be in the same hell. we both already are, anyway.
I got that way with the traffic jam game at Sara & Tushar’s. I made it up puzzle 25 without a problem, but puzzle 25 took me days to solve, and Ben’s help. (He, of course, solved it in about 5 minutes.) I was just lucky that I don’t own that game myself, so I couldn’t get truly addicted.
i’ve never played it. obviously i’ll have to request it next time i visit them. ben is oddly gifted in all areas, as you know. don’t feel bad.
Hilarious, Lenore. Now I have this slightly disturbing picture of you eating cheesy popcorn and playing spider solitaire.
i hate to tell you, but the image you’ve got is almost always a reality for me. there is at least a 70% chance that i’m doing exactly that at any given moment. on another note, i miss you, stefan.
Why do you miss Stefan? Is there some reverse transference happening? This could be dangerous.
i miss stefan cause he’s cool and he talks funny. but i miss you, too, because i am obsessed with you and for all i know, you talk funny as well.
I know that this is supposed to be- largely- funny. And it is. Of course it is. YOU’RE funny. But. This is the line that stuck out for me: “I am a loser, you think. This is symbolic for every other aspect of my life. Nothing ever works out for me. I should kill myself.”
Because it’s so heartbreaking and perfect. Who HASN’T thought this? Maybe not about Spider Solitaire, but about something.
i think we all look for excuses to check out from time to time. fortunately, i think the survival instinct is usually stronger than the instinct to avoid pain or emotional discomfort. some of us are just more dramatic than others, so we are more inclined to use stupid shit as an excuse to check out. i’m not doing a great job of making my point right now, but you get it. don’t let it break your heart.
I’m proud of you, Enorelay, even while drunk.
man, you started early today.
You mean drinking?
yes, the drinking. usually you wait till at least 10 am.
But Lenore, I get up at 2 or 3 am now.
It’s already afternoon for me.
Lenore, in many ways this powerful piece rivals Dostoevsky’s _The Underground Man_.
It sweeps inside and outside the protagonist’s mental house so relentlessly that we live there as we read, inheriting the protagonist’s parents and friends.
I found this riveting:
“You catch yourself playing spider solitaire in your head – there are cards flipping in your brain, you are organizing by suits. Eventually you create a language out of the potential moves and strategies in spider solitaire, and every emotion, every thought you have, is now expressed internally through the language of spider solitaire. You are now forced to weigh the pros and cons of having created a complete language out of a card game . . . “
my goodness, that’s high praise. i’m going to put it in my resume. thank you, Judy. i don’t actually have a resume for writing.
i think i’m so flattered that i’m blushing in my own apartment by myself. on an unrelated note, i noticed that you’re not calling me pookie anymore. did i do something wrong?
Lenore, you’re the second TNBer I’ve caused to blush, apparently. Well deserved blushes for truth, as I see it.
I’m not calling you pookie bcuz I had thought you said you preferred to be called Lenore. Plus I love the name Lenore; it was the name I wish my parents had chosen for me.
that’s true, i do prefer Lenore. i’ve never been a nickname person, with the exception of “niz,” which is what my siblings call me. a few friends call me “Zi” but that’s new and i didn’t invite it.
how about ‘Lenny’?
not a chance. Lenny is reserved for Detective Lenny Brisco of Law & Order. the best Lenny of all time. unless you count the differently spelled Lennie Small of “Of Mice and Men” fame. he was pretty cool, the big oaf.
oh dear. Suddenly I’m seized with the urge to call you Pookie, Pookie!
I’m so mad at you my kidney is shaking.
Having recently escaped the clutches of Bejeweled, I was transitioning myself back to the real world with that methadone of game addiction breakers- Words With Friends. Now you throw this at me?
This cracked my shit up. I want you to write more. All the time. Starting this very instant.
i’m worried about your kidney, dude.
So true, Lenore, so true. Spider Solitaire is a cruel mistress. There are days when I have gone to bed, closed my eyes, and saw endless little piles of cards, sorting, shuffling, etc. etc.
I traded Spider Solitaire in for MahJohngg. Now I see little tiles with calligraphy on them all the time.
My sweet, darling husband usually interrupts these marathons by barking, “Turn that stupid game off, dammit!” This is usually after he’s lost a few games of computer chess, or after he lost all his chips playing computer Texas Hold’em with Horus, Lucifer, Jesus and Buddha. It’s a tough table, I guess
i don’t have a sweet, darling husband, but if i did, i’d probably ignore him and play spider solitaire. i’d just give my poker chips away if i had to play with the devil. you don’t fuck around there. because of hell.
