Tao of Pauly

Burning Down the House

I almost burned down my mother's apartment yesterday. It's really a silly story, and it's not the first time that's happened. That sketchy incident was nearly twenty years earlier when I was smack in the middle of my "playing with fire" phase. I used to hang out with my friend Stuart afterschool and we'd torch his GI Joe collection using a homemade flame thrower... a Bic lighter and his Mom's hairspray. It was an interesting few months for sure and we ended up destroying the majority of his toy collection. We almost burned down his Mom's apartment setting a jeep filled with various action figures ablaze. Maybe we should not have been shooting the flame thrower in his living room. That was a bad idea. And to this day, I never saw a carpet ignite faster!

I definitely grew out of my pyro-antics in the mid-1980s, so I was shocked yesterday when I realized that I had a closer call than I was willing to admit. I accidentally set a garbage can on fire. It was an honest mistake and I was lucky that I caught the smoldering fire before either of us left. I just gave my mother more ammunition to use against me. I'm sure she's already told a dozen neighbors that her son tried to kill her but my arson attempt was foiled at the last moment.

Of course the holiday season did not go off without any altercations. Pick a topic and we can argue about it. Usually it's over semantics but mostly my mother is a psychotic alcoholic who can't stand to lose an argument. With that being said, I showed up on Christmas with some cool gifts. I even bought flowers for my grandmother. With poker boosting my income this year, I definitely shared my wealth with the people closest to me. I bought my Mom a home stereo system and hooked my brother up with an iPod. And what did I get Briana? A baby Jesus butt... plug of course.

Although I would never call myself a professional poker player, I must admit that I played a lot more than I told my friends. While I know a lot of people who had much better years than I did gambling, I made a small profit playing online in 2004. How much did I win? Enough to cover some cool Christmas presents, airfare for two trips from NYC to Vegas and one roundtrip from LGA to Santa Fe, Phish concert tickets, and even Yankees playoff tickets. I should have been playing online poker years ago. And I'd be doing a lot better if I didn't lose most of my bankroll in Vegas last April.

Anyway, the sun is almost coming up and I'm still playing in a tournament on Party Poker lingering around with the other East Coast vampires and degenerate gamblers. I got smoked at the tables earlier in the night. But at least I got to play with the Poker Penguin again. Also, I finally finished the December issue of Truckin' after the Jets game (Curtis Martin rules) and even found time to write a few pages of a new short story that was inspired by a nightmare I had when I was sick last week.

I have a lot of my plate this week. I have a ton of shit to write including the third and final draft of Gumbo. Just before I got sick, I was hired for a freelance writing gig. I'll tell you more about that later on. I also need to buy a garbage can...