I do manage to ignore him sometimes. He doesn’t appreciate the value of sitting and doing nothing, or nearly nothing. I appreciate it all too well. He makes me get up and jump, just to get up and jump! And then playing poker with the devil… he just likes living on the edge. He’s obviously disturbed. I just like the clickety clack of the virtual mahjongg tiles when I move them, and the fireworks that come on the screen when I win.
i don’t understand the people who don’t understand how awesome sitting and doing nothing is. my brother always says “i’m a man of leisure. what happened to all the people who like to relax?” i agree with him.
And I agree with you both. I’d raise my glass for a toast, but it’s just out of reach, and well… not worth getting up.
I have never played spider solitaire but have regular solitaire. I’ve liked it and now that I don’t play it, don’t really have much occasion to, I can’t say I like or dislike it. I go under your categorization of substandard, rather lowly (or at least middlebrow), players. I’m okay with this, but full expect you to laugh at me should you ever have a reason to (w/r/t this game).
I am, however, an amateur Sudoko player on my cell phone. I don’t have a smart phone but something of an inept phone, as it only dials, texts simply and has some of these games on it. I can’t say I’ve been addicted to any game really, but I know there’s potential if I ever let myself stray far enough away from the present moment as to need to fill in the bored crevices with these digital boredom-filling crevices’ cream.
My parents, however, are almost gambling addicts, so I suppose I very much have this gene and could easily get sucked into the psychological vortex that is playing the same game over and over and over and over again.
I’m something of a Luddite, at least in terms of not fully embracing this technology that is absorbing us into it. I don’t really fight against it but don’t welcome it either.
I like your use of second person, reminds of late-90s lit where it was heavily used to be something that, even though you say “You do this…” and “You do that…”, you really mean “I do this…” and “I do that…”, which sort of makes it the anti-I generation, or the U-generation.
Isn’t it ironic that You is I? Now wait, that’s part Allanisette Morrison and the mid-90s fervor. Oh how I miss that fervor…
I would say that you need something else to fill you time with, something like post-graduate work or exercise or white-popcorn obsession. Anything but spider solitaire.
i’d say you’re right, kip, but it seems that the more shit i have to do, the more i play spider solitaire. it’s a coping mechanism, see. when things become overwhelming, i escape with the stupid game that has destroyed my functioning. so the more post-grad/work/exercise/white popcorn you pile on, the more i play.
i’m not surprised at all that you back away from technology. that seems fitting.
I have a shit-ton of work to do, and I am apparently coping with it by commenting on comments about playing computer games instead of doing shit on a web post about wasting time on computer games.
Meta.
spider solitaire is amazing…i was addicted at one point too…in recovery now…..
SSA
I loved this even though I would rather be thrown down some stairs than play spider solitaire, or really any game, electronic or non. I don’t play games. I have a serious “fun” disorder, apparently. I have, on a few occasions, been known to play poker when very drunk or high. Otherwise, I do not like board games, card games, electronic/video games, game shows, trivia, or anything else that might fall under this heading. I also do not like sports. Or crossword puzzles. Or sudoku, if that’s how it’s spelled. Or any game connected to Facebook, like Mafiaville or Farm Wars (yes, I know I got them juxtaposed, but that is about all I know about them.) You get the picture.
This is not because I am really intellectual and am busy engaging with serious pursuits. Because, truth be told, I also rarely read the newspaper, listen to NPR, or follow political blogs like all good smarty pants are supposed to do.
It’s just because I find almost everything in life that other people consider fabulously diverting to be either: a) mind-numbingly dull or b) too technically complicated.
I know this does not speak well of me, but there it is.
I also don’t watch reality TV, or really any TV except The Daily Show on Tivo. And I don’t like to exercise, though I force myself to do yoga now and then, because I’m manic and need to zen out.
I can’t keep a plant alive, mainly because I cannot be bothered to try.
I own some cats, but I’m pretty profoundly disinterested in them.
I know fuck-all-little about music. So little that I was too intimidated to comment on Joe Daly’s latest piece.
While I’m at it, I don’t know how to change a tire. Or pay a bill online. Or assemble anything that comes with directions.
I am not sure how I get by in the world, Lenore. What’s wrong with me? Do you think if I started playing solitaire it would help me develop other skills? Or would it just help me gain an invitation to Miami from your dad?
Gina,
You are hereby invited to visit us in Miami Beach any damn time you like.
(And bring your family, too.)
To listen to Enorlay, up there, you’d think Daaa-aaad is the only one with the power.
Well, I’m here to tell you that I, me, myself, have the power too.
So, come on down!
Irene, if the 5 of us can ever stop eating gruel and wearing socks with holes in them so as to afford our forthcoming trip to Kenya, and are ever able to pay for another plane ticket after December, we are so there!!!
The trip to Kenya with your family is worth
walking there
on bare feet,
rafting the ocean
with a paddle
and walking and paddling back home.
Take double the batteries
and double the sim cards
because you will take
four million
fabulous pictures
at least.
Trust me.
Gina! I don’t play games either. Like, I don’t even know how to play poker. I’ve never played Risk. I couldn’t care less.
I do like professional football, though. And I liked the World Cup. I can watch a sporting event with some interest if it’s a good game and “much” is at stake. It’s not so much the game that interests me as it is the real human drama of it, and how it all happens in real time. Last second shots. Game-winning field goals. Bad passes that cost a team the title.
And on a subconscious level, it’s nice to watch great athletes play games because when they’re doing it well, they’re not thinking. This is probably the central appeal of sports spectatorship, in my opinion, and it rarely gets talked about. It’s actually a zen experience. Or maybe it’s that you’re witnessing a zen experience when you watch, say, Michael Jordan play basketball.
A great essay about sports and athletes and what makes great athletes tick and what lies at the heart of the appeal of sports, etc. (in the context of tennis) is DFW’s “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart” in Consider the Lobster.
I should add that watching Lenore play spider solitaire is a total zen experience. People have been known to weep.
I don’t know how to play poker. It always makes me feel like less of a man somehow. Because, you know, being a man is mostly about chopping wood and playing poker with other guys who chop wood and own rifles.
Risk is great though. I only ever play it once a year.
Because that’s how long the game lasts.
Well, Brad, let’s just put it this way: I would rather get drunk/high and watch Lenore play solitaire than have to play poker myself, because . . . uh . . . then I wouldn’t actually have to be the one playing the game. But I think I’ll have to keep doing the yoga myself to get my zen on, unless watching Lenore play solitaire will prevent me from gaining 50 pounds in my 40s the way every other woman in my extended family seems to. Which is not likely, especially if I’m drunk and stoned, and I’m gonna get the munchies, and we all know she’s got junk food, or at least a shitload of watermelon, in her house, so I would be doomed.
i don’t know how to play poker, either! and i don’t care to learn. gambling frightens me. i once watched a friend put a $20 bill into a slot machine and i almost cried.
i also get scared when people get super passionate about sports. when they jump up and scream at the television and get angry or even when they’re elated that something went right for their team, my reaction is to get awkward and uncomfortable and scrunch into a ball on the floor. but that’s my reaction to basically everything these days. i am becoming more and more of a pussy by the minute.
yes on DFW’s essay about Tracey Austin.
yes yes and the zen experience of watching a player in the zone.
and yes yes yes on watching Lenore play spider solitaire and weeping.
i’m tearing up just reading about it.
most people get sad when they look at me. it’s okay.
gina, you do more with your time than any human i’ve ever come across. it’s insanity. i can’t imagine that you’d have a second to start playing a stupid game. i, on the other hand, have no life whatsoever. and even with my no life, i don’t keep plants alive, or do yoga or exercise, or change tires, or pay bills online, or assemble stuff. i have to say, you’ve turned to the wrong person for life skills lessons. i am borderline helpless. the only thing i do well is eat, and i even have issues with how i do that.
and, please come to miami any time you like. my parents will get you drunk. i don’t really drink, though. because i am seriously a boring person.
Maybe we need a TNB support group for people who don’t know how to do anything besides read and write (we can let people who know how to eat in, provided they are somewhat dysfunctional about it.)
i am both professionally and personally qualified to run that program.
At last a woman who recognized her limits, accepted them and gave up all except for the piteous aspiration of an invitation to be invited to observe an ancient ignore her while he fondles delight in his own intelligence.
[…] civilization that tries to find meaning and purpose from concepts ranging from religion to spider solitaire— more in the sense of which social mechanism I am a cog in. Am I a big cog? Is my cog used often? […]
i like what goes on in your head. you aren’t boring, dummy.
the feeling is mutual, obviously.
I’m currently playing online frogger in another window, so none of this comment may come out right. Game-playing compulsions for me have a way of seeming somehow meaningful and carrying actual importance. It’s like because you’re organizing suits in your head, or envisioning frog hops when crossing the street, or imagining pictures on the wall fitting together because you’ve just spent your morning playing Tetris, that a game is therefore helping you in life.
Anyway, you have a delightful way of writing. I should probably read more, in general.
I’m also really happy to see all these people above admitting they don’t know how to play poker, because neither do I and I previously assumed it was something taught in preschool that I missed out on.
i am so glad i can’t figure out how to get tetris. that would be the end of me.
poker is one of those things, i guess. people have poker groups and they get together weekly to yell at each other and feel victimized when they lose their money gambling. i don’t get it. but if i ever get married, i hope my husband has a poker group so he leaves me alone once a week. it doesn’t have to be poker, i guess. he could just stand outside for five hours and that would be fine, too.
anyway, thanks for the compliment. i am so rarely considered delightful because of my bad personality.
Dad’s five hours is almost up.
He’s glad, cause it’s raining cats and dogs right now.
“it doesn’t have to be poker, i guess. he could just stand outside for five hours and that would be fine, too. ”
hahahah!
I hate you so much Lenore, because as soon as I read this (the day it was posted) I thought, “jeez Dana, you used to play Spider Solitaire – why don’t you ever play that anymore?”, and immediately opened a game and got sucked in. Unfortunately, on this game you choose difficulty via one suit, two suits, four suits and of course I go for 4 suits, because come on – I gotta! And as luck would have it, it was a bitchy, slutty, asshole of a game and was super hard. And because I’m competitive, I never just quit a game, I keep “retrying” or “restarting” until I beat the little bastard into submission.
When I finally finished that game, I had to play another post haste, to ensure that my mojo had returned. The next game took so little time to complete, I wondered if I’d had some minor brain injury prior to the first game. And the cycle begins…
Gina – YOU ARE MY FATHER! HA! We have been able to drag him into maybe one game of Scrabble and after he taught me how to play chess, he never played again to my knowledge.
But honestly, your life would be so much simpler if you paid your bills online. Come here, take my hand, I’ll guide you.
Spider Solitaire saved my life! I was stuck in Cleveland for 12 hrs on Sunday (nothing is open in Cleveland on a Sunday), then on a train for 13 hrs, then in a corn field for 3 hrs! If if wasn’t for Spider Solitaire I might well have gone mad.
i’ve been stuck in a corn field before. i grew up in central illinois. glad you made it out alive, wills.
David, Cleveland is nowhere near Scotland or England. I thought you were coming to the UK. You’re one tough individual to locate. S Ko’s must be after you. Or maybe N Ko’s newly-named Uniarch.
In any event, I hope you’re doing fine now!
In all seriousness it’s best if the majority of people don’t know where I am at any given moment. But just between you and me and Lenore and the rest of TNB I’m actually in Scotland this now. Cleveland was just an unanticipated, unenjoyable stop on my journey from one hell to purgatory.
OK, makes sense, David. It’s of paramount importance that we protect you.
If I knew how to effectively talk in code, I would.
In any event, and no matter where you are, I look forward to your posts and comments!
Be well, keep in touch.
I’ve been weighing the risks of making another post for some time… In fact I’ve spent the last month almost posting something here, but I’m not sure. If I were smart I’d have used a pseudonym when I joined TNB.
Drop me a line, David. I may have some suggestions. 😉
“If I were smart I’d have used a pseudonym when I joined TNB.”
David, it’s not too late to start using a pseudonym here. Changing your topics and perhaps style a bit would also make sense. Egad. Sounds like witness protection protocol!
I wish I was just paranoid… Maybe I need to go back and pick out one of my old Korean names. Mickey Lee, Wang King Man, Slliw Divad… They’re all good.
You have really good batteries, David!
Amazingly, Amtrak trains have power outlets.
I’d never even heard of Spider Solitaire before. After reading this, I realized that it’s on my laptop. Great. Now I’ll never get anything done again. My boys are already complaining, “But I don’t want to make myself dinner again!” What kid wouldn’t kill to eat microwave popcorn every day? Seriously?
Can I come over for dinner? We can eat microwave popcorn and not talk to each other while we each play spider solitaire on our computers. We won’t invite Dustin because he will make us jump up and down.
If you invite Dustin, he could watch the kids while we play our individual solitary games in each other’s company.
they’ll be eating better than i usually do. it’s totally acceptable.
Being a neophyte, I’m happy to report I have googled ‘Spider Solitaire’ to find out what it is, and I have resisted the urge to download it. This now gives me more time to waste on the regular game of Solitaire.
you’d probably get a virus if you downloaded it, anyway. stick with the regular solitaire.
In Need of some Grace?
Dear Spiderette on table
Can’t Remove Yourself
i don’t think i’m smart enough to understand. however, i’m pleased that you are happy.
Spider Solitaire is
so
Albert Camus.
try Sardine
Hide & Seek.
by yourself.
“I am a loser, you think. This is symbolic for every other aspect of my life. Nothing ever works out for me. I should kill myself.”
Are you kidding? My life is like David Bowie riding a horse made of thunder. Probably because I play Solitaire with spiders. I have almost the full set now.
Ha! And, oh, how I relate. I’m an FB Scrabble obsessive but am now wondering about this Spider Solitaire and how I might take to it. Send me a link! 😉
very late to the game on this but i was busy playing mah-jongg solitaire for the entire month of august.
no but seriously, it’s amazing how games like that can suck away hours, nay, DAYS. i was playing mah-jongg solitaire so much that i saw the tiles behind my eyelids at night and my vertigo came back because my head was tilted down in the same position for so long.
my dad introduced me to it so i totally blame him too